On February 29, at the Atrium Gallery (3rd floor) of the National Library of Belarus opened an exhibition "In Search of a Living Soul" dedicated to the 215th anniversary of the classic of Russian literature, novelist, playwright, publicist Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol.
The exhibition presents works by contemporary Belarusian artists, members of the Belarusian Union of Artists, as well as students, undergraduates and teachers of the Belarusian State Academy of Arts, students and teachers of the I. V. Akhremchik Gymnasium College, students of the Nesvizh Children's Art School. The exhibition includes pictorial fantasies, graphic reflections, digital experiments dedicated to the work and personality of the writer.
Cozy landscapes, humorous portraits, vivid abstractions, font compositions, characteristic image features, vivid character features and plot interpretations by more than 30 authors are combined in the exhibition space into a modern portrait of Nikolai Gogol. In the works of Yuri Krupenkov, Vitaly Chernobrisov, as well as young authors Daria Penyaz, Kirill Sharlando and others, the colourful image of Gogol is recreated, such vivid features as his nose, hairstyle, and posture are conveyed. Vsevolod Sventokhovsky, Varvara Khromeeva, Liu Heijun experiment with the font appearance of Gogol's texts and book covers, including using Chinese characters, such works as "The Missing Letter", "Terrible Revenge", "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka" and others. The Chinese nominal author's seal of Nikolai Vasilyevich was depicted by Wang Zelin, a graduate student of the Belarusian State Academy of Arts.
The exhibition features portraits of characters from Gogol's stories, a composition–portrait of a Nose made by Mikhail Shikov. The vicissitudes of an unusual character are revealed in the series "The Story of the Nose" by Viktor Savchenko. The graphic series "Hoffman's Nose as a guest at Gogol's birthday party" by Igor Kashkurevich is entertaining. Cherevichki, a hat, a panel, the turmoil of the Sorochinsky fair, Solokha flying over Dikanka, episodes from the notes of a madman, a gallery of expressive portraits, mystical creatures, the picturesqueness of nights and evenings filled with events of Gogol's prose – all this is conveyed by the works of Margarita Golubeva, Natalia Navrotskaya, Andrei Revyakov, Lyudmila Zygmontovich, Anastasia Balash and other authors. Zhou Haitao tells about the analogue of "Viy" in Chinese folklore in the picturesque "Hundred-Eyed Ghost". The graphic fantasies of Ekaterina Kovzus and Anastasia Shcherbakova are full of folklore magic. Chen Bijun's work "Happy Birthday" is comical and experimental.
The exhibition is complemented by publications from the collections of the National Library of Belarus. Many richly illustrated lifetime and later editions of Gogol's most famous works are presented to visitors – the collection "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", the poem "Dead Souls", the play "The Inspector". There are also translations into Belarusian made by Kondrat Krapiva, Mikhail Mashara, Maxim Luzhanin, and publications about the personality and work of N. V. Gogol.
The opening ceremony was attended by Viktar Pshybytka, Deputy Director General of the National Library of Belarus, Anna Shimelevich, Dean of the Faculty of Design and Decorative and Applied Arts of the Belarusian State Academy of Arts, Associate Professor of Russian Literature at the Faculty of Philology of the Belarusian State University, Candidate of Philology Tatyana Sidorova, Vsevolad Sventokhovsky, lecturer at the Department of Theory and History of Design of the Belarusian State Academy of Arts.
In search of a living soul, the lines have been heard for two centuries and still touch readers, because the gallery of faces, the vicissitudes of events, the difficulties of modern life have stepped forward, but they are still reflected in the eternally living soul – in the prose of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol.
The exhibition will be on display till June 9, 2024.
The completion date can be changed.
Admission is by the library card or by the social and cultural center ticket.
The working hours of the exhibition correspond to the working hours of the library.
For more info: (+375 17) 368 37 37.
The material was provided by the Public Relations Department.
