We continue the programme of chamber exhibitions focusing on one work as part of Theatre in Context, a joint project of The Naked Room and Malyi Teatr. The second show in the exhibition hall on Honchara Street will be Nikita Kravtsov’s diptych Prayer for the Chalice.
The original work has three components. In the central work, which is not on display, the artist depicts Jesus in an unexpected way, revealing his human nature as opposed to his divine one. For the exhibition at the Malyi Teatr, the curators deliberately chose only two of the three paintings, excluding the central one. In this way, we want to draw attention to and give a stage to the seemingly secondary characters—the two legionaries who stood to the right and left of Jesus in the original triptych. In reality, painting has no secondary characters—just like in theatre, it all depends on where we direct our attention.
A classical academy of arts graduate, Kravtsov was concerned not so much with the religious component of the chosen subject as with the search for a different compositional move and interpretation of the characters in the well-known story. At the exhibition at the Malyi Teatr, we went further in search of an alternative. Showing only the side parts of the triptych, which are expressive and painterly perfect in themselves, reminds us of an important function of art—namely, the ability to highlight the unnoticeable and give importance to the peripheral, which is often lost in the whirlwind of everyday life.
The work will be on view from 4 September to 4 October at the theatre at 33 Honchara Street: Thursday-Sunday from 13:00 to 17:30. The exhibition is also open to the audience of the Malyi Teatr before the performance and during the intermission.
Exhibition opening: 04.09 at 19:00 at 33 Honchara Street.