Steve McCurry "Unguarded Moment"

On 29 September 2015, an exhibition opened in the General Staff of works by one of today’s most distinguished photographers – Steve McCurry “Unguarded Moment”. The exhibition features over 80 works by the artist, including the famous portrait of the “Afghan Girl”, a piercing image that has since been rated the most recognizable picture in the over-100-year history of the magazine National Geographic. The poetry of McCurry’s photographs is founded on insights into a person’s psychological states. The main attention in his works is devoted to people’s faces. He shows brutality, violence and humanitarian crises through the images of those who, against their will, have become victims of tragic events. We see human beings suffering, wretched, devastated; their profound looks captivate us. Attention to the state of the individual enables Steve McCurry to extract his personages from everyday life, turning their faces into symbols. The reporting approach unexpectedly proves no more than a means to capturing the very essence of things. The same can be said of the photographs of cities and localities. Those almost always contain people that seem to have got into the shot by chance. They give it a human dimension, pointing to the human being’s exact place in the cosmos.

Steve McCurry, Afghan Girl

The Museum of Political History of Russia presents the "Revolution in the Artist's Eyes" exhibition under the auspices of the Cultural forum. 110 years ago, in 1905, Russia for the first time faced such political phenomenon as revolution. The exhibition represents pictorial and graphic works (pictures, drawings, cards, the illustrated satirical magazines of those years) as the historical source which imprinted events and participants of revolution.

17 October 1905. Ilya Repin

“Abode of Charity.” Tibetan Buddhist Art

On 9 October 2015, on the top floor of the Winter Palace, the exhibition “Abode of Charity” Tibetan Buddhist Art opened.

Among the items, the majority of which are being exhibited for the first time, are Buddhist sculpture, works of painting (thangkas), including mandalas, images used in astrological rituals, funerary objects, ghau reliquaries and tsa tsa. Particularly noteworthy is the Hermitage’s only Bon statuette – a unique figurine of a deity in the Bon religion, which was the main belief system before the foundation of the Tibetan state in the early 7th century and maintained its dominant position in Tibet right up to the 13th century. Far fewer Bon works have survived than traditional sculptures and paintings.

Murals of the “Blue Hall’ from Panjakent

The exhibition opens on 12 October 2015 in the Winter Palace and occupies a place of honour at the permanent exhibition “Art and Culture of Central Asia. Ancient Times and Early Middle Ages”. Room 49 houses wall paintings from the so-called “Blue Hall” which owes its name to their intense blue colour. It used to be a large reception room in one of Panjakent’s houses decorated with four tiers of murals. The lower tier illustrates folklore subjects, while the second tier refers to the epic of Rustam, the most honoured hero of the Iranians, the account of whose feats was later included in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh (11th century). Unfortunately the third and fourth tiers have only few scenes.

In the Land of the Gryphon. The Hermitage Antique Archaeology in the Crimea

The exhibition opens on 24 October in the Entrance Hall, the New Hermitage. The exhibition features finds discovered by the State Hermitage archaeological expeditions and held in the collection of the East Crimean Historical and Cultural Museum-Preserve. The oldest Nymphaion Expedition has been carrying out excavations on the ancient city of Nymphaion since 1939. Its discoveries include large reliefs, an architrave with a Greek inscription and a Scythian bronze harness set. The Integrated Antique Expedition which is exploring the sea-flooded city of Acra is represented by ceramic vessels and fragments of terracotta figures. The Myrmekion Expedition has yielded the largest hoard of coins from Cyzicus, unearthed in 2003, as well as early coins from Pantikapaion, fragments of pottery and bone reliefs.

All the events take place under the auspices of the IV St. Petersburg cultural forum. The full list of the festival program see on culturalforum.ru.