The Hermitage shocked visitors with an exhibition of dead animals on hooks. Exhibition “Jan Fabre: Knight of Despair – Warrior of Beauty”

He is an artist, a sculptor, a screenwriter, and even a theater director. Fabre was born in Belgium in 1958 and is now considered one of the important contemporary artists. His work in the field visual arts he makes from drawings, films and installations. It is for such a hodgepodge that he is appreciated.

Why does he exhibit stuffed animals in the Hermitage?

The dogs and cats in Fabre's installations are stray animals that died on the roads. According to the artist, he thus gives them new life in art and conquers death. Fabre believes that today people’s attitude towards animals is consumerist: cats and dogs are often left at their dachas or kicked out of the house. And Fabre wants to show that you cannot get rid of an animal if it is sick or old. And also an artist believes that if he demonstratesstuffed parrots in the mouths of dog skeletons and hangingstuffed cats by the scruff of the neck, the public lingers longer in the halls.

- Why doesn't he use artificial materials instead of stuffed animals?

According to Fabre, the sensual component is very important to him. To all claims heremembers that Flemish artists Blood and crushed human bones were used to make paints.

- And the Hermitage allowed him to show THIS?

- Yeah. And by the way, p projects of similar scale have not yet been awarded to any in the Hermitage modern author. The museum insists that Fabre's exhibition should be perceived as a special form of dialogue with the legacy of Rubens and Van Dyck. The stuffed animals are right next to their canvases and remind that the artist did not harm anyone.

- The public was outraged! Will the exhibition be closed?

Yes, the Hermitage began to receive numerous complaints, including from animal rights activists. Visitors to the museum were not too lazy to leave in the guest book: “In the background of the paintings, stuffed animals are hanging on hooks. On the windows there are stuffed dead cats scratching the glass with a corresponding sound. A dog is suspended by its skin on hooks. People went to admire the paintings, but came across horror... We didn’t sleep all night... The children were shocked by what they saw... In Moscow, a pedophile exhibition was closed, and in the cultural center Northern capital sadists hang the corpses of killed animals on hooks."

On the Internet, indignant people write their opinions about the shocking exhibition under the hashtag #shame on the Hermitage. But not everyone can believably play animal rights activists:

In turn, the Hermitage management stated that it does not intend to close the exhibition and it will last until April 2017.

- Is it just us who are so lucky, or have other museums around the world also exhibited his works?

Eight years ago Fabre had an exhibition at the Louvre. In the hall of ceremonial portraits, he laid out tombstones, among which crawled a giant worm with a human head. In another room, his exhibits were an iron bed and a coffin, inlaid with gold beetles. By the way, there were also stuffed animals there.

- What other tricks is he famous for?

Well, for example, in 1978, he painted a series of paintings with his own blood, “My Body, My Blood, My Landscape,” and made a performance out of the creation of the paintings. The following year, Fabre again attracted attention with the performance “Money”. He collected paper banknotes from visitors to the exhibition, after which he began to crumple them, cut them, walk on them with his feet and everything in the same spirit. At the end of the performance, he burned the bills and wrote the word Money using the ashes.

On October 21, the exhibition “Jan Fabre: Knight of Despair - Warrior of Beauty” opened in the Hermitage, prepared by the Department contemporary art State Hermitage within the framework of the Hermitage 20/21 project. One of greatest masters modern European art Belgian artist Jan Fabre presented two hundred and thirty works at the Hermitage: graphics, sculpture, installations, films. The exhibition caused a mixed reaction among museum visitors, which indicates the unconditional interest of the St. Petersburg audience in creative expressions author. The Hermitage receives letters from museum visitors criticizing Fabre's works and asking to remove some of the artist's works from the exhibition. We have prepared answers to the most frequently asked questions.

– Why is Fabre exhibited not only in the General Staff Building, which viewers are already accustomed to associating with contemporary art, but also in the Main Museum Complex?

Indeed, the works of Fabre. The idea to present Fabre in the Hermitage - in dialogue with the Flemish masters of the 17th century - arose seven years ago, when the director of the museum, Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, and Dmitry Ozerkov, head of the Department of Contemporary Art, visited the Jan Fabre exhibition in the Louvre, where the artist’s installation was adjacent to masterpieces Rubens. According to the curator of the project D. Ozerkov, “this is not an invasion. Fabre, contemporary artist, comes to our museum not to compete with him, but to bend the knee before the old masters, before beauty. This exhibition is not about Fabre, it is about the energies of the Hermitage in its four contexts: the painting of the old masters, the history of buildings, the cradle of the revolution and the place where the tsars lived” (The Art Newspaper Russia).

Photo by Alexander Lavrentyev

The Belgian’s shimmering green compositions, created in the genre of vanitas vanitatum (vanity of vanities) on the motif of memento mori (remember death), are embedded in the walls of the New Hermitage (Hall of the Flemish and Dutch painting). Jan Fabre is a subtle colorist. In the Twelve Column Hall he works in the colors of gray marble and decorative gilding. His precious emerald panels remind the viewer of the Hermitage malachite bowls and tabletops, and of the decor of the Malachite Living Room of the Winter Palace.

Photo by Kirill Ikonnikov

His drawings with a "Bic" pen are close to the lapis lazuli of the Great Skylight vases of the New Hermitage.

Fabre’s laconic and austere reliefs with “queens” are adjacent to ceremonial portraits English nobility and court ladies by Anthony van Dyck.

Fabre’s juxtaposition with Snyders’s “Shops” is fortunate; the modern artist does not quote the Flemish master, but only carefully adds a skull motif – a meaning that is obvious to an art historian: the theme of vanity and the vanity of existence.

Photo by Valery Zubarov

Fabre himself, at a meeting with St. Petersburg residents in the Atrium of the General Staff Building, said that his works in the art halls of Flanders are designed to make viewers “stop, take time for art.” “Visitors walk past Rubens like they walk past the windows of a large store; they don’t look at the details,” says the artist.

– I appeal to all services of the State Hermitage! As an animal rights activist and volunteer, I consider it unacceptable for display to all age categories and destructive for the child’s psyche of a stuffed dog on hooks! The Jan Fabre exhibition is a lack of culture. This is especially immoral in light of the huge response to the cases of knackering in Khabarovsk. Please remove stuffed animals from the exhibition!

Jan Fabre has repeatedly told reporters that the dogs and cats that appear in his installations are stray animals that have died on the roads. Fabre tries to give them new life in art and thus defeat death. “Many of my works are dedicated to life after death. Death is part of life, I respect death,” says the famous Belgian. Dead dog in Fabre’s installation it is a metaphor, a kind of self-portrait of the artist. Fabre states: “The artist is a stray dog.”

Fabre calls for careful attitude to animals that have accompanied humanity for many centuries, entering history and mythology. Today, people's attitude towards animals is consumerist. Cats are left at dachas. Old dogs are kicked out of the house. By emphasizing cats and dogs in old art, Fabre shows that in all their qualities they are similar to people, and therefore their love and joy, their illness and death, are vilely forced out of our consciousness.

By presenting stuffed pets, Fabre, together with animal rights activists around the world, opposes consumer attitude to them.

Often we love not animals, but our love for them. Calling them our little brothers, we often do not realize how cruelly we treat them. We are ready to get rid of them at the first opportunity, should the animal get sick or grow old. Jan Fabre is against this. He transforms the bodies of animals hit by cars that he finds along highways from the waste of consumer society - into a reproach of human cruelty.

– Why couldn’t Fabre use artificial materials instead of stuffed animals? Modern technologies make them completely indistinguishable from the real thing.

“Why marble and not plastic?” asks Fabre, answering this question at a meeting at the General Staff. “Marble is a tradition, Michelangelo, it is a tactilely different material. The material is the content.” This thesis of Fabre can be compared with the thought of Russian formalists about the unity of form and content.

For Jan Fabre, the “erotic relationship with the material,” the sensual component, is very important. He recalls that Flemish artists were alchemists; they used blood and crushed human bones to make paints. The artist views the body as “an amazing laboratory and battlefield.” For him, the body is “something beautiful and very powerful, but at the same time vulnerable.” When creating his monks for the installation “Umbraculum”, Fabre uses bones – the hollow, “spiritual bodies” of his characters have an “external skeleton”, they cannot be injured, they are protected.

Photo by Valery Zubarov

– Stuffed animals have no place in the Hermitage, they should be in the Zoological Museum.

In the Knights' Hall of the New Hermitage, horses from the Tsarskoye Selo Arsenal of Nicholas I are presented (these are horse skins stretched over a wooden base). IN Winter Palace Peter I (Peter the Great Office) a stuffed dog is exhibited; this is an Italian greyhound, one of the emperor’s favorites. Their presence in the Hermitage does not seem strange or provocative to visitors, and does not cause fear or indignation.

Photo by Valery Zubarov

The artist uses certain means based on the principle of internal necessity and his own ultimate goal. To perceive contemporary art, a cursory glance is not enough; it requires (from each of us) inner work and spiritual effort. This effort is associated with overcoming stereotypes, prejudices, fear, ideological and psychological clichés, and religious attitudes. It requires courage and patience, forcing us to expand the boundaries of our perception. Contemporary art is something for which one cannot be completely prepared. Fabre himself says that his work is “related to the search for reconciliation and love. Love is the search for intense dialogue and civility.”

Photo by Valery Zubarov

Text: Tsibulya Alexandra, Dmitry Ozerkov

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“Our goal has been achieved, people are talking about protecting animals”: ​​Dmitry Ozerkov - about the scandal surrounding stuffed animals at an exhibition in the Hermitage (Paper)

There is a queue at the Hermitage, people go to look at Jan Fabre.

Only the lazy did not go to the Hermitage these days, which prepared so many exhibitions for the cultural forum in December 2016 that it would be enough for a year. But most go to the scandalous exhibition Belgian artist Jan Fabre "Knight of despair - warrior of beauty."

I was “hooked” by several of the artist’s works when I went to see Vermeer of Delft’s “Geographer”. Since the camera was in hand, and Jan Fabre’s work is allowed to be photographed, unlike other temporary exhibitions, photographs appeared, which I share.
Enough has been said on the Internet, in periodicals, and even on the radio about this sensational and annoying action of the Hermitage. The Hermitage has prepared a series of lectures educating the population about the value of modern art in the person of Jan Fabre.

A lot of flattering things have been written about the artist himself in the media: he is the most famous, famous, and has exhibitions in the largest museums in the world. His grandfather was a famous entomologist; this is probably where the artist’s love for natural materials of natural origin comes from: stuffed animals, their fur and feathers, insect wings, etc. He uses all this as material for his creativity.

And we look at the photographs. There are not many of them, since the artist’s works are in different halls, and I only caught my eye on a few.

In rooms with, one would like to say, “traditional” art, you notice the works of Jan Fabre immediately; they are deliberately displayed so that they catch the eye, not accompanying the old masters, but “shouting out” them with shrill color.

These blue-green iridescent paintings are made from the wings of gold beetles. A lot of them.

They're standing right there sculptural groups, perhaps that’s what it should be called. If such a work were presented in a zoological museum, no one would think of it as art.

Label for the work: "Loyalty and repetition of death." Belgium, 2016. Plastic skeleton of a dog, shells of a goldfish, stuffed parrot, metal wire, metal frame.

Explanatory text for the exhibit:
"The dog - a symbol of fidelity, sincerity and obedience - is present in many paintings permanent exhibition hall Fabre's works presented here address this image. Eight green mosaics of dogs surrounded by vanitas (skulls, bones, clocks) are placed among four paintings selected by Fabre from the museum's collection: Adam and Eve by Hendrik Goltzius, The Bean King and Cleopatra's Feast by Jacob Jordaens, and Mullet and Procris" by Theodore Rombouts.

According to Fabre, their internal psychological balance is disturbed, leading to transgression, which the artist understands as a kind of act of excess, entailing the experience of sin, betrayal and deception. The related theme of vanitas reflects here not only the imperfection of the world and its transience, but also the idea of ​​punishment associated with the feeling of guilt. Fabre's two sculptures, created especially for the exhibition, represent the decorated elytra of golden beetles and the skeletons of dogs with parrots in their mouths - a symbol of the "bite of death" that inevitably interrupts the fullness of life. Already in the 19th century, the iridescent shine of goldenrods attracted jewelers and costume designers in Europe, where fashion came from India. There, the wings of goldenrods have been used for many centuries both to decorate ceremonial clothing and turbans, and to create paintings. The green color, according to Fabre, is combined with the green tones of the landscapes in the paintings of the hall and symbolizes the loyalty inherent in a dog."

In the narrow corridor hang other masterpieces of the artist: inscriptions made with a ballpoint pen on fabric. The plate explains: “From the series of 29 drawings “Fabric-BIC”. 1978-2006. Fabric, BIC ink.
We admire, we understand, we are inspired, we move on.

""Man with a feather and eagle chicks". Belgium, 1986. Paper, ball pen BIC. Private collection.

This is a fragment great job artist, created with the same BIC ballpoint pen. By the way, it has already been called an “unconventional” instrument for art; why, Jan Fabre himself paints with it! Before that, he painted with his own blood. So, you see, the pencil will become exotic if a celebrity picks it up.

But, of course, these were all “flowers”, and the work created using feathers and stuffed animals is truly shocking.

The name of this installation (what other word can you use here? An exhibition of fragments of stuffed owls with glass human eyes?) is “Headless Messengers of Death.” Belgium, 2006. Plaster, glass eyes, feathers, linen tablecloth. KUKO collection.

Real owl feathers and human glass eyes - and even the full effect of a severed head. Brrr. No matter what eminent art critics say about the value of dialogue between modern art and the art of the past, it looks creepy. It's better not to show it to children.

The text explains the artist’s intention, otherwise it’s not clear what he meant! And this is not irony, the truth is not clear. Who understood everything without a hint? And who didn’t understand even with a hint in the form of text?
Here it is, we read: “The owls, the heroes of the installation “Headless Messengers of Death” (2006), arranged like an altar, fixed their cold gaze on the viewer, with their silent and solemn presence recalling the borderline existence in the stage of posthumous existence, the transition from life to death.This message is reinforced by the winter landscapes of Geisbrecht Leuthens (1586-1656) from the Hermitage collection, which are placed on the sides of the composition.

In medieval Flanders, the owl was considered a harbinger of death and misfortune. She was associated with a number of mortal sins: laziness, gluttony, lust. At the same time, the owl, helpless during the day, awakens in the night and sees the invisible, and its loneliness corresponds to a melancholic character - a sign of subtle intelligence. But it is also a symbol of modesty: her stillness and silence indicate a lack of pride.

The exhibition, consisting of images of birds, resembles a kind of birdcage. As conceived by Ffabr, this parallel refers us to the history of the Hanging Garden, where the dovecotes of Catherine II have been preserved to this day, and to the history of the museum itself: after all, art galleries along the garden marked the beginning of the Hermitage collection. Special Blue colour drawings appeals to the “blue hour” - the moment in nature when creatures of the night are already falling asleep, and creatures of the day have not yet had time to awaken: this mystical time when different energies merge at the borders of life and death.

In the previous story, I quoted the words of Yuri Nagibin that everyone opens, in general, any work of art with their own key. This judgment seems correct to me. I think that artists probably strive not only to mindlessly “stand out” and become famous, but also to be understood. And in order to be understood, they actually create. A work of art is always a message to the viewer and it must be done in such a way that people perceive this message on its own, without accompanying texts, lectures, radio broadcasts and film screenings. Jan Fabre's art is incomprehensible. Perhaps it is addressed to people of the future, perhaps the artist was ahead of his time. I will risk being considered an out-of-date person and even showing my professional incompetence, but I will express my opinion: the works of Jan Fabre cause me bewilderment, mixed with disgust.

One of these days I’m going to the Hermitage again, this time to the General Staff building. I'm afraid to accidentally come across Jan Fabre's masterpieces around the corner.

The Hermitage has been hosting an exhibition for quite some time now. Yana Fabra. The way this exhibition is organized is new to me: in addition to the halls where only the author’s works are presented, Fabre’s works are integrated into the permanent exhibitions of the main museum of St. Petersburg. Moreover, this was done in such a way that the permanent exhibition and exhibits have something in common, complementing each other, and the artist created some of the works exclusively for the Hermitage.

Of course, the most scandalous exhibits, the most discussed in the press and in society, are the “Carnival of Dead Mutts” and the “Dead Cats Protest” - a hall where, among bright garlands and tinsel, stuffed dogs and cats hang on hooks. To be honest, it looks a little scary, especially dogs. And it’s really interesting that in the spaces of the zoological museum hundreds of stuffed animals don’t look disgusting and don’t cause outrage in anyone. But as an art object (?) it’s already unnerving.

Some of the pieces are surprising, like the ones done with a blue BIC pen. The scale is amazing, but the meaning remains a mystery to me.

But do you know why I really wanted to go to this exhibition? Due to several works carried out in unusual technique. A couple of years ago I talked about what we learned about in Thailand. Several “paintings” by Fabre made from the same materials were exhibited in the Hermitage. And when I found out that the author of the green ceiling made of elytra in one of the halls of the Brussels Royal Palace was still the same Fabre, I definitely needed to see his work.

Inspection we with doctor_watson started with the General Staff.
Italicized text from exhibition plaques.

In 1997, Jan Fabre and Ilya Kabakov staged the performance “Meeting”. Fabre created a beetle costume for himself, and a fly costume for Kabakov. These insects appeared as the creative alter egos of the masters. The choice was not accidental. For Kabakov the fly was important hero, an annoying inhabitant of his communal spaces. Fabre was interested in insects from his youth (...). The artist was impressed that scarab beetles have more perfect structure bodies rather than people. The human skeleton is covered in soft and vulnerable flesh, while in beetles it is hidden under a hard shell. Fabre makes shell suits to perform metamorphosis - creating a superbeing that combines the body of an insect and the mind of a person. Dressed in costumes, the artists talk about art and history.

The installations “Carnival of Dead Mutts” (2006) and “Dead Cats Protest” (2007) can be correlated with the painting Flemish masters 17th century Paul de Vos and Jacob Jordaens "Cook at the Game Table". The characters in the installations are deceased street animals. Fabre "brings" them back to life by including them in the macabre carnival in the tradition of medieval alchemy, the goal of which was always to bring about the rebirth of an animate or inanimate object.

The next room contains Fabre's early sculptures.
The artist pays tribute to his entomologist grandfather Jean-Henri Fabre by showing a figure working behind a microscope. In this work, he again talks about loneliness, isolation and detachment as necessary states for an artist. The entire surface of the sculpture is covered with nails. This technique, widespread in the sculptural and installation practice of the 1970s, creates an amazing effect - blurriness, unclear outlines and shapes. The same hero, with his head down and wearing a bowler hat, hung limply above the ground in the work “The Hanged Man II” (1979-2003). Fascination with death permeates all of Fabre’s work.

Silk Curtain entitled "The Road from the Earth to the Stars is Not Paved" (1987), painted with a ballpoint pen as if separates real world from the mystical world of night visions.

Umbraculum is a yellow-red silk umbrella, in Catholicism symbolizing the Basilica Minor, but understood more broadly as a place where a person can hide from the material world, think and work away from everyday life. Jan Fabre fills this image with many meanings, presenting it both as a place outside of time, where the cyclical nature of life and death ceases, and as a world of mysterious spirituality, making one think about the vulnerability of human existence. This is also a tribute modern philosophy, according to which, a person is just an image created by knowledge, unstable and short-lived. Michel Foucault predicted that culture would be freed from this image as a result of a shift in the space of knowledge, and then “man will disappear, like a face drawn on coastal sand disappears.”
The details of the installation, created from bones, are just end-to-end shells that do not hide their emptiness. The new bone “skeleton”, brought outward, is analogous to the shell of a beetle, hiding a boneless body. Once again Fabre says that a person needs some kind of solid “shelter”. The image of the museum in some way can also be interpreted as an umbraculum. The Hermitage, created by Catherine, also “sheltered” the collection works of art and has become a true haven of art these days.

The elytra are larger. All these crutches and strollers are essentially an exoskeleton, like the hard shells of beetles.

Now let's move to the main building of the Hermitage. In the courtyard, the “Man Who Measures the Clouds” raised his hands to the sky. Well, there will always be work for him in St. Petersburg.

The halls of the Hermitage are beautiful even without exhibits :)

The most popular work at the exhibition - this is a man who broke his nose on a painting. A mannequin stands in a pool of fake blood, leaning against Fabre's copy of the most beautiful, perfect male portrait Rogier van der Weyden. If suddenly there is a viewer who doubts the meaning of the work, the title will dispel his doubts: “I allow myself to bleed (dwarf).” The meaning of art is in art itself, its mystery is incomprehensible, no matter how hard you try.

Power.

Halls where the permanent exhibition is mixed with works by Fabre. The works are miniature, bright, and belong to several series. The red background makes it easy to notice “alien” works and at the same time focuses attention on the image.

There are also strange works. "Man with a stick covered in bird glue" (1990), BIC ballpoint pen. The man looking at the image thoughtfully said: “Where is the wand?..”

"The Appearance and Disappearance of Antwerp I". Still the same ballpoint pen + glossy photo paper. To view the image, you need to approach it at an acute angle, then outlines appear from the blue darkness.

The owls, the heroes of the installation “Headless Messengers of Death” (2006), arranged like an altar, fixed their cold gaze on the viewer, with their silent and solemn presence recalling the borderline existence in the stage of posthumous existence, the transition from life to death. This message is reinforced by the winter landscapes of Geisbrecht Leuthens (1586-1656), from the Hermitage collection, which are placed on the sides of the composition.

Here it is, that same cold look!

And finally, the images I came here for.
The dog - a symbol of fidelity, sincerity and obedience - is present in many of the paintings in the permanent exhibition of the hall. Fabre's works presented here address this image. Eight green mosaics of dogs surrounded by vanitas (skulls, bones, clocks) are placed among four paintings selected by Fabre from the museum's collection: Adam and Eve by Hendrik Goltzius, The Bean King and Cleopatra's Feast by Jacob Jordens, and Mullet and Procris” by Theodore Romouths.
According to Fabre, their internal psychological balance is disturbed, leading to transgression, which the artist understands as a kind of act of excess, leading to the experience of sin, betrayal and deception. The related theme of vanitas reflects not only the imperfection of the world and its transience, but also the idea of ​​punishment associated with the feeling of guilt. Fabre's two sculptures, created especially for the exhibition, represent the decorated elytra of golden beetles and the skeletons of dogs with parrots in their mouths - a symbol of the "bite of death" that inevitably interrupts the fullness of life. (...) Green color, according to Fabre, is combined with the green tones of the landscapes in the paintings of the hall and symbolizes the loyalty inherent in a dog.

"Loyal sphinxes of metamorphosis and impermanence" (2016)

“Loyalty is guarded by Time and Death” (2016) from the series “Vanity of Vanities, All is Vanity”

The hall was conceived by Nicholas I as the antechamber of the New Hermitage. It was designed to introduce visitors to the history of Russian art. A reminder of this are the relief profile portraits of famous Russian artists, who became Fabre’s source of inspiration for creating new series"My queens." The heroines of the series are women of the 21st century, friends and patrons of Fabre's workshop, whom the artist perceives as muses. The majesty of the full-length portraits made of Carrara marble is offset by Fabre’s ironic trick - he puts jester caps on his models.

The Hall of Flemish Masters, where, in my opinion, Fabre’s works fit most organically. I would even leave this exhibition permanent. The installation clearly shows that the perception of the depicted dead nature and the actual dead nature differ significantly.

On the way to the Knights' Hall, the exhibition continues. How do you like this dress?

It causes some disgust for me: there is no longer a neat orderliness here, the bodies of the beetles are a jumble.

Jewelry precision again appears in the knight's hall.

It is interesting that the shells created for protection here adorn the weapons of attack. Although, maybe this is the point: to use weapons only for protection?

On both sides of the knights new inhabitants of the hall appeared:

In this armor, Fabre, together with Marina Abramovich, staged a performance called “Maiden/Warrior,” in which two knights, clad in armor like beetles in shells, fought endless ritual battles inside a glass display case. “For me, being a knight is the most romantic thing I can imagine,” says Fabre. “There is hope in creativity. It is always faith in hope that the artist creates better world. When I can't improve the world around me or anyone else, I will stop being an artist."

Egor Russak/TASS

Exhibition of the famous Belgian Yana Fabra“The Knight of Despair - Warrior of Beauty” opened at the Hermitage on October 22 in buildings on Palace Embankment and premises in the General Staff Building. Opponents of modern art found a weak point in the exhibition. They turned out to be cats and dogs: in the paired installation “Carnival of Dead Mutts” (2006) and “Protest of Dead Stray Cats” (2007), located in the General Staff Building and occupying one of the halls of the enfilade, the artist used stuffed animals against the backdrop of classical Dutch and Flemish painting, including still lifes with killed game. The museum immediately explained: Fabre picked up corpses on the sides of the highway, where animals thrown out by their owners had been knocked down. The corresponding exhibition halls are marked with an age marking of 16+.

However, this story continued: on November 10, at exactly 15:00, a network attack on the museum began - massive reposts with the hashtag #shame on the Hermitage. As always in such cases, these posts are dominated by aggressive statements using profanity. People who were not at the exhibition (as evidenced by the photo attached to their complaints with a crucified kitten, which is not in the exhibition) and are not able to write the name of the museum director without errors, called for the closure of the exhibition, the dismissal of the director, voices were heard in the same crowd about physical violence against the artist and museum workers.

The singer was predictably among the uncompromising critics of contemporary art Elena Vaenga and deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Vitaly Milonov.

Fabre's outrage at the exhibition is shared by Liana Roginskaya, the artist's widow Mikhail Roginsky, known for her fanatical love of animals. “In my opinion, this has nothing to do with art, but it is an excellent example of the vileness to which narcissism and exhibitionism, combined with a lack of talent, can reach. One question: if the corpses were not dogs, but human ones, would you also applaud this? Hurst for the poor? — declares she.

On November 11, opponents of the exhibition created a petition on the change.org portal to the Minister of Culture demanding that the exhibition be closed. It is characteristic that the text itself again mentions the “crucified cat,” which “shocked the believers, deeply hurting their feelings,” although, we repeat, there is no such work in the exhibition. To date, the petition has been signed by almost 10 thousand people.

In response, the Ministry of Culture posted a comment on its website, declaring that it did not consider it necessary to interfere in the exhibition policy of the museum: “The State Hermitage, like other Russian museums, having fairly broad independence and freedom, independently determines priorities exhibition activities, their thematic focus, artistic solution and design.”

Head of the Department of Contemporary Trends at the State Russian Museum Alexander Borovsky, who is very critical of Fabre’s work, wrote: “I think, regarding this particular petition, it’s not about the animals at all. I’m ready to apologize to simple-minded lovers of living things - I’m not talking about you. I would simply urge you not to take art literally - otherwise it will be difficult to find anything completely neutral and pleasing for yourself. Especially in contemporary art. So take care of yourself. Or try to take a slightly broader view. I'm talking about the authors of the petition. And comments on networks - I was not too lazy to look through them. They are written in surprisingly angry, uncompromisingly accusatory language. In such an intolerant tone that you understand: dislike for people exceeds the love for animals, allegedly trampled upon by the artist and his Hermitage curators. If you care about living things, they don’t write about people like that. Demands to apply the highest measure were written in this tone in ancient times.”

Fabre's side is a St. Petersburg animal rights activist Anna Kondratieva, wrote on his Facebook account: “And in order to show (tell - TANR) kind and impressionable viewers about those thousands and thousands of abandoned animals that died under the wheels and were brought to be euthanized. Fabre seems to be taking skeletons out of closets and presenting them to the public. IMHO, fur coats and fur boas on the shoulders of fashionistas are much less appropriate than stuffed animals in the halls of the Hermitage.”

St. Petersburg artist and volunteer at the Sirin Center for Wild Animals Alexandra Garth exactly noted on his Facebook page: “In connection with the latest outbreak of zooschizoid activity in the feed, the following thought came to mind - and Hirst is a great guy, a smart guy. No one feels sorry for the pigs and sharks, even though they were killed specifically for his works. And the evil, bad man Fabre stuffs cats and dogs, even though they are already dead, to hang him on hooks!”

On November 12, the Hermitage launched a response hashtag #catszafabra and received support, in particular, from the museum and cafe “Republic of Cats,” where cats taken from the Hermitage live, among others. “Not a single cat was harmed during the preparation of the Jan Fabre exhibition, no matter how the authors of the hashtag #shamethehermitage might have wanted it,” he wrote on Facebook. Dmitry Ozerkov, head of the contemporary art department of the Hermitage.

The Hermitage is the only museum in the world that has had an entire team of cats on its staff for decades and even holds an annual “Cat Day” holiday.

General Director of the State Hermitage Museum Mikhail Piotrovsky in his article for the newspaper St. Petersburg Vedomosti he wrote:

“An exhibition of a wise artist has opened in the Hermitage Yana Fabra. Everyone is looking at still lifes Snyders and think how beautiful they are. But cut fruits and killed animals are reminders of death. It’s worth imagining for a second what Snyders’s “Game Shop” or “Fish Shop” smells like. His still lifes have a second meaning. Looking at them, a person should see the artist’s skill and think that life is passing by.

That's why Fabre inserts skulls between the paintings. Remember! Opposite he places a stuffed peacock held by a skeleton. Remember! He places his image close to the picture so that blood “flows from his nose.” Getting too close to art is dangerous. Fabre has complex meanings everywhere.

His installations with stuffed cats and dogs in the General Staff building are shocking. But this is a reminder of the barbaric attitude towards animals, as even the name indicates. We should not be indignant, but think about what the artist is talking about.

Yes, very sharply. But art should not always provide only aesthetic pleasure. Fabre “screams” about what is happening in the world. Uncomfortable? Yes, but remember what is happening.

I have a stack of protests on my desk. They write like a carbon copy: “remove Fabre from the Hermitage” (this, they say, is “lack of culture”). They reproach: how can you show this now, when the country is agitated by the story of the Khabarovsk knackers. Right now it sounds special. Horrors are characteristic of our time, as is intolerance.

Fabre’s “cry” contains a lot deep meaning. If you don't want to hear, don't listen. He is flawless, as if he stops on the edge beyond which there is horror and dirt.

Contemporary art is a challenge. By provoking, it makes people think. We should be happy about this, and not snap at it. If someone doesn’t like this kind of art or not everyone understands it, that’s normal.”