Chizhik-Pyzhik and Pushkin became the heroes of Rezo Gabriadze’s films and exhibition

The love of steam locomotives and the Abyssinian roots of the main Russian poet were remembered in St. Petersburg

Pushkin became the hero of two exhibitions taking place in St. Petersburg at once – African contemporary art “Inverted Safari” in the Manege and “Rezo Gabriadze in St. Petersburg” in the wing of the Sheremetev Palace – Pushkin became. At the same time, at the Vyborg Film Festival of Russian Cinema, the premiere of the cartoon “My Pushkin” by Yuri Tomilov and the feature film by Elina Sunya about the theft of Chizhik-Pyzhik created by Gabriadze took place.

The artist, writer, founder of the Tbilisi Puppet Theatre, screenwriter of the films “Mimino”, “Do not Cry!”, “Kin-dza-dza” Rezo Gabriadze had a lot to do with St. Petersburg. Coming to Leningrad in the Soviet years, he perceived this city as a foreign country (he had never been to the real one), and in the lines of Pushkin he heard the lapping of the Mediterranean Sea.

In 1994, his monument to Chizhik-Pyzhik was opened on the Fontanka near the Mikhailovsky Castle. The sea of ​​​​humans has gathered – this can be seen in the black-and-white photograph presented at the exhibition. Theater critic, author of books about Gabriadze and one of the curators of the exhibition, Marina Dmitrevskaya, recalls how helicopters with a golden cross tethered circled in the sky, drowning out the speeches of the Chizhik-Pyzhik speakers. It turned out that in parallel with the opening of the tiny monument, the spire of the church of St. Simeon the God-Receiver and St. Anna the Prophetess was being installed. Such a coincidence made an impression on Gabriadze: is there any other monument, the opening of which would be overshadowed by a cross in the sky. A whole collection of various Chizhikov-Pyzhikov from the collection of Vadim Zhuk, Irina Livshits, Alla Yudina and others is presented at the exhibition. And this, as it turned out, is a popular character today.

In the film “Chizhik-Pyzhik Returns” by Elina Sunya, which participated in the program of the Vyborg Film Festival, young heroes come on an excursion from Yekaterinburg to St. Petersburg and witness the theft of Gabriadze’s creation, installed in a secluded corner under the bridge. He was kidnapped seven times in real life, but he returned. Constantly some desperate people climb under the bridge to get the coins thrown by tourists. So in the film, fifth-graders want to throw a coin on the tiny pedestal of Chizhik-Pyzhik, make a cherished wish so that it comes true. Leva dreams that his parents do not quarrel. Dana wants to become a millionaire blogger (and who else these days?). While the guys are investigating on their own, Dana takes everything on the phone and broadcasts it to her subscribers. Young detectives are wanted by the police and their parents. Even Peter the Great becomes a defendant in modern history.

The curators of the exhibition dedicated to Gabriadze claim that there is no other artist in the world who draws Pushkin so much. In confirmation, the works of the master are presented, reminiscent of storyboards of cartoons. They are accompanied by invented statements of the poet, his dialogue with the nanny. Pushkin complains that he is tired. Arina Rodionovna replies: “What did you write that made you tired?” Gabriadze dreamed of staging a performance about Pushkin the Butterfly. Did not have time. The exhibition presents fragments of the documentary film by Asya Guseva “Escape. Pushkin. Bitov”, where he says that Pushkin did not die, but turned into a butterfly and flew away with his Natalie. Gabriadze died on June 6, the 222nd birthday of his beloved poet.

In one of the halls you can watch the documentary-animated film “Do you know, Mom, where have I been?” Leo Gabriadze according to the script and drawings of his father. The curly-haired, Pushkin-like pioneer Rezo is sternly looked at from portraits by Lenin and Stalin. The leaders reproach the boy with pasta legs for always being late for school. Lenin the child will come up with a punishment for “Pushkin” – to shoot him during the break.

The animation program of the Vyborg Festival included a 6-minute animated film “My Pushkin” by Yuri Tomilov from Yekaterinburg. Alexander Sergeevich there is very similar to Gabriadze, as he painted himself. In Yuri Tomilov, Pushkin, with his nose turned up, also resembles a hedgehog, and his mop of hair is like needles. The poet moves through the pages of a school notebook, listens to a teacher who speaks the truth with pathos. The very idea of ​​the cartoon was born from school graphics based on real teachers’ notes, and all this is shown through the eyes of a child, like children’s fantasies captured in a notebook at a literature lesson.

The exhibition of contemporary African art “Inverted Safari” also has a Pushkin series: embroideries on fabric by Maria Arendt in 2011 – “Hello, young, unfamiliar tribe”, “My ruddy critic, fat-bellied mocker”, as well as “Pushkin the Abyssinian” from Natasha’s plaster Arendt and Anatoly Grigoriev. The head of the poet is black, his hair and sideburns are blue. The dark-skinned Pushkin fits into the context of the artists of the African continent, harmoniously coexists next to the first black president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, made in mixed media on fabric by the Congolese Amani Bodo, and Mandela from recycled slippers by Aristide Kouame from Côte d’Ivoire, a series of dark heads made of lace and corrugated paper by Nigerian Michel Okpare.

But the most important city for Gabriadze is still not Petersburg, but Kutaisi, where he was born in 1936, and to which a whole section is devoted to the exhibition in the Sheremetev Palace. Gabriadze wrote that looking back, he would like to stop the locomotive, on which he came from Kutaisi to Tbilisi in his youth. And he was then 17 years old. He drew a lot of locomotives. They live in his performances of Lokomotiv and Ramona like people – they breathe, sigh, fall in love. “Kutaisi stories” were written about the city of childhood, a performance was staged in France. Gabriadze remembered post-war Kutaisi, whose inhabitants wore rosettes with photographs of the dead on their chests. The images of the past suddenly and poignantly echo today.