The architecture of change

General Director of the State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin Marina Loshak, who has headed the museum since July 2013, resigns. Elizaveta Likhacheva, director of the Museum of Architecture, will replace her in this post. Changes in the leadership of one of the main domestic museums were confirmed to Kommersant by sources in the Ministry of Culture and in the Pushkin Museum itself. comments Sergey Hodnev.

On February 9, 2023, Zelfira Tregulova was dismissed from the post of director of the Tretyakov Gallery (the new director is Elena Pronicheva). February 10 Director of the Russian Museum Vladimir Gusev was transferred for president of the museum (a new director has not yet been appointed). What is happening in the Pushkin Museum looks like a continuation of this trend – but at least we have to admit that everything is arranged in a less traumatic way than in the case of the Tretyakov Gallery. Zelfira Tregulova found out about her dismissal, as they say, from the newspapers. Marina Loshak leaves of her own free will and is ready to personally hand over the affairs to her successor in a spirit of perfect benevolence.

Ironically, it was Ms. Tregulova who was almost appointed the new director of the Pushkin Museum in 2013, but Irina Antonova then opposed and made efforts to ensure that Marina Loshak became the director. The news about the departure of the latter from the post of director appeared on the day of the 101st anniversary of the birth of Irina Antonova, when Ms. Loshak opened in the museum a small installation “My room and a half”, created by Alexander Brodsky, dedicated to this date.

The upheavals in large and symbolically significant institutions are now doomed to sound unsettling. The fact that in the case of the Pushkin Museum still looks reassuring is the candidacy of a new director.

Even in the absence of a public selection and appointment procedure, I would like to recall that in 2017 Elizaveta Likhacheva was appointed director of the Museum of Architecture for a reason, but following the results of a competition in which applicants for the position showed their concepts for the development of the museum. But still, Ms. Likhacheva is an art critic with a university degree and many years of experience in a museum of federal significance: already a remarkable difference from the incident with the Tretyakov Gallery, in the current situation, one has to rejoice at that. In addition, she is a person of a distinctly independent character, she is respected in the museum community, she also showed herself to be quite decisive as a manager.

These are important qualities, since the post of director of the Pushkin Museum implies not only the leadership of scientific and exhibition life in the existing buildings on Volkhonka. Since 2019, the State Center for Contemporary Art (NCCA) has been included in the Pushkin Museum, together with its collection and with a network of branches from Kaliningrad to Tomsk. Of course, now the state may change its mind, but this is unlikely: they are not going to abandon the strategy of Marina Loshak yet, and with her light hand, Anna Gor, who for many years headed the Nizhny Novgorod branch of the NCCA, went on promotion and became deputy director of the Moscow Pushkin Museum for regional development.

But the most important thing is the future Moscow assets of Pushkinsky, a colossal museum quarter, whose history stretches back to the zero, which has already replaced two general designers: under Irina Antonova, it was designed by Norman Foster, after her departure, by Yuri Grigoryan with his Meganom bureau. Construction is already underway, but the deadlines for the delivery of the main facilities have been postponed several times. Perhaps it is from the director (now former) of the Museum of Architecture that bright chapters are expected in this architectural and construction epic.