Open Air Museum

When St. Petersburg is called an "open-air museum," it usually refers to the architectural masterpieces, monuments to statesmen and poets, city sculptures, and fountains that adorn our city. I want to use the expression today in the literal sense - I am going to show you some exhibits that are temporarily placed in the city streets, as if in museum halls or art galleries.

This idea came to me spontaneously. I was walking through the old urban area, which has the historical name of "Salt Town." The name comes from the word "salt" - there used to be warehouses for salt and wine. In the mid-19th century the area was too good for such use. The warehouses were moved to the outskirts of the city, and an industrial exhibition was set up in the vacated area. Soon the Central Technical Drawing School and several museum buildings were built there.

The Technical Drawing School is still in operation, and is now called the Stieglitz Art and Industry Academy. This institution of higher education trains artists and sculptors who specialize in decorative and applied art. This long introduction was necessary: it is the students of the academy that we can thank for the appearance of most of the museum pieces I am about to show you.

The first exhibit I came across was a sgraffito street art piece. It's a very unusual technique, rarely used. They put several different colored layers of cement or plaster on a prepared base (like a brick wall), and then the artist scratches the pattern, revealing the colors you want. The author of the rider on Pestel Street is the St. Petersburg artist Kirill Romanov.

The second exhibit I found in the yard of the same house. It is an Urban Fresco, which is called "The Gravity of the St. Petersburg Well". It is more usual to use the word graffiti, not Urban Fresco, but graffiti usually refers to a drawing done on the spot, here the drawing was prepared in advance and then placed on the wall of the house, like a reproduction in an art album.

The next art object I encountered was on a nearby street. I walked through a passable courtyard, and as I walked out the gate I noticed a bright lollipop glittering overhead. The author of the work is Veronika Kolesnichenko, a student at the Academy of Art and Industry. The artist used a drawing of the gate lattice reminiscent of the rays of the rising sun and made the association more obvious.

When I saw this small but very pretty stained-glass window, I realized that the theme of my walk that day had formed itself, I only had to continue the route. I searched the Internet for information about other exhibits nearby, and found two other works, also by students from the Academy of Art and Industry.

These works had been placed on construction mesh, which is used in home renovations. I especially liked that this choice of material was the gentlest on the urban environment. The construction mesh prevents us from admiring the architectural monument, but it also temporarily became an object of art.

The work "Wallpaper" (by Natalia Semyonova) is a drawing applied to the construction grid with the help of a stencil, some details are embroidered. The work "Music Here" (by Vadim Krasyukov) is notes made of brass by sawing method.

That was the end of my walk, but I spent some more time in the garden, admiring the more traditional city monuments.