Director Zelfira Tregulova Pushed Out Moscow’s State Tretyakov Gallery
Artwork historian Zelfira Tregulova, who led the state Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow since 2015, has been compelled out of her job. Tregulova informed Russia’s National State News that the Russian Ministry of Tradition blindsided her early this month with a requirement that she reply by February 6 to a grievance brought to the ministry by a museum customer named Sergei Shadrin. Shadrin accused the Tretyakov Gallery of failing to hew to the “conventional Russian non secular and ethical values” espoused in a decree set forth by Putin this previous November. Talked about among the many values are “human rights,” “patriotism,” “service to the Fatherland,” “household,” “justice,” and “historic reminiscence.” Shadrin cited “indicators of a damaging ideology” as current within the gallery’s show, and additional mentioned that he left the museum with a way of vacancy and hopelessness.
Tregulova has publicly expressed unfavourable views concerning Russian officers’ rhetoric surrounding the nation’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine in February 2022. It’s not recognized whether or not she responded to the demand earlier than the ministry made the choice to not renew her contract. Tregulova informed the Nationwide State Information that she discovered of her ousting by way of the media. Entering into her freshly vacated function is Elena Pronicheva, the daughter of Federal Safety Service Basic Vladimir Pronichev, a high-ranking navy official within the Putin administration. Tregulova is called one of many world’s most educated museum professionals; Pronicheva has little expertise within the area of artwork, having since 2020 served as director of Moscow’s Polytechnic Museum, and earlier than that, as government director of town’s Jewish Museum and Tolerance Middle.
Based in 1856, the Tretyakov Gallery is taken into account one in every of Russia’s most essential museums. The Ninth Moscow Artwork Biennale, which had been to open there this previous November, was canceled by authorities officers days earlier than its launch, stoking censorship fears. Following Tregulova’s elimination, an unnamed Tretyakov staffer informed the Moscow Times, “We’re coping with a typical Soviet method of coping with objectionable artwork, allegedly by a letter from the folks, which is given as an official motive.”
