Guardians

Peter and Paul Fortress, Postern and casemate of Gosudarev bastion

The exhibition presents project of the photographer Andy Freeberg (San-Fransisco, USA): a created in 2008-2009 series of photo portraits of museum guardians from different Russian art museums – Russian Museum, Pushkin Museum, Tretyakov Gallery and Hermitage.

During many years Andy Freeberg photographs people whose work is connected with art: gallery dealers, art dealers, artists, museum guardians. His project “Guardians” received a reward Photolucida’s Critical Mass book award and was published as a book in 2010. The photographs from this series have quickly gained popularity on the Internet. However, the original works are being displayed in Russia for the first time at the Peter and Paul Fortress.

While working on this project, the photographer talked to his “models” and was astonished by their deep affection towards art which they “guard”. Andy Freeberg also discovered that most of them were retired qualified specialists: among his models he met an actress, a dentist, an economist, a registrar… They told him how much they love their work, how proud they are to work at a museum where people go to admire works of art and how they visit the museum on their days off to look at art as a simple admirer…

The exhibition is held within the framework of the 12^th Festival Contemporary Art in the Traditional Museum organized by the PRO ARTE Foundation and the Northwest branch of the National Center for Contemporary Art with the support of the St Petersburg Committee for Culture and Mikhail Prokhorov Fund.