A call in the midst of the crowd,
My own voice, orotund sweeping and final.
Now the performer launches his nerve, he has pass'd his prelude
on the reeds within.
My head slues round on my neck…
Walt Whitman
«Leaves of Grass»
So HUDGRAF-2012 opening has taken place as we all naturally know…
And the 7th Fair of Graphic Arts itself as a flash of lightning has vanished in thunderclouds until next spring.
Everything was as it always had been: a number of works by indisputably outstanding masters brought to Moscow, several indisputably well-known home graphic artists, and all that against the background of indisputably interminable panorama of that fallen…
In general, ordinary Fair resembling the previous ones.
But the very opening of HUDGRAF-2012… I couldn’t help describing all that – too much has been drunk and eaten, and in fact they were on the verge of dancing.
But one would immediately recall, allthat was described skilfully and long ago « pikeperch à naturelle à la carte», and « sterlet in a silvery little pot», and even «cocotte eggs to go with champignon purée in little cups»…
And then, following the text: «…something banged, jingled, sprinkled, bounced. And immediately a thin man’s voice screamed desperately to the music: «Hallelujah!». Faces with beads of perspiration seemed to light up, horses pained on the ceiling looked to come to life … and all of a sudden, the two halls broke into dancing like mad …»
It comes next, as the story unfolds: «First merriment, then amazement spread over the whole theatre. A word was humming around «tchervonets, tchervonets»… Someonewasalreadycrawlinginthe aisle, groping under armchair seats…»
Generally: «… people as people are. Loving money, but it always had been like that… Mankind love money whatever it is made of – either of skin, or paper, or bronze or gold… They might be light minded, well… but mercy sometimes knocks on their hearts… ordinary people… generally resemble those before them… Put the head on.»
This year, HUDGRAF-2012 finished in a surprisingly frank way – on/by April Fools' Day…
Here one should recall (again!) Leonardo da Vinci, for even today the only one (any in fact) graphic sheet by the Master of Renaissance like a pearl of exquisite beauty and weight put into the scale shall outbalance without fail the mass of dim glass pieces piled into the other scale.
LEONARDO’S SCRIPT PROJECT is just about that – not to forget the benchmark, to recover the pivot in the overcloud heights; for there from a step of a fragile staircase, a grey-browed Florentine Genius is looking straight into your Artist’s Conscience.
(Fragments from the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov “The Master and Margarita” are cited in the text).
