Designing exhibitions of Chinese art in Soviet Art Museums: from collectible to problematic method

Abstract

The object of research is Chinese fine art presented in Soviet museums, museum practice and scientific discourse that has developed around the study of Chinese art in the USSR. The subject of the research is the specifics of designing exhibitions of Chinese art in Soviet art museums and the issues of its historical transformation. The analysis of a number of exhibition events held in Soviet museums and dedicated to Chinese fine art is proposed. During the consideration of the topic, such issues as the factors that influenced the methods of Soviet scientists in planning Chinese expositions, the degree of their effectiveness in relation to communication between the Soviet viewer and works of Chinese fine art are traced. This material is used to reconstruct the process of transformation of Soviet art critics' approaches to presentation and communication in the field of Chinese art. The comparative historical method is used to allow a comparative analysis of the Early Soviet and late Soviet periods in order to comprehend the issues of the evolution of scientific knowledge about Chinese art, approaches to its research, museum presentation and communication in this area. A descriptive method of analyzing exhibitions and collections of Chinese fine art in Soviet museums is used. For the first time, the nature of Soviet museum studies of Chinese fine art is generalized, the approaches of Soviet researchers to presentation and communication in the field of fine art in China are revealed, and their historical transformation is traced. The main conclusions of the study are as follows. The nature of the evolution of Soviet researchers' approaches to presentation and communication in the field of Chinese fine art in USSR museums is determined by the movement towards the development of deep scientific ideas, which in the late Soviet period provide a reliable basis for the effective implementation of certain approaches to exposition planning, the complication of exhibition events, the movement of Soviet museological theory from an ideologized view of exposition material as a means education of a citizen of a new formation, to the perception of an independent artistic idea of exposition works. Since the second half of the 1980s, new principles of artistic communication between the viewer and works of fine art have been formed in the USSR: an independent artistic idea of exposition works is brought to the fore, which provides favorable conditions for the Soviet viewer to perceive traditional Chinese aesthetics as a separate phenomenon of ancient and original Chinese culture.