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17/12/2013

Anastasia Khoroshilova

Pobeda gallery, Moscow

This year the GUM celebrates a double jubilee — 120 years from the opening of the Upper Trading Rows by Alexander Pomerantsev (finished in 1893) and 60 years older reopening of the GUM, as a State Department Store (1953).
The GUM lives a life of a perfect trading world as it was planned to and it seems that there were no collapses and loses during this 120 years. Store has retained all happiness and brightness that XX century had. Every day, in 10 AM we see awaking of life, the lights of the showcase turns on, the fountain starts working and the open doors invite guests. This place became legendary, almost as a fairytale, so sometimes it seems that the GUM works by magic. In fact, all of the beauty, warmth and cozy are based on the people that nobody knows personally. They are engineers, locksmiths maintainers, custodians, accountants, stewards and many others, who supports life in the Main Universal Store. They are the main characters of the photo project "The City of GUM”.

The opening of the exhibition and book presentation is scheduled for December 18 in POBEDA gallery in the GUM.

The author of the project, photographer, Anastasia Khoroshilova:
”… Contemporaries never tired of admiring them. For long after-wards they remained a point of attraction for foreigners. (Walter Benjamin; Paris — Capital of the Nineteenth Century)

Words, that Walter Benjamin used for the Paris arcades, suit as well for the most known russian arcade — «Main Department Store». I didn’t use capital letters in the name of the GUM by chance, that’s the way the store exists in the mentality of russians, more then 120 years. The project title has appeared by itself, “The City of GUM” has a social attractiveess, which is borded by a belief in fairy, fabulous coasts.

The staple of the concept of the portrait project is a staff. Working in the GUM more than a quarter centuary, they become a “citizens” of this “city”. Communication with the project protagonists and walks in the places hidden from the eyes of the ordinary visitor, allowed me a moment to get on their territory.

Desertet in the early mornings and late evenings, that’s the way, how only the regulars can see the GUM. Arcades freeze and only dedicated are the sitlent witnesses of this modus, being alone with it. The features of the architectual shape, as stalls, passages, dead ends, corridors and basements evoke sensation of a big city, tangle of arteries and viens of the mighty body, legendary social and architectual space.”
1. Sviblova– a Head of Multimedia Art Museum, a member of the Russian Academy of Arts.

One hundred and twenty years ago, the Upper Trading Rows on the Red Square were opened. A magnificent glass dome, use to be a miracle of engineering and architecture in the end of the XIX century and still amazes imagination of Moscovites and guests of the capital, was made by the great engineer Vladimir Shukhov. As the French say, “Noblesse oblige”. It seems that the splendid Shukhov’s overlappings, which take first pages and go through the whole book by Anastasia Khoroshilova “The City of GUM”, have a specific influence on the people, working in this vast spaces for a long time. Architecture and the structure of the Upper Trading Rows became a symbol of the changes which happened in Russia the end of the XIX century, the period of the rapid Evropiezation, cultural and economical prosperity. Today, the GUM is an emblem of nowadays Russia, top-on-the-range of newborn strategy in economics, social and cultural life. Excellent and scientific reconstructed monument of architecture, its full of entrepreneurial and cultural energy, it demonstrates that new reality may be based not only on the revolution, but establishing links between the generations and evolutionary processes.
That’s great when the human is an audience attention.
On the most of the preserved photos engineer Shukhov is in company of his team-mate — engineers and constructors. The book of Anastasia Khoroshilova is about people, because of which “The City of GUM” lives and works. People who left many decades working in this “city”. Central figures of this book work in a different spheres, as storekeepers,locksmiths-repairers, cashiers, accountains, doctors and shuemakers, dispatchers and security, sellers and merchandise specialists… sometimes these are working dynasties. In spite of the age and gender, they are united by the amazing feeling of the dignity, which is depicted on their faces and poses. This feeling comes as a result of being proud of the profession and common cause. Anastasia Khoroshilova has made completed, decent and exalted project. This book is great gift not only for those who lives and works here, but for everybody who wants to live in a worthy country and belives in her best future.

Pobeda gallery
Red Square, 3, GUM, 3rd line, 3rd floor - Moscow 109012
Hours: daily 10am-10pm

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