«Tatyana Barkhina and Sergey Barkhin. 160 Years»

The exhibition «Tatyana Barkhina and Sergey Barkhin. 160 Years» is open from 1 April at the Main Building of the A.A. Bakhrushin Theatre Museum. It includes book graphics, set and costume designs, models, comical drawings, sketches for unrealized performances and covers all the works of artists from the early period till today.

160 years is one anniversary for both of them. Tatyana Barkhina and Sergey Barkhin were born on 31 March 1938 within a minute, studied together at the Moscow Architectural Institute, then worked in different areas as architecture, paper architecture, book illustration, literature, painting and theatre. Today Sergey Barkhin is one of the main luminaries of the theatrical stage. His works are called not stage designs, but «Barkhin’s spaces». Tatyana Barkhina has worked for many performances with her brother as a costume designer.

Sergey Barkhin has collaborated with a large number of theatres and directors. The first productions were held at the Sovremennik Theatre, then the Maly Theatre, the Soviet Army Theatre, the Moscow Art Theatre, the Maly Theatre and many others. In the early period of his career, Barkhin worked a lot in various cities of Russia.

In the 1980’s, the artist began to collaborate with K. Ginkas and G. Yanovskaya and together with them he worked on the performances at the Moscow Art Theatre and other theatrical venues in Russia and Europe. From the 1980’s to the 2000’s, Sergey Barkhin has been the main artist of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre and the Bolshoi Theatre. Sergey Barkhin and Tatyana Barkhina has designed together such productions at the Bolshoi Theatre as «Aida», «Nabucco», «Francesca da Rimini», «Mozart and Salieri», «The Maid of Pskov», «Insomnia».

The exhibition presents materials for the performances of Russian and foreign theatres, including the early works made for the Sovremennik Theatre. For example, the production «The Seagull», directed by O. Efremov, was differently evaluated after the first night. People said then that «it wasn’t Chekhov», like they said about later works that «it wasn’t Shakespeare». Barkhin hasn’t underlined the name of the play’s author and has never considered to do this; he has been ahead of its time, combining different things, creating his own spaces, playing with styles and images of world culture. The exhibition also displays the designs for another famous performance of the Sovremennik Theatre: «Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf», directed by R. Balayan and V. Fokin in 1992.

Tatyana and Sergey have worked with many directors: the exhibition shows the set models for the performances of M. Karbauskis («Kant», «Talents and Admirers»), materials for «Tattooed Rose» of R. Viktyuk, «Forest» by A. Shapiro, works for musical theatres. Their collaboration with K. Ginkas and G. Yanovskaya is widely represented: «The Idiot», «The Black Monk», «Medea», «Hedda Gabler», «The Lady with the Dog», «Ivanov and Others», «The Nightingale».

The exhibition also includes the portraits of the Khludov family, merchants and patrons of art, Barkhin’s ancestors. The family publishing house «Bliznetsy» has published books devoted to the family history: «Chronicle of Five Generations» by Elena Novikova and letters and diaries of Gerasim Khludov.