Cultural institutions and scenes began to cancel shots, shows and concerts in France and Europe, while the resignations fall into a cascade in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
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Should we continue to broadcast Russian artists, play their music or expose their works in the name of the universality of culture, or boycotting any collaboration at a time when Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine? The doubt suddenly seized the cultural environment, Thursday, February 24, at the moment when the Russian troops launched hostilities. Even though, formally, there is no official provision from France on the cultural boycott. “Relationships and exchanges will become increasingly difficult,” says a diplomatic source. Thus, after the stupor, the question of the participation of a number of Russian artists quickly imposed on the French and European cultural institutions.
It is first of all the resignations that have been announced, as so many renouncements to exercise in a country responsible for a new war in Europe. Thus the French Laurent Hilaire, director of the ballet troupe of the Stanislavsky Musical Academic Theater, in Moscow, said Sunday 27 February, that he was leaving the institution Moscow “in view of the situation” geopolitics. The ex-Star of the Paris Opera said to deplore this decision: “I leave with sadness, but the context does not allow me to work serenely.”
Prudence of bet
In France, several institutions have decided in the vivid by choosing to give up the rounds of Russian artists. Thus, in Marseille, the Toursky Theater cancels the 26 e Russian festival in March. His directors, Richard Martin and Françoise Delvalee, however, indicate that he took this “decisionless decision (…) for the safety reasons of the artists, the public and the employees”. Paul Rounin, the Deputy Director of the Avignon Festival, assures his side that Kirill Serebrennikov, a long-time Russian opponent, is so far scheduled in Avignon, where he has to open the festival with the black monk, of Tchekhov, in the courtyard.
On the plastic arts side, the reflection continued in the places of exhibition, but the prudence seemed to put. Only that of Christian Boltanski, who had to open on March 12 in the Range, in St. Petersburg, was canceled by the rights holders of the artist. But no great exhibition is, for the time being, suspended in France. Thus the Louis Vuitton Foundation, which has been welcoming, since September 2021, the great collection of the Morozov brothers, lent by three Russian museums with the personal white-sector of the chief of Kremlin, extended his hanging until April 3rd. The uncertainty still places on the exhibition “Picasso and Russia”, scheduled for September 2023 at the Luxembourg Museum, of which the Office had to be provided by Moscow Conservatives.
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