Tretyakov Gallery: instead of the art historian, the daughter of the secret service general is coming

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Headquarters of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow: "Traditional Values" and Morals

Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP / dpa

The world-famous Tretyakov Gallery in the Russian capital Moscow is getting a new management amid political repression in the country's art world.

The internationally acclaimed art historian Selfira Tregulowa is leaving her post after eight years, as the Ministry of Culture announced in Moscow on Thursday.

Accordingly, the contract with the 67-year-old expires.

Yelena Pronicheva, educated at the Moscow Institute for International Relations (MGIMO), who runs the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow but is unknown in the art world, will become the new director general.

The 39-year-old has been head of the Museum of Technology since 2020.

As the newspaper Kommersant reported, the new museum director is the daughter of secret service general Vladimir Pronichev.

The confidante of President Vladimir Putin had headed the Russian border guard and was temporarily responsible for the anti-terrorist fight in Russia, among other things as deputy head of the domestic intelligence service.

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New construction of the Tretyakov Gallery

Photo: Ulf Mauder / dpa

Russia's most important art museum alongside the Hermitage in St. Petersburg recently made headlines because the Ministry of Culture had called for the exhibition to be realigned in accordance with the "traditional values" and moral concepts repeatedly upheld by the Russian Orthodox Church.

The ministry issued the order after a visitor complained that his religious feelings had been hurt.

The previous director of the museum, Tregulowa, has a reputation for being cosmopolitan.

She had brought many internationally acclaimed exhibitions to Moscow and repeatedly presented Russian art in the West.

In 2021 she organized the »Diversity United« show, which was first shown in Berlin, in Moscow by around 90 artists from 34 countries.

In politically difficult times, she promoted cultural dialogue.

The exhibition also addressed gender identity, the pursuit of freedom, and other issues that are increasingly taboo in Russia.

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Outgoing director Tregulova

Photo: Soeren Stache / picture alliance / dpa

At the same time, Selfira Tregulowa was a member of Vladimir Putin's Presidential Council for Arts and Culture and worked on constitutional changes that effectively guarantee Putin the presidency for life.

Tregulowa is considered to be excellently connected in the international art world and is likely to want to evade the increasing political pressure, the influence of the Kremlin and the Church on culture in Russia.

Independent experts have long complained about massive encroachments on the freedom of art in Russia.

They fear an impoverishment of culture in the largest country in the world in terms of area.

feb/dpa