At the exhibition “The Art of Labor”, which takes place as part of the contemporary art festival “Time, Forward!” in the New Tretyakov Gallery, four works by artists produced at the enterprises of the August group of companies are presented - in an agricultural company in Tatarstan and at a factory in Chuvashia. "August", a large domestic manufacturer of plant protection products, once again acted as a partner of the event, in which painters go to plein air paintings at Russian production facilities. Through works of art, the modern working man is reflected, his heroism is illuminated and a positive image of the future, filled with creation, is formed. The works take part in a competition, which ends with a large-scale exhibition.
The exhibition “The Art of Labor” takes place from January 13 to 27 in Moscow at the New Tretyakov Gallery as part of the festival of contemporary art with a social meaning “Time, Forward!” The main idea of the organizers is to show the working people and the diversity of professions through the skill of artists. At the grand opening, guests were greeted by the ideologist of the festival “Time, Forward!”, the famous industrialist Konstantin Babkin, Assistant to the President of Russia Igor Levitin, First Deputy General Director of the Tretyakov Gallery Tatyana Sharshavitskaya, Chairman of the Union of Artists of Russia Andrei Kovalchuk, Rector of the Moscow State Academy of Arts. IN AND. Surikova Anatoly Lyubavin, university professor Sergey Gavrilyachenko and others.
In total, 200 works of semi-finalists of the festival “Time, Forward!” are presented in the halls of the Union of Artists of Russia. This year the exhibition is very diverse: painting, graphics, sculpture, decorative and applied arts and - for the first time since the project's existence - an installation.
In 2023, the first visit of painters to the Augusta production site took place in July in the Chuvash Republic. For two days, six Chuvash artists worked at the oldest enterprise of the group - the Branch of JSC Firm "August" Vurnarsky Plant of Mixed Preparations. They were given a sightseeing tour of the main production workshops and laboratories of the research and production center. The guests visited the factory museum, where they were told about the 93-year history of the place they came to document.
“The enterprise was the first in the republic to invite artists to production so that they could draw working people and reflect the joy of creation,” noted artist Natalya Smirnova, head of the department of fine arts and design at ChSPU. AND I. Yakovleva. “As soon as we saw the invitation from the Vurnar plant on the website, we immediately submitted an application to participate in the festival.”
Also at the end of July in the Republic of Tatarstan, a group of Tatarstan painters arrived at the fields of the agricultural firm “Avgust-Kamskoye Ustye” during the harvesting of winter wheat. “Spaceships, aliens, like huge tanks!” - this is how they described an armada of 13 combines approaching them from the fields. For the first time, urban artists from Kazan, Naberezhnye Chelny, and Chistopol had the opportunity to go to the real harvest.
“I asked one of the workers to pose in front of the huge combine wheel. I especially love painting portraits of people; I completely immerse myself in the image. But I also wanted to depict the majestic combine harvester in its entirety. It was impossible to maintain the scale and fit everything on one canvas. There isn't even paper of that size. That’s when the idea arose to create a triptych,” said artist Tatyana Nizamova. Her work reached the semi-finals of the festival.
The hero of her canvas, tractor driver of the August-Kamskoe Ustye farm Shamil Nurullin, has been working in an agricultural company since the first sowing season, his work experience driving agricultural machinery is 42 years, and all this time he has been working in the fields of his native republic. Last year, Shamil Nurullin celebrated his 60th birthday.
The New Tretyakov Gallery included four works created at the Augusta production sites: these are paintings by Natalia Smirnova, Alexei Volkov, Tatyana Nizamova and Katerina Feher.
“I’m glad that our movement is expanding,” noted Konstantin Babkin during the award ceremony. – We are attracting more and more people to creative work, and this, of course, works for the benefit of our country. Young people already look at the processes at factories differently and strive to create. And I want to appeal to the heads of enterprises: attract artists, order works from them, place them in production. Support them, because all this makes our lives rich, rich and beautiful.”