Ideal Cities by Andrey Noarov

State Museum of Architecture named after A.V. Shchuseva presents the first solo exhibition of the artist and architect Andrei Noarov "Ideal Cities".

The exhibition is dedicated to the heritage and modern development of the veduta genre. It reveals its continuity in Andrey Noarov's contemporary works and tells about the transformation of ideas about "ideal cities" from engraving to postcards. The exposition is conditionally divided into three parts. The first section shows the printed graphics of the masters of the past from the collection of Noarov the collector. The central section is devoted to Andrei Noarov's own architectural fantasies inspired by the works of old masters, his author's vision of the architecture of "ideal cities", embodied in drawings, albums and postcards. The third section presents a collection of pre-revolutionary and Soviet postcards from the collection of the Museum of Architecture, which demonstrate the development of the veduta genre in modern times.

"The artist brought many important meanings to the space of the museum with his work. The original idea about the value of drawing and skill in the field of architectural graphics, in general, a qualitative perception of the architectural environment, expanded to the boundaries of the veduta genre and its transformation into printed postcards. This allowed me to dive into the meta-context of individual and collective memory." Svetlana Tsyshchuk, exhibition curator

As a connoisseur of true beauty and memory of historical places, Andrey Noarov appears in the first part of the exhibition as a collector. His personal collection contains works by such masters as Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Stanislav Vladislavovich Noakovsky, Anna Petrovna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Vladimir Alekseevich Shchuko, Vladimir Ivanovich Sokolov, Yakov Grigorievich Chernikhov and others. Among the items are printed graphics (engravings, autolithographs, woodcuts), as well as drawings, albums and signature postcards. The display of Andrey Noarov's private collection at the exhibition, intended for thoughtful immersion, reveals the secret of creative inspiration and becomes an aesthetic manifesto of the artist's work.

The central part of the exposition demonstrates to the public the works of Noarov the artist. He spends most of his time traveling around European and Russian cities, where he creates views from nature, sketches, honing his drawing skills. Taking real views as a basis, he supplements them with images born in the imagination as a mosaic of numerous impressions, graphic sketches and works of masters of the 18th-19th centuries, experiments with materials, techniques and each time creates works of unusual associations and mood. The author builds a dialogue with the viewer, consistently immersing him in a variety of cultural contexts and layers of history, going through a joint path from a sketch to a completed composition.

"It was interesting for me to create a series of monumental images of the architectural environment not for an ideal person, not for a "person of the future", but simply for a person with certain cultural associations. I will try to trace some features of the emergence of architectural fantasies on the example of my individual works."
Andrey Noarov, artist and architect

"The touching and lyrical nature of Andrey Noarov's works are combined with a special sense of architecture and its deep foundations. We can say that it reflects the very nature of architecture. Each sketch from nature or composed composition bears the memory of great masters, such as, for example, Savrasov or Piranesi. Lines from poetry arise in the minds of a more sophisticated viewer, but for everyone, both art critics and art lovers, Noarov's creativity and talent will become an invaluable discovery."
Svetlana Tsyshchuk, exhibition curator

The exhibition encourages reflection on the theme of the ideal, as a creative opposition to the real, and also talks about the connection between private collecting and museum storage.

“Ideal Cities” is an artistic image that unites all parts of the exhibition into a panorama of architectural mirages, entering which you recognize the front facades of the monuments of famous cities."
Daria Tishkova, exhibition curator