An exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris this year will reunite a collection of Modernist masterpieces compiled by Sergei Shchukin.  The collection includes landmark works by Matisse and Picasso, and were split by the Soviet regime between various museums.  The works will travel to Paris this fall in a joint effort by the State Hermitage Museum and the Pushkin Museum, which hold the works in their respective collections.  “We are planning everything together and taking a number of steps together, and this is understandable, because we can’t live without the Hermitage, without its collection and our common historical past connected with this collection,” Marina Loshak, the director of the Pushkin says. “There are many projects that we are planning to do together outside of our museums.” (more…)

St. Petersburg’s State Hermitage Museum has been announced as the location for next year’s Manifesta 10 exhibition.  The biennial exhibition of contemporary European art will see mark its 20th anniversary, as well as its first version of the event in Russia.  “With the arrival of Manifesta, the Hermitage will highlight its traditions: its roots within the epoch of Catherine the Great and her passion for the contemporary art of her time, and the role that the museum’s collections and exhibitions have always played in the artistic life of Russia. We see contemporary art is a natural, albeit intricate, development of these age-old traditions.”  Says Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky. (more…)