{"id":291867,"date":"2025-04-27T22:02:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-27T22:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/27\/zurab-tsereteli-polarizing-russian-sculptor-of-colossal-works-dies-at-91\/"},"modified":"2025-04-27T22:02:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T22:02:13","slug":"zurab-tsereteli-polarizing-russian-sculptor-of-colossal-works-dies-at-91","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/27\/zurab-tsereteli-polarizing-russian-sculptor-of-colossal-works-dies-at-91\/","title":{"rendered":"Zurab Tsereteli, Polarizing Russian Sculptor of Colossal Works, Dies at 91"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/24\/multimedia\/24Tsereteli--03-glcw\/24Tsereteli--03-glcw-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Zurab Tsereteli, Polarizing Russian Sculptor of Colossal Works, Dies at 91\" title=\"Zurab Tsereteli, Polarizing Russian Sculptor of Colossal Works, Dies at 91\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Zurab K. Tsereteli, a Georgian-Russian artist whose towering monuments and heroic statues pleased the authorities in the Kremlin but drew scorn from Moscow to New Jersey, died on Tuesday at his home outside Moscow. He was 91.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His death was announced by Sergei Shagulashvili, his assistant. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia sent a condolence note to Mr. Tsereteli\u2019s family, calling him \u201can outstanding representative of multinational Russian culture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">An admirer of Mr. Putin, Mr. Tsereteli unveiled a towering bronze statue of him in 2004, dressed in a belted judo tunic. (The work was so poorly received, however, that it remained with Mr. Tsereteli at his gallery.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Tsereteli\u2019s exuberant work largely defined post-Soviet Russian aesthetics. Flamboyant and vivacious, he was able to charm his way across geopolitical boundaries in earning the position of unofficial court artist in the Kremlin in the 1990s while also working with the government of his native Georgia as it tried to distance itself from Moscow.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Georgia, where many locals condemned him for staying in Russia, he built the Freedom Monument in Tbilisi, the capital, which replaced a statue of Vladimir Lenin in the main square after the Soviet Union\u2019s collapse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Russia, Mr. Tsereteli led teams that created some of the country\u2019s biggest post-Soviet monuments, signaling a departure from the austere, geometric style of the Communist era in favor of colorful capitalist kitsch \u2014 to the chagrin of much of Moscow\u2019s intelligentsia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the 1990s, he helped present the face of a new Moscow by designing the country\u2019s first Western-style underground shopping mall, in Manege Square, next to the Kremlin. Some said the mall, its roof adorned with gaudy fairy-tale figurines, had ruined the square forever.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He was later commissioned to create, as an official gift from Russia to the United States, a monument dedicated to the victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The monument, a 10-story-tall bronze-plated slab split by a fissure with an immense nickel-surfaced teardrop inside, was to be erected in Jersey City, N.J. But in 2004, municipal officials there <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/06\/30\/nyregion\/our-towns-a-jersey-city-teardrop-for-9-11-or-a-10-story-embarrassment.html\" title=\"\">rejected it<\/a>. A local arts society described the work as \u201can insensitive, self-aggrandizing piece of pompousness.\u201d It was finally <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/query.nytimes.com\/gst\/fullpage.html?res=9D03E6D81E31F935A2575AC0A9639C8B63\" title=\"\">installed in Bayonne, N.J.<\/a>, in 2006.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Tsereteli\u2019s colossal bronze <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/10\/08\/opinion\/christopher-columbus-puerto-rico.html?searchResultPosition=1\" title=\"\">statue of Christopher Columbus in Puerto Rico<\/a> also drew criticism, both for its aesthetics and for its historical context. Situated off the beaten path along the northern coast and rising 350 feet \u2014 the tallest statue in the Western Hemisphere \u2014 the monument features a towering Columbus standing on the deck of a smaller sailing ship, one hand on the ship\u2019s wheel and the other raised to the sky, with three ship\u2019s sails behind him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some called it an eyesore when it was completed in 2016. And many Puerto Ricans objected to its presence, citing the violence against native populations during Columbus\u2019s time in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Tsereteli had originally wanted to give the monument to the United States in 1992, to mark the 500th anniversary of Columbus\u2019s arrival in the Americas. But every U.S. city he approached, including New York, Boston, Miami and Columbus, Ohio, turned it down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Tsereteli\u2019s oversize statues have been erected elsewhere around the world, including <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/en\/visitor-centre-new-york\/good-defeats-evil-st-george-and-dragon-zurab-tsereteli-ussr-1990\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">at the United Nations<\/a> in New York and in <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.alamy.com\/stock-photo-break-the-wall-of-distrust-statue-by-zurab-tsereteli-the-peoples-artist-29268737.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">London<\/a>, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/rah.ru\/the_academy_today\/president\/details.php?ID=54273&amp;ysclid=m9v6l6jek1693688958\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Rome<\/a> and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/rah.ru\/news\/detail.php?ID=14104&amp;ysclid=m9v6kk6soe780063538\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Tokyo<\/a>. In the process he forged personal connections abroad. He was acquainted with President Trump, with whom he shared a love of pomp and grandiosity. Speaking to The New Yorker magazine in 1997, Mr. Trump <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/1997\/05\/19\/trump-solo\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">called<\/a> Mr. Tsereteli \u201cmajor and legit.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Tsereteli\u2019s fame reached its climax in 1997, when he installed a gaudy 321-foot-tall statue glorifying Peter the Great in the middle of Moscow, a city Peter was known to dislike. Similar to the Columbus monument, the piece puts an imperial-looking Peter in a disproportionately small sailing ship with its mast and sails rising behind him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The public revolted. People signed petitions, accusing Mr. Tsereteli of tastelessness. The city was plastered with stickers crying, \u201cDown with the Czar!\u201d A fringe left-wing group said it had plans to blow up the monument.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But after Mr. Tsereteli\u2019s death, even the arbiters of good taste, who made it fashionable to revile his work, began to sing his praises. Some lauded him as a shrewd administrator who defended and helped many artists in trouble, financially or otherwise. Others said that while his enormous statues were overbearing, his paintings and drawings showed a more elegant and tender side of his talent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHe was a truly gifted artist,\u201d Grigory Revzin, a Russian critic, wrote in an <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kommersant.ru\/doc\/7675659?from=glavnoe_3\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">obituary<\/a> in Kommersant, a Russian business daily. \u201cHe had a phenomenal sense of color, and he was primarily a painter.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Marat Guelman, a Russian gallerist and longtime opponent of Mr. Tsereteli, said that while his sculptures were \u201codious and tasteless,\u201d he was still an important figure in Russian art whose legacy would last.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cToday we understand this was not the worst thing that could happen to us,\u201d Mr. Gelman, a former spin doctor for the Kremlin who became a vocal critic of it and left Russia, wrote in <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo\/?fbid=23936263952625014&amp;set=a.545012432176829\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a post<\/a> on Facebook.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 1999, Mr. Tsereteli founded the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, a vibrant institution \u2014 currently led by his grandson Vasily Tsereteli \u2014 that houses a collection of major Russian works. The museum has mounted shows spotlighting up-and-coming Russian artists as well as retrospective exhibitions honoring leading artists whose works were banned during the Soviet period.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Tsereteli also founded a modern art museum in Tbilisi. On Thursday and Friday, hundreds of people went there to pay him their last respects. <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/en.iz.ru\/en\/1877368\/2025-04-26\/sculptor-tsereteli-was-buried-tbilisi-next-his-wife\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">He was buried<\/a> in the capital on Saturday, in the Didube Pantheon, alongside his wife, Inessa Andronikashvili, and many Georgian cultural figures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Moscow, a farewell ceremony was held on Wednesday in Christ Our Saviour, the country\u2019s main Orthodox cathedral. Mr. Tsereteli had helped decorate it in the 1990s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Zurab Konstantinovich Tsereteli was born on Jan. 4, 1934, in Tbilisi, when Georgia was part of the Soviet Union. He graduated from the Tbilisi Academy of Arts in 1958 and in 1960 began working as a staff artist at the Georgian Academy of Sciences, taking part in many research expeditions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 1964, he went to Paris, where he met Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso and discovered that an artist can make not just paintings but also sculptures and porcelain and ceramic works. On his return to the Soviet Union, he began decorating resorts on the Black Sea with colorful mosaic-clad fountains, bus stops and playgrounds that helped give the area its splashy flavor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For much of his career Mr. Tsereteli thrived on official commissions from the Soviet and Russian political elite. In the 1970s and \u201980s, he did design work for Soviet embassies and the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev\u2019s summer house on the Black Sea. He was appointed chief artist of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the 1990s, growing close to Mayor Yuri Luzhkov of Moscow, Mr. Tsereteli worked on multiple projects in the city, including the giant Victory Park, one of the first nation-building projects of modern Russia. He was elected president of the Russian Academy of Art in 1997.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He is survived by his daughter, Yelena; three grandchildren; and many great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/27\/world\/europe\/zurab-tsereteli-dead.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zurab K. Tsereteli, a Georgian-Russian artist whose towering monuments and heroic statues pleased the authorities in the Kremlin but drew scorn from Moscow to New Jersey, died on Tuesday at his home outside Moscow. He was 91. His death was announced by Sergei Shagulashvili, his assistant. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia sent a condolence [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/24\/multimedia\/24Tsereteli--03-glcw\/24Tsereteli--03-glcw-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18661,227111,2109,163460,16,199157,176286,168243,51461,209,202,1461,33222,80245,227109,128440,4053,227112,227110],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291867"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":291869,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291867\/revisions\/291869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}