New thematic project "In Dialogue with Chaco" has been launched in the museum Collection recently.
Photo report about the opening of the exhibition is posted in the museum Photo Gallery.

The exposition is dedicated to one of the most distinctive sculptors of the 20^th century – the unrivalled artisan Stepan Erzia (Nefyodov, 1876 - 1959). The artisan spent 23 years in Argentina, where, travelling through the thousand-year-old forests of the Chaco province, he discovered subtropical woods with which no sculptor had worked before: quebracho, algarrobo and urunday. Innovative materials, more reminiscent of gemstones, made his name immortal. A contemporary and colleague of Stepan Erzia, Sergey Konenkov called the forest "a huge temple with columns and vaults, with demons and saints living there, with spirits and ghosts of all sorts looking down on man and seeking to communicate with him". Our new thematic exhibition explores how Erzya responded to such "longing for communion". His dialogue with the forests of Chaco province, which had been lasting for almost a quarter of a century, turned out to be one of the most important dialogues of his life.
The exhibition brings together 12 enchanting works by Erzia – originals and casts of sculptures from the Argentinean period.

The exhibition “In Dialogue with Chaco” will feature a thematic programme that includes a tour through the new thematic exhibition "In Dialogue with Chaco” and viewing a film-poem by Andrei Novosyolov “The Return of a Genius” (2016, 25 min), dedicated to the creative biography of Stepan Erzia.