The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture in New York City is hosting an exhibit dedicated to the great Russian writer
New York City, April 5, 2022
After all… Dostoevsky belongs in New York!
CATALOGUE (PDF)
Having toured Greece and making its New York premiere at The Sheen Center, this exhibit spans two floors and gives visual expression to characters and existential and moral themes from the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky through a variety of painting styles by 15 artists. Exhibit is featured at the New, Janet Hennessey Dilenschneider Gallery, and it is presented in collaboration with the Greek Orthodox Archdicese of America and St. Sebastian Press of the Western American Diocese, Serbian Orthodox Church.
These beautiful paintings are now welcome in New York, a city that exemplifies in many ways the extreme contradictions and creative struggles that Dostoevsky successfully described in his writings.
“OCHRE” is an informal group of painters, who have contributed to the traditional Orthodox iconography but at the same time are in dialogue with the modern artistic trends.
In his remarks, read by Archimandrite Nektarios, the Greek Archbishop Elpidophoros said that the title of today’s exhibition uses the past tense to speak of the action of beauty “Saved by Beauty”, however Dostoevsky prefers the future. “Beauty will save the world.” By coming to this Opening tonight, we want to acknowledge the transformative action that beauty and art has had over the world. “Meanwhile, Dostoevsky’s own words resonate like a promise to be fulfilled. The work of beauty as an icon of God’s presence in the world is not over. It has barely started,” concluded the Archbishop.
Prof. George Kordis spoke about the attempt of “Ochre” group: “We as artists believe that this artistic language, the Byzantine painting system, has elaborated and has developed for centuries in order for the ethos and the spirit of the ecclesiastical life to be properly render in visual terms. For that reason, we believe that this language can serve the needs for expression of contemporary artists who are looking for a vehicle for expressing their spiritual inquiries.”
Given the horrors of the war in the Ukraine, this exhibition reminds the world of its spiritual and cultural inheritance received from the likes of one great Fyodor Dostoyevsky. May it be a blessing to us all!
Read the remarks of Archbishop Elpidophoros, Bishop Maxim and Prof. George Kordis.
Source: Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America
