Viewed from Russia the history of Cinzano Wine House looks as beautiful and visually perfect, as Italian culture in general. Now we can reach Italy, with art by Giotto and Botticelli, so to say, in original, as well as a genuinely good vermouth. It was far from so in the USSR of the 1970s, when an ordinary aperitive drink seemed almost as sacral and unattainable, as Quattrocento art. Cinzano was integrated in the set of archetypes of ‘dolce vita’ during the period of Brezhnevian stagnation. It became an influential mythologem in history, literature and films, even if fine art didn’t tend to dwell on in.
In 1973 Lyudmila Petrushevskaya’s wrote her renowned play Cinzano to be staged by an underground theatre company led by unofficial directors. The drama is uncompromising; the overall spirit is that of despair. Still, what is noteworthy is the wording of the title. Cinzano was a counterpoint word of the Soviet life at the time defining more universal values than a mere drink it designates.
The current generation find hard to imagine that some 40 years ago rare albums with fine art reproductions were viewed and discussed in artistic studios, while empty bottles of foreign drinks put on a shelf in the kitchen were some sort of an ‘altar to freedom’.
Looking through the old photos and revisiting one’s parents’ memoirs, one is suddenly starting to clearly realize that human values and feelings have remained the same; what have changed are just the symbolic markers that describe them.
Within the context of the project, the memories of Muscovite artists and creative figures (Andrey Bilzho, Tatiana Arzamasova, Zurab Tsereteli and Andrey Makarevich) have become a part of the brand’s history, no less fascinating than the authentic Italian part. As for the thoughts of a new crop of artists regarding the stories heard, they play a paradoxical role of giving timeless dimension to the memoirs of the older generation, reshaping them backward – from past to the present, from the once documented to an imagery dynamic once again. Art acts here as a springboard to the future.
The exhibition comprises two parts – two galleries painted in the colours of Cinzano brand.
The blue gallery is the historical part of the display. These are advertising posters from the Archive of Cinzano House, significant for the development of the brand and created by Adolpho Hohenstein, Raymond Savignac, Niko Edel and al.
The red gallery includes the works by young artists bearing a situational and emotional link to the stories about Cinzano: what ‘did happen’ turns into what ‘could have happened’. Alina Gutkina, Angelina Merenkova, Konstantin Grebnev, Evgenia Voronova and Ilmira Bolotyan make a ‘memory reset’. Put in a single colour space their art objects start interacting with each other.
Two narrative cycles coexist within the exhibition space, like the Cinzano brand’s colours in the centre of the famous logo, like past and present, like Italy and Russia, real-life advertising and artistic self-discovery. The history of a genuine, successful brand may be likened to a neural network with multiple information units, with each item being the part of the whole, but with the media support getting the meaning and the value of a new whole.