In May the world celebrated the Day of Museums, a holiday not only for docents and curators, but also for visitors. There is a special day in May when all museums open their doors for visitors absolutely free, and the day of open doors may even turn into a night for the luckiest. The idea originally belongs to the Louvre, but seven years was enough for almost 2,000 museums to follow suit. In 2006, Minsk museums opened their doors at night for the third year in a row. Nights bring calm and peace: there are few cars and even fewer people in the streets, but this particular night in May ruins stereotypes.
Your very essence fills with a sort of thrill that you hardly ever experienced in your life. You cross the threshold of a museum as if you enter a fairy-tale and get into another dimension. Splendor and grandiosity, large halls and marble floors take you a couple of centuries back in time. This miracle may happen only at night, when you see a piece of a night sky covered in stars between the curtains.
Museums do not care whether it is day or night, and people here need few words to communicate. The National Art Museum traditionally hosted its one-night display, and only the best-informed and fastest could see the collection of posters “The best of Tsesler & Voichenko”. In fact, there were many late-nighters, as the duet of Vladimir Tsesler and Sergei Voichenko is known worldwide. Over 25 years of their work the two artists received more than 40 prizes of international contests and festivals. Their posters are on display in the largest and most prestigious galleries (their “Woodstock. 30 Years. 1999” may be seen in the Louvre). The Belarusian museum presented a large collection of social, cultural and advertising posters created by the two masters. One of the most striking posters is “War and Peace” that was created for Sergei Prokofyev’s opera. The poster evokes the deepest feelings and opens the hidden truth, which is different for every viewer.
[i]by Valeria Stasyuk[/i]
