Belgazprombank head: Long live Belarus!
42- 27.03.2014, 13:17
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The opening speech by Viktar Babaryke at the exposition Ten Centuries of Art was met with a storm of applause.
The National Art Museum of Belarus opened the exposition Ten Centuries of Art in Belarus on March 26. The project was organised by Belgazprombank in cooperation with Gazprom Transgaz Belarus and the Culture Ministry, BelaPAN reprots.
The project unites people with different outlooks on life to show the best things in Belarus. The statement was made by Viktar Babaryka, the chairman of the board of Belgazprombank, in the National Art Museum of Belarus.
“We came to the Ministry of Culture nine months ago and asked to gather directors of Belarusian museums to propose them our idea,” he said. “We told them: let's boast and show ourselves and the world what we have done for ten centuries. I've never thought before that the idea can be met with such honest enthusiasm and inspiration and that we are able to gather so many different people, museum and art objects.”
Belgazprombank's head supposed that the exhibit items would provoke “much fair criticism”, because Belarus's ten-century history can be represented with much more things than 500 objects.
He noted the bank considered the project to be unique not only for its artistic value. “For us, the exhibition is unique , because we have something [the Belarusian culture], for which we are ready to give our best regardless of our differences. As long as Belarus has the idea and the thought that can unite so different people with different artistic tastes, political preferences, age and relations, our white-red-white blue-eyed Belarus has existed, exists and will exist. Long live Belarus!' Babaryka sais. The speech was met with prolonged applause.
The exhibition, displaying 500 items from 30 museums and private collections, will work from March 26 to July 10. The objects, including paintings, sculptures, books and other things, cover the 1000-year history of Belarus.
The pearls of the exhibition are recent purchases of Belgazprombank – paintings of world-acclaimed artists, whose works haven't been shown in their home country, Belarus, before. The public will see the Rod of Governance by Simeon of Polotsk published in 1667, two paintings by Marc Chagall, a painting by Chaim Soutine and The Portrait of Poet Tomasz Zahn by Walenty Wankowicz.
