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Hidden spaces

Exhibition April 29 − October 29, 2021
Museum and Exhibition Complex "New Jerusalem" invites you to visit a fascinating exhibition of Spanish artist and photographer Jose Manuel Ballester "Hidden Spaces.".

The works in the "Hidden Spaces" series are presented to the public at several locations of the museum and are exact replicas of world-famous paintings, but without the key element - the human figures. These unusual "masterpieces without masterpieces" produced a viral effect on the Internet during the pandemic, becoming yet another symbol of self-isolation. For the first time in Russia, they can be seen in a museum performance.

Jose Manuel Ballester's creative intent, his peculiar "intervention" in paintings that have become iconic in Western art, is to discover and emphasize the importance of the space surrounding their protagonists. To do this, the artist removes all the characters and those elements that are associated with the action and movement of living beings, only the landscape and inert objects are visible, and nature and architectural scenery flourish in their main role. Among the masterpieces whose "devastated" replicas Ballester provided for the New Jerusalem exhibition are Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, Sandro Botticelli's The Spring, Leonardo da Vinci's The Annunciation, Raphael's The Betrothal of the Virgin, and many others.

Prepared according to the ICS website "New Jerusalem.".