The editors of the web-site SCULPTOR ALEXANDER KIBALNILOV are truly grateful to all the people of arts and culture who have expressed their points of view on the issue of sculpture group FORTITUDE of Courage Monument, Brest Hero-Fortress, being included onto CNN list of the World’s Ugliest Monuments.
Comments from Moscow, Saratov, Volgograd Oblast, North Ossetia, Armenia and Ukraine confirmed our confidence – genuine art knows no bounds and nationalities.
On the contrary, the authors compiling black lists of ‘ugly works of art’ have proved that they interpret the pieces of world art narrow-mindedly. The incident with FORTITUDE sculpture being on the list demonstrated CNN journalists’ utmost scantiness of background knowledge and insight.
We are closing comments on the subject; the presented opinions show clearly general opinions on the incident although they might be different in details of the expression plane.
Here is the last comment by Valentina Alexandrovna Kibalnikova, the GREAT RUSSIAN SCULPTOR’s daughter,the Sculptor who created the eloquent image of a defending Warrior, strong in character and will – sculpture FORTITUDE in Brest Fortress.
We all have been worrying a lot for Valentina Alexandrovna; we’ve been asking her not to take to heart the scurvy trick by CNN, which was also insulting towards her father’s memory. But can one skip something that soils the honour of one’s ancestors? She took the insult from a huge broadcaster with fortitude and dignity.
Valentina Alexandrovna, we all wish you welfare and long life!
And to CNN journalists, we wish intellectual and mental health…
Editors of SCULPTOR ALEXANDER KIBALNILOV web site
VALENTINA ALEXANDROVNA KIBALNIKOVA,
Sculptor A.P. Kibalnikov's daughter,
Cinematographer, Philologist.
It is necessary to say a few words in the light of the appraisal of Brest Fortress Memorial voiced by a ‘competent’ commission. There is a Russian proverb: “For the sake of a witty word, he’ll sell Mother, Father and World”; I do hope the translation into English will be adequate enough to avoid misunderstanding…
I think that the wish to humiliate Russia once again, to touch the most sensitive right chords under the pretext of expressing an ‘objective and unbiased’ appraisal of a work of art was just another blow struck at Brest Fortress, at our past – at our forefathers’ fate.
The appraisal of sculpture FORTITUDE was expressed in the most indecent words.
From the ethical point of view, neither joint of time, not the pain of our people, first of all, of Belorussian people who had taken all burden of the first days of the war, have not been considered. The craving of our soldiers to stand up for our Motherland despite countless losses has not been considered also.
How deaf and indifferent one should be not to take all that into account…
Well, here is another aspect of the issue, of the Memorial itself, for speaking separately of the monumental Head of the Warrior, snatching it out of the total solution, proves absolute lack of professional qualities of the ‘commission’ and the fact that they have never seen the large-scale Memorial.
For my father, sculptor Alexander Kibalnikov, Brest Fortress was the sum total of his creative development. It was not for the first time that he reflected upon the events and heroes of the Great Patriotic War. His earliest work, ‘Unsubdued’, spoke of our people’s fortitude, of their will not to surrender under any circumstances. ‘Unsubdued’ sculpture is so expressive that although it is rather small, one perceives it as a large-scale monumental work. The theme of the war is also reflected in the Sculptor’s works: in plastic portraits of those who had participated in the war, in plastic compositions.
Then the time came for other works; year by year, the Sculptor’s craftsmanship grew.
His craftsmanship was honoured with many state awards; his works were known and highly rated abroad. No work of my father was done with an indifferent hand; I saw it with my own eyes, how they had been created. Alexander Pavlovich had an astounding skill to express the quintessence, the very depth of a character in the form of a sculpture. That is why his works are thrilling even now, they are an example of a real, high, realistic Art.
When they came to my father asked him to lead the project on designing Brest Memorial, he was absolutely prepared for that, both with his skill level, and with understanding the profundity and extensiveness of human experience. The Memorial combined the inputs of dozens, hundreds of people: sculptors, architects of Russia and Byelorussia.
Brest Fortress is a blessed memory of its defenders and their unique heroism. It was the strong and profound character that the transoceanic ‘connoisseurs’ of memorials did not understand and did not want to understand. At best, it was a case of emotional infantility; and at worst, deliberate humiliation of realistic art, that was, is, and will be not just in our country.
For example, my father was delighted both with the works by Vera Mukhina and by Jacques Mayol.
And certainly, you shouldn’t forget, you must be able to draw very well before you can be a Picasso…