Turkish Fire and Delight

The exhibition explores the broad variety of what is known as «turquerie» — Turkish style in Russian and European art. «Turquerie» united more than 500 precious items: paintings, graphics, decorative and applied art objects, even theater sets. Starting from the peculiarities of Russia-Turkey relations, the exposition opens up the oriental dimension of domestic art.
We divided the exposition in several thematic areas. Thus, the exhibition hall called «Picturesque Constantinople» presents powerful pieces of Russian art and eastern rarities. «Journey Through Taurida» greets visitors with the views of castles and mountain ranges, Crimean palaces and manors from the Romantic Era. «Joy In Battle» unites rare samples of weapons and military art. «Fashion a la turque» and «Turkish keyf» are the spaces of luxury and leisure — with oriental rugs, patterned fabrics and headscarves, hookahs and pipes, pictures of ladies in turbans.
Our key design feature were the arched shape of the passageways between exhibition halls, as well as oriental elongated windows. We chose two main exposition colors: red — for love and passion, female color, and green — for Islam itself, male color. The halls were interconnected in both design and storytelling; they all united in versatile story of love, reveries, attles, journeys and adventures.