Topeka venue adds luster

Local, Russian organizers of exhibit improve upon previous showings of artifacts

Last Modified:
11:41 p.m. 10/15/2002

By Bill Blankenship
The Capital-Journal

Often, the difference between a meal and a feast isn't the food but the way it is presented.

The Kansas International Museum served up a spectacular banquet of Russian art, history and culture Tuesday when "Czars: 400 Years of Imperial Grandeur" opened as the inaugural exhibit in the new museum at West Ridge Mall.

Using the same 267 artifacts, the same display cases and the same architectural features from "Czars' " first and only other American stop -- in Memphis, Tenn. -- the team of curators from Moscow and Topeka somehow managed to make the show even more spectacular.

Those who saw "Czars" in Memphis as part of the Wonders series of special exhibitions at the Pyramid Arena agreed Tuesday that the presentation in Topeka was superior. Bigger galleries, better lighting and a cutting-edge audio guide system were among the improvements cited.

Achieving the new heights was due in great part to standing on the shoulders of the Wonders' staff followed by exchanging ideas on what could be improved, said Betty Simecka, president and chief executive officer of Cultural Exhibitions and Events Inc., the chief organizer of "Czars."

Igor Komarov, the head of the Russian curatorial team, agreed, saying dozens and dozens of e-mails about proposed changes in the exhibit were sent between Topeka and Moscow during the five months "Czars" spent in Memphis.

Speaking through an interpreter, Komarov said he and the other Russian curators have come to regard the objects in "Czars" almost as people. Each has its own story and personality.

While the show in Memphis was great, Komarov said in Topeka the 267 Russian "visitors" all were "in the right place with the right setting."

An example of one change made between Memphis and Topeka is how the coronation robe of Empress Maria Alexandrovna is displayed in the Kansas International Museum. At Wonders, the fur-trimmed gold brocade robe was exhibited in a smaller case, preventing visitors from fully appreciating the expanse of the 12.3-foot-long train. In Topeka, the opulence and size of the robe is evident.

Amelekhina Svetlana, the curator of the wardrobe items in the exhibit, said 900 ermine pelts were used to make the empress' robe for the 1856 coronation of her husband, Emperor Alexander II. The source of the fur is made obvious by its dozens of furry tassels, which are the black-tipped tails of the ermine, a Russian weasel, whose coat is short and brown in summer but turns lush and white in winter.

The KIM layout also includes a throne room that wasn't found at Wonders. In it, visitors can get a close-up look at a czar's throne, one of only two to have survived from the reign of Emperor Paul I. The throne room includes a massive portrait of Paul I that the Russian curators said was a marvel of art conservation simply because of the painstaking work that progressed square millimeter by square millimeter on a canvas that measures just over 10 feet in height and more than 6 1/2 feet in width.

The throne room also contains Paul I's Maltese crown, which along with two Fabergé eggs, are the most precious items in "Czars."

Those objects and the others at KIM are better lit than at Wonders, something Simecka credited to Greg Inkmann, the Topekan who designed the lighting scheme. The bigger galleries give more room for visitors to congregate around exhibits without impeding traffic through the museum.

The Topeka museum also was able to take advantage of new technology in a system of audio guides developed by a German firm, Sennheiser Electronic Corp. Museum visitors wear earphones attached to a Sennheiser guidePORT, which automatically begins playing a description of an artifact when it picks up a signal from a sensor attached to the display case.

The voice on the audio guide is that of Bill Kurtis, whose reporting in Topeka on the 1966 tornado launched his career as a reporter and producer of documentary programs on A&E and other cable television networks.

Alexey Levykin, a high-ranking official with the Moscow Kremlin Museums from which the 267 artifacts in "Czars" are borrowed, said he wasn't surprised at all by the degree of cooperation and desire for excellence the Russian team found in Topeka.

Levykin was in Topeka previously with "Treasures of the Czars," a 1995 exhibit of Russian artifacts displayed in a temporary museum carved out of what would become the Shawnee County sheriff's portion of the Law Enforcement Center in downtown Topeka.

"This town knows Russian history better than any place in the United States," Levykin said at the exhibit ribbon-cutting ceremony.

"Czars" is planned to be the first of a series of annual exhibitions Simecka says will be "blockbusters." Those future exhibits will come from other parts of the world beside Russia, but the Russian curators were asked if Topeka someday wants to stage a third Russian show, were there enough spectacular things left in their museum to mount an exhibit on par with "Treasures" and "Czars"?

The Russians laughed.

"We have lots of objects," Levykin said, "and lots of ideas."

Exhibit
"Czars: 400 Years of Imperial Grandeur" is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily through March 15 at the Kansas International Museum at West Ridge Mall. Tickets, which are $18 ($16 for seniors 60 and older; $8 for youths 5 to 14; and free for children 4 and younger), can be purchased by calling 357-4000 or toll-free, (866) 357-2927.

©Copyright 2002 Morris Digital Works and The Topeka Capital-Journal.