About the exposition restructuring in the State Tretyakov Gallery in the thirties of the XX century

The article tells about the unsuccessful attempt of exposition restructuring in the Tretyakov Gallery in the 1930s in accordance with the method of “vulgar sociologism”. From the “vulgar sociological” point of view various writers and artists of the past, who were not revolutionaries, considered as the servants of the ruling classes, and the goal was to unmask flagitious contents of their art. The process of “Marxist” restructuring in the Tretyakov Gallery started from the “Experimental Marxist Exposition” opened in 1930. Besides paintings, the exposition demonstrated objects and photos of everyday life, supplied with detailed explanations. But though the absurd of new exposing conception was obvious to everyone it was not clear how to change it and in the same time to observe “the Marxist-Leninist doctrine”. It was the ideas of so called “sect” — a group of art and literature critics consolidated around the magazine “Literature critic”, and its leaders Mikhail Al. Lifshitz and Georg Lukach — to help to overcome the crisis in the field of art theory and museology in general and in particular in the Tretyakov Gallery.