The pictures were painted by me, but do not belong to me. “Art is now in second place after the drug business in terms of financial component,” - Anatoly Krivolap “It’s a dark night in the city, but in the village it’s... bright”
An artist must be poor, hungry and lead a riotous lifestyle - all this is not about the painter Anatoly Krivolap. “There are simply artists in life. They have a pose, eye-catching clothes, a special facial expression. You look and see: this is an artist, but they are artists more than artists. And this is also cool, among them there may be good craftsmen, but this is a different style,” reflects one of the most sought-after and most expensive domestic contemporary painters.
Krivolap’s own style is denim shorts and a shirt, which is how he greets guests at his house in the village of Zasupoevka, not far from Yagotin. The 66-year-old artist has been living and working there for many years; he doesn’t go to Kyiv very often and only on special occasions.
Search for harmony
“How is my everyday life going? Everyday way,” jokes Krivolap. His day begins at nine in the morning, after tea or coffee - several hours of work. “If I’m not in the mood to go to the studio, then I get into the car and drive around the neighborhood, observing,” says the painter. He has a soft spot for sports cars, but on rural roads he prefers a massive SUV. Sometimes the car is replaced by a bicycle and a swim in Lake Supoy, on the shore of which Crookedpaw’s house stands. Then - a full-time working day, the artist can stand at the canvas for eight hours straight. In the evening - relax in a hammock, here Crookedpaw watches the sunset, how the clouds change color, and the rising of the moon. Then everything he sees is transferred to the canvas.
“When you start a picture, it pulls you in like a magnet. I worked, then rested for an hour, swam - and again went to the workshop, looked, corrected it. And so on all the time until you bring it to mind,” explains his creative method Crookedpaw. Sometimes the picture turns out even at the sketch stage, and it turns out even better than planned. And sometimes it takes years to return to the canvas. “To be specific, from two hours to thirteen years,” the artist clarifies. “This is working with conventional colors, which should convey lighting, space, and my personal state.”
An obligatory item in the artist’s working day schedule is an evening check of the work done during the day. “When it gets dark, I turn on the light and watch. If I don't like how a painting looks under artificial light, I redo it. In the morning I look again at what happened. In daylight and artificial light, colors are perceived differently, but harmony should always be maintained. After all, all museums work with artificial lighting, and we spend most of our time at home with him,” explains Krivolap. If harmony is not maintained, the painting will look dark, and the colors will not convey the mood, or “state,” as the artist calls it, that the author intended for the work.
Neither when Krivolap painted abstractions, nor before or after, was the artist interested in reviews of his work, positive or negative. “Once I decided on my own style, I was constantly rejected by people,” he says. - Recently, at an exhibition, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk came up to me and said: “I really want your work, I like it, but I can’t, it exhausts me, takes away my strength.” And that’s normal, perception is always personal.”
With its own signature style - expressive landscapes painted bright colors on large-scale canvases, - Krivolap decided in the early 1990s. Before that, he managed to experiment with in different directions, among his works there are both classical still lifes and nude portraits, then for a decade and a half the artist painted abstract paintings. “And when I felt that my hand was working, but everything inside was standing still, I realized that I was doing formal things, I felt uneasy,” the artist recalls. Over the decades of his artistic career, Crookedpaw had several serious creative crises, then he dropped everything and alone rethought his work. To wait out the latest crisis, Krivolap bought a dacha. “At first I looked closely, then I began to write sketches,” says the artist. - I have always painted landscapes, but before they were a warm-up for me before abstraction. And then I saw the moon rising, noticed what color it was, how nature and its condition were changing. You will never feel this in the city.” Crookedpaw's fascination with landscapes continues to this day. Now he is thinking about how to transfer a rainbow to the canvas, and plans to paint more autumn landscapes, he is interested in their complex color and minimalism.
In March 2016, the most successful Ukrainian artist Anatoly Krivolap opened a large exhibition of paintings as part of the CultprostirHub project " Museum collection". "Maestro of the Brush" presented more than 60 paintings. Among them are those kept in private collections, and completely new ones - landscapes of the Ukrainian Carpathians. One of significant events As part of the exhibition, there was a presentation of the Anatoly Krivolap Prize, which the artist founded to support talented youth. Anatoly Krivolap heads the rating of the most successful Ukrainian artists. From 2010 to 2015 on domestic and international auctions 18 paintings by him were purchased for the amount of 771,180 USD.
Anatoly Krivolap at the opening of the painting exhibition "Museum Collection"
We talked with Anatoly Dmitrievich about the creation of the Museum of Modern Art in Ukraine, what mission art fulfills in Ukraine during the war in the East, support for young artists, as well as the dreams of the most valuable domestic painter.
Opening of Anatoly Krivolap's exhibition "Museum Collection"
Anatoly Dmitrievich, are you nervous before opening a new project for you?
I always worry before an exhibition. After all, the exhibition “Museum Collection” for me is a kind of gratitude to Ukrainian collectors. Since the 15th century, when art was only sacred. Collectors became devotees to popularize many unknown artists. For 25 years, not a single museum in Ukraine has purchased paintings. In addition, our country still does not have a Museum of Modern Art. In fact, Ukrainian art rests solely on collectors. That is why my exhibition calls on us all to unite into a club in order to ultimately resolve the global issue of creating a modern platform in our country, a museum of private collections. Despite the fact that Ukraine is currently going through difficult times, I believe that now is the time for this.
Now, in addition to paintings from private collections, you also present new works. Tell us about them.
Yes, there are new works. I recently returned from the Carpathians. I lived there for a month, looked through all the states of nature: from winter to spring and almost to summer. For the first time, I lived there for more than a month and was able to work on a topic that was new to me. In general, now I am presenting collection works. Of course, this is the minimum part that this space can accommodate. I hope that when a museum of private collections appears, it will be possible to demonstrate the entire body of work. Also, I'm wondering what it all looks like in frames, which I've never made. I just now became interested in this issue. After all, after the sale, the painting continues to live with the collector, and this is a different taste, interior, place, framing.
You are called the “Maestro of Color”. Do you agree with this statement?
You know, it's difficult to evaluate yourself. I've worked with color all my life. It’s hard to even explain how unpredictable it is for me. Color is a matter of life, and I don’t intend to evaluate how well it turns out.
After selling paintings at auctions, did you have to raise prices in Ukraine?
The fact is that this situation arose in 1992. Paintings were bought abroad, but in Ukraine no one was ready for such prices. The situation has changed since 2005. Now there are a lot of my paintings among Ukrainian collectors. Of course, I don’t set the highest prices, because I sell paintings at an adequate price, more relaxed, I would say.
Tell us about the process of creating a new work.
You know, creativity is such unsolved mystery. No one will ever be able to define it. First, the picture appears in front of you, and then the process of its implementation takes place. Sometimes, on the contrary, you just start writing. You work for a long time. And then suddenly you see what you imagined before in a completely different state, in which you could not even imagine. I call this a special condition. I also just have a professional state when I paint a normal, ordinary picture. But those happy occasions when there are some special works, they are unexpected for me.
Are there any paintings that you personally don’t like?
If I don’t like something, I immediately redo it. There are better works. I can return to them often if I see improvements. But I don’t accept pictures that I wouldn’t accept myself. I am my own artistic council.
Have you thought about what else you can do to amaze Ukraine and the world? Will there be something more brilliant than has already been written?
I repeat, this is a phenomenon of creativity. He either comes or he doesn’t. It cannot be planned. You can plan a professional series of works, but a phenomenon cannot. I will write as I have written all my life. I’ll draw, and God willing.
How and what do you get inspired by?
The main thing for me all my life is paint. For the first time I saw oil paints, when I was probably ten years old. Their smell captivated me, it was like a drug. I sat in art class, smelled it, inhaled it. It was in me. Now all I need to do is see the paint and that’s it, I’m included in the work. I don’t need any stimulants or doping. Looking at the paint, I already see something, I have a presentiment. The palette of colors is so rich, there is so much in it. Just touching it is enough - it already excites you to creativity, to work. It is fantastic.
How do you look for subjects for future paintings?
I pass through myself the state that is recorded in my subconscious. This is a complete relaxation system. And when I start writing, I suddenly feel that I am entering a state that is familiar to me, which I have lived and felt. Therefore, all that remains is to formalize the feelings in color compositions.
Tell us about the prize for young artists that you are currently organizing?
Remembering the history of art: talented youth who studied at art academies were very often poor. Sometimes students didn’t even have a place to live. The professors took them to their homes. There have always been prizes at art academies. Most talented artists They sent me to study in Italy, Paris - this is such a global practice. In Ukraine, unfortunately, there is no such award. I wanted to stimulate students' academic learning. This is the basis for the art of defining best productions or interesting works. A team of specialists will work on this, and I will allocate funds. So that Ukrainian artists can also see Parisian and Munich museums. After all, I know from myself that this is the dream of every student. I hope that I will be able to persuade collectors to increase the financial premium. I allocate 5 thousand dollars for the project. The winner will receive a ticket to the museum from me, and the hotel will also be paid for.
Anatoly Krivolap at the opening of his exhibition "Museum Collection"
Which young artist do you follow? Are there people who are truly worthy of attention?
Of course, I take a closer look... However, I still think that this is none of my business. An artist is always subjective, so I don’t want to influence. For this there are art critics, professors, people who do this professionally. I don’t want to even subconsciously impose my stereotypes on this issue.
Has the war in Ukraine influenced your work?
Art is divided into social and simply art. Contemporary is social art, which responds to all events in society. And there is art that the artist does, as if without getting into this topic. Of course, as a person, as an artist, I worry. I see how everything that happens in our country is reflected in my new works. You can compare the work that happened before and after the war... It has a very strong influence, because a person is not a machine. Especially creative person.
In these difficult times, what mission should art fulfill?
Its own... The same mission that it has been performing since the very beginning of humanity, since the appearance rock paintings. Times change, everything changes. Art is not politics. Art is something that brings people together, allows us to better understand and feel each other. Aggression does not affect those people who are well versed in art.
How would you describe it yourself? own style? How did you come to him?
The walk was difficult and long. The landscape, as a style, is minimalist. And the landscape, which conveys nature, is contemplative, meditative. I simply take spots of color and combine them in a way that minimizes the images. I’m only making a hint in order to dissolve in this color and experience the feelings that it evokes. This is roughly how it can be explained.
Many Ukrainian artists go to the West. Why are you staying in Ukraine?
I can’t imagine my life without Ukraine. Nostalgia is innate to me. When I work abroad, I simply can’t stand it there for more than three days. Of course, I can afford to live in another country, but why? I think our country is the best, but some aspects are not very successful. Ukraine has never been lucky with power. At all times. We have everything: land, people, but unfortunately it doesn’t work out with power. When this barrier is overcome, then Ukraine will be completely different. A successful state will be built. I want my children and grandchildren to live here. And I don’t condemn those who come from Ukraine, but I don’t understand either. No matter what, I’m sure our country is very interesting. Everything abroad is already dead and not at all interesting to me. I couldn't work there. I associate my creativity exclusively with Ukraine.
What doesn't suit you about Ukraine?
What is happening now is a movement that does not know where it will lead. The movement is defining. Only time will tell which direction we will go. It's the same in art.
You said that you worked in the Carpathians for a month. Managed to solve color code Carpathians?
I'm still on my way to this. I will feel when the puzzle comes together completely. I think I'll go there again soon. Sometimes it takes a long time to get into the right state. Traveled to Egypt many times. I went there twice a year. It wasn’t until my fourth year that things started to work out for me. There was a shock in the subconscious. I started writing. Suddenly it dawned on me that here was sky and water that had never known snow or frost. I realized that they cannot be written in blue, as we write here. I started painting the sky like sand. I came out with a good series that had nothing to do with Ukrainian landscapes. The Carpathians should be a steppe familiar to me since childhood.
I know that you are still working on painting the temple.
Yes! It was an unexpected experience for me. I agreed on the condition that it would be complete creative freedom. Otherwise I wouldn't have gone for it. Here I am uncontrollable and dangerous. They brought me an icon. I rewrote it. Of course, I didn’t deviate from the canons, but I framed everything in pure color.
Maestro, what is your hobby?
I love cars... I drive 200 kilometers or more. I can drive like this at night and even during the day if there is space or I’m in a hurry. My car is a Porsche. This is a beast. A car that is designed for flight. I get the same adrenaline when I paint.
The world art market is increasingly interested in Ukrainian artists. Their paintings are not yet on the list of the most expensive, but the potential is great, experts say. We invite you to familiarize yourself with the most expensive work contemporary Ukrainian artists.
Artist: Anatoly Krivolap
Picture: “Horse. Evening"
Cost: $186,200
The work of the Ukrainian artist was auctioned at Phillips in 2013. Starting price for the canvas “Horse. The evening “was 76 thousand dollars. According to the results of the auction, it became the second most expensive among those sold, after the work of the American Keith Haring. The canvases of Anatoly Krivolap are recognizable due to their monochrome and bright colors. “Improving over the years acute feeling colors, the artist became known for his latest nostalgic thoughts about “The Breadbasket of Europe,” says the Phillips auction catalog. The canvas was painted in the village of Zasupoevka. According to the artist, it was especially difficult to choose the shades. Although when Crookedpaw said that he had mastered more than 50 shades of red, this challenge was special. The horse had to not stand out too much from the background and at the same time not merge with it. For sale at auction the painting was in private collection in Europe, and also exhibited at the Mystetsky Arsenal in 2012. The painting is part of an open series of works begun in 2005. It includes 14 more paintings.
Artist: Vasily Tsagolov
Painting: “Who is Hearst Afraid of”
Cost: $100,000
Vasily Tsagolov is a Kiev artist, well known abroad. He actively responds to many trends in society and art. He did not ignore Hirst, as one of the most famous, commercially successful artists in the world. The main theme of Hirst’s work is death, an application for its philosophical and religious understanding. Tsagolov subtly and ironically plays on this moment in the film “Who is Hearst Afraid of?” In 2009, the PinchukArtCentre hosted an exhibition of Damien Hirst. At the same time, Vasily Tsagolov exhibited this painting of his in the Kyiv gallery “Collection”. On the canvas, a cowboy with pistols in both hands walks forward, shooting left and right, leaving behind cemetery crosses. The image of a gangster, which occupies the entire space of the picture, painted from a lower angle, dominates the viewer so much that it is perceived as an allegory of commercial art, imposing on us its tastes, way of thinking and lifestyle. The work was purchased by a Ukrainian collector.
Artist Alexander Roitburd
Painting: “Farewell, Caravaggio”
Cost: $97,179
Odessa resident Alexander Roytburd is one of the founders of Ukrainian postmodernism. His works are exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art. “Farewell Caravaggio” was sold in 2009. The painting was painted under the impression of the theft from the Odessa Museum of Western and oriental art Caravaggio’s famous painting “The Kiss of Judas, or the Taking of Christ into custody.” The canvas became the beginning of a series of monumental works “Roytburd vs Karavazhdo”. The exhibition of the same name was held in April-May 2010 in the Kyiv gallery “Collection”. According to the artist, similar game with classic masterpieces helps to reveal new meaning in them.
Artist Ilya Chichkan
Picture: “It”
Cost: $79,500
Representative New wave in Ukrainian art Ilya Chichkan is famous all over the world. His most recognizable works involve the representation of famous people in the form of monkeys. In the summer of 2008, Ilya Chichkan’s painting “It” was sold in London. The sale took place at Phillips de Pury - the third most important after Christie's and Sotheby's auction house. This was a secondary sale: the painting was put up for auction by a collector, not the artist himself. “I didn’t get anything from this,” Chichkan said. In fact, I got a reputation. If a painting is exhibited by a collector and it is sold, it means that its author has commercial potential.
Artist Oleg Tistol
Painting: “Coloring book”
Cost: $53,900
The work of the artist Oleg Tistol is classified as neo-baroque. His painting “Coloring Book” was auctioned at Phillips in 2012. The buyer wished to remain anonymous. The picture was created at the Ukrainian Fashion Week event. During fashion designer Anastasia Ivanova's fashion show, guests drew on canvas with colored markers.
Category TOPIC OF THE ISSUE
We came to the artist on a hot summer day and immediately felt the contrast with the hot bustle big city. One hundred kilometers from Kyiv, a magical landscape, birds circling over the lake, a cozy living room and the leisurely flow of an interesting conversation... This is the ecosystem in which Krivolap’s works are born, and it is here that the main motives become clear newest series artist. This is the window from which he watches the sunset over the lake, these are the houses, cattle and other elements of rural pastoral that appear on his canvases of recent years.
Krivolap received an academic education, but for a long time he studied exclusively abstract art. Several years ago, the artist began to actively introduce realistic elements into his works, and today, skillfully balancing on the edge of abstraction, he creates meditative landscapes in a recognizable hot color scheme.
Anatoly Krivolap. Photo: Maxim Belousov
The bold use of active, often open colors is one of Anatoly Krivolap’s signature techniques. His sense of color is close to the folk one - we find the same daring combinations in traditional Ukrainian clothes, decor of scarves and in applied arts. In the artist's studio, along with dozens of finished and unfinished works different years lie several rows: in the contrasting multi-colored stripes of these creations of a rural genius is the strength that a modern artist so needs so as not to get lost in the midst of numerous borrowed “-isms.” Modernism, abstractionism, etc. - contemporary artist cannot break out of the framework of “branding”, which is extremely necessary in a world oversaturated with information. But beyond the usual markings lies the concept genetic code— and it was this code that found its vivid expression in the work of Anatoly Krivolap.
At sunset
He is one of the most successful Ukrainian artists, he has great amount fans and collectors who collect the artist “in depth”. Krivolap's works are sold at record prices at the world's leading auctions and art fairs, and are exhibited in all prestigious Ukrainian museums. And what is striking about the artist is his modesty - not only in everyday life, where he is far from the “New Russian” craving for excessive luxury, but also in his work. Anatoly Krivolap is not one of the creators who actively do PR for themselves in parallel with their main activity. You rarely see him at social gatherings. He doesn’t even come to creative events often. The wild beginning of the 90s is far behind us, when the artist, together with other masters of domestic non-figurative painting - Tiberiy Silvashi, Alexander Zhivotkov, Nikolai Babak, Nikolai Krivenko and Mark Geiko, was part of the association of the modernist movement “Picturesque Reserve”, argued about the ways of development of modern art, etc. Now Krivolap continues to be friends with people from the “Reserve”, but in his work he chose individual path. But the artist’s interest in the problems of the evolution of art and the current domestic art process does not fade. In March 2011, Krivolap published his manifesto on the website of the ART UKRAINE magazine, where he briefly expressed dissatisfaction with the current state of contemporary art. This publication became one of the most visited articles in our online version and clearly aroused widespread public interest. So, we offer you a continuation of our dialogue with the living classic.
March
— Today you are rightfully called a classic of Ukrainian fine art. But where did your passion for painting begin?
- It probably happened by accident. I was born in Yagotin, it was the post-war era, no roads, no radio, no television. When autumn arrived, at five it was already night, there was nothing to do, and we, the children, were not yet asleep. And I started drawing. I always thought that I had been drawing since I was ten years old, but then my mother told me that I had been drawing horses since early childhood. And I got so carried away that I was not interested in anything else.
— You started with figurative painting, you attended school in Soviet time, studied at the school, later at the art institute. When did interest in abstraction begin?
- That's quite long story. Around the age of 20, I first heard that there was such a movement in world art as abstraction, and some picture from the catalog simply burned through me. Before that, I planned for myself that I would be a sophisticated colorist like Serov. At the institute, I specifically asked to see Puzyrkov, he was the only truly academic teacher. That is, I did everything to avoid being attracted to abstract art. But you can’t escape yourself.
Evening field
— When did you start doing non-figurative painting?
— You could say that at the same time I was doing it all the time.
My serious acquaintance with art took place in Riga, in 1965-67, when I served in the army, but had the opportunity to go to exhibitions. In the Baltics there was no such censorship as in Ukraine; everything could be seen there, including abstraction. Therefore, when I returned to Kyiv, I studied with an eye to experimenting with color. But even when I was doing academic work, I was dissatisfied with what I had done, to the point of rage - I didn’t know what the reason was, but I understood that I was doing something wrong.
It took almost 20 years to find myself. I worked as if in a laboratory, kept diaries, experimented. There was a serious problem - harmonizing bright colors, and I tried to solve it. There are many laws in painting, for example, the main law of the academy: “More dirt - more connection", then everything can be harmonized using whitewash. But to take pure, flashy colors and make them match perfectly - for this it was necessary to find some non-standard approaches. I have always been fascinated by bright colors, but at first I could not harmonize them. And I realized that I need to make an effort to cope with such a task.
Sunset on the lake
- This difficult path apparently required remarkable courage from you...
“I don’t think it’s courage, I just had no choice.” I always knew that creative work- this is a flight, and for me, until I found my way, there was no flight. The importance of color is intuitively felt by folk art, in particular Ukrainian, which very often combines open, bright colors. I have always been surprised that with this variety of colors in folk art the palette of Russian old-school academic masters has always been so poor.
— Despite such a tangible connection with folk tradition, you are one of the pioneers of contemporary art in Ukraine; The “Picturesque Reserve” association, of which you were a member, was in the early 90s the flagship of contemporary art, which replaced socialist realism. How did it happen that you took this particular path?
- I have never left it, I have never been Soviet artist. I graduated from the institute, completed the norm for the Union of Artists in two years, and at that time it was a rare case to make three republican exhibitions in such a period. I could have joined the youth section of the Union of Artists, but I didn’t go there.
Lake. Morning
- What have you been doing all this time?
- Experimented. The pictorial material led to some searches and new steps. There were no revolutions in my work, it was just evolution.
— Interest in non-figurative art was rather characteristic of the modernist era, and then world art went further. When you were actively involved in abstraction, there were completely different, postmodern landmarks in Europe. After the collapse of the USSR, did you experience the trauma of know-it-all, characteristic of the Russian humanitarian intelligentsia?
“I believe that art is selfish, and everyone should live their destiny as it is.” I was always so immersed in my own relationship with color that I wasn’t even particularly interested in all these movements. Look how many times painting has been buried, but it is alive. And as long as there are paints, as long as there are people born with the gift of communication through paints, there will be painting. Even ours domestic artists, who quickly abandoned their brushes in the 90s to play with photos and videos, subsequently returned to painting.
Near the lake
— Were you interested in experiments with new media?
— For twenty years I looked very carefully at new media, went to exhibitions, but this art did not touch me and does not touch me. I think that artists are divided into groups: some have a very rich imagination, they usually “invent worlds”, paint complex compositional figures, some are probably more capable of acting, self-PR, others see what technologically interesting things are, and still others he's good for jokes. And if a person best language which he masters by nature is painting, then there is no point in breaking with it. Another thing is that, indeed, new times require a new form.
— You are an active cultural tourist: you often travel abroad, visit leading art exhibitions?
- Moderate. I just don't have that need. I think it’s important to get the maximum amount of information in your youth, and then the path goes to yourself.
Lake. Sunrise of the month
— You recently became the most expensive artist in Ukraine, your works are also in the National art museum, and in other leading meetings, that is creative career has developed. Do you feel like a meter?
- I am a person who always doubts, so there is no such feeling. And regarding the fact that I am expensive... I was the most expensive initially, that is, since 1990. Since then I have only raised prices all the time. I had a contract in Germany, my work was sold back in 1992 for 11 thousand marks (87 x 105). When I arrived in Kyiv, everyone here gave works for 200 dollars, and my works were already worth thousands.
— And today, where do people buy you more - do you work for a domestic or a Western collector?
— For the first 15 years I had no clients in Ukraine at all, and in the last 5 years almost all of my collectors are from Ukraine.
Evening shore
— Doesn’t it tire you to be present at all the events where your work is featured?
— I have never even been present at the opening of my own exhibitions. It’s torture for me to survive the discovery. Actually, my position has always been this: an artist should be known by his work, and not by sight.
— How fast do you work? Are you able to meet the demand for you? For example, for many artists entering the global market, this is very significant issue, because their production speed does not coincide with the frantic demand for them, and the queue for their creativity can line up for several years.
- I think it's a question of technology. In such cases, as a rule, an artificial situation is created, a stir. But this does not mean that the artist has no works. I know of cases where an artist was forbidden to paint so that he would be more expensive.
As for me, sometimes paintings last for years, and sometimes it can appear in an hour. large canvas. This does not depend on my desire, nor on necessity, nor on anything - it is pure chance.
Ukrainian motive. Hut
— Do you follow events in contemporary Ukrainian art, its development, and subsequent generations?
- Certainly. But I am more in the role of an observer and in anticipation.
— So you still haven’t found like-minded people among your young colleagues?
— I would really like to, but I haven’t seen it yet. Contemporary art has an extremely wide spectrum, and in this spectrum I have not yet seen any interesting solutions. As for exhibitions, contemporary art must still be very clearly tied to life, and when there is no such connection, it is more like a game.
Polonina Carpathians
— Is the collective model of artistic reflection and understanding of reality relevant for you?
- No, those times are behind us. In human terms I have a lot good relations, but in a creative way... In the early 90s there was a period when we, the artists of the “Picturesque Reserve” circle, were very enriched by creative communication. But then we separated, each going his own path. This is fine.
— Western art system is designed in such a way that the artist, having reached a certain degree of success, a certain age, begins to teach the next generation. Do you teach somewhere?
— I tried to teach. I even trained several artists, and color solutions they are easy to recognize. It turned out to be some kind of cloning. And then I generally felt that I myself was starting to do something that I didn’t want to do, and I realized that these experiments needed to be shut down.
Evening on the lake
- But someone has to teach people!
- Mediocre artists should teach... They provide the foundation, the foundation, and then the person must follow on his own. It’s easier, of course, to take and adopt someone else’s vision, but that’s how good artist you won't. Therefore, I see no point in teaching. The strong will survive on their own and find their own language. Artistic language- this is the code. An artist encodes with images, a poet with words, but feelings and thoughts are encoded, not ideas. I find it very funny when people talk about ideas in art. The idea can be in science, philosophy, because there is a discovery there. I don’t know a single philosopher among artists.
— How interested are you in the history of art? With which artists can you conduct a dialogue through time or space?
— This is a standard situation for all artists: everyone goes through almost the entire history of art in order to come to themselves. At each stage I had some kind of sample with whom I could carry on a conversation.
— What thoughts and feelings do you live today, what does your art breathe?
— I returned to such an outsider in art as landscape. The landscape, which, in fact, made both the revolution and the evolution of all art, was practically thrown out of its borders from the beginning of the twentieth century. I always wrote sketches and landscapes for support, for receipts - and recently I realized that I became interested in this as a big project.
— How long ago did this return take place?
— I have been painting landscapes all my life. When I was making abstractions, I was also making landscapes at the same time, even in the 90s. Then I saw that I couldn’t raise the bar higher than the hut, the Ukrainian motif, so I went into abstraction, which opened up completely different horizons, new sensations. But when I moved to live here, in Zasupoevka, I wanted something truly Ukrainian, maybe even Gogolian. And I meaningfully returned to landscape painting.
— Your landscape borders on abstraction, sometimes you can’t guess whether it’s abstract or figurative.
- Yes, I remain faithful to abstraction, because I believe that this moment abstraction is the most interesting thing that humanity has created in art.
— Distinctive feature of your works - very active, original purple, on the verge of red-blue-lilac... Is this just a tribute to the beauty of the sunset or a manifestation of some specific internal state?
- This internal state. After all, I don’t paint the landscape itself, but create an emotional space.
— What does this color mean to you?
- This is probably timeless. Somehow, since childhood, I have not felt time, I have never perceived reality as it is, I saw everything through my own feelings.
— Aren’t you afraid of not keeping up with time? Miss some important aspect of the present?
— The contemporary direction reminds me of a marathon - people come from all over the world and run, but this is all a temporary thing, today the marathon is in Sydney, tomorrow in Germany. Look how quickly all these directions are changing. Art is such a ship, huge and quiet, which sails strictly along its own course, while boats and boats scurry around. In art you have to live with your own feelings, thoughts and your own world, otherwise you will simply participate in some ridiculous marathon. Who cares, he runs. I have no interest in living like this.
-What remains when time stops?
— For one catalog I wrote that silence is the meeting of eternity with everyday life, I think that this phrase may be your answer. In principle, the same sun, the same greenery existed on Earth two and three thousand years ago, and artists did something then, but they always saw the same thing. Everything in the world is stable, but there is simply a change in interests, perceptions and attitudes. Everyone must find their own way.
—You have such an introverted view of art. Is this due to the influence of religion? Are you a believer?
— I didn’t go too deep into these questions; such things are felt on an intuitive level. I've been working with paints all my life, and what you do with them can really make a believer out of an unbeliever. When I started, I was very self-confident, I thought that I could easily do it the way I wanted. But no matter how much I did, nothing worked. This went on for a very long time until I intuitively jumped. And while working where it was necessary to take it with gray, I began to take it with yellow, or blue, or red - and then I wondered how this could be. I will teach color and harmony even to a bear, but this does not mean giving birth to an artist... I am just a pipe - something goes through me, and I embody it. And this state is probably the happiest, but such moments in creative life, unfortunately, are infrequent.
— You settled in a wonderful place, in nature, doing what you love. What else interests you, how do you live, besides painting? Are you interested, for example, in politics?
- How a common person I see everything, but, despite my frantic temperament, I don’t allow myself to get too caught up in such things, otherwise I simply won’t be able to work normally. I believe that doing a good job is the best political position.
— “The world caught me, but didn’t catch me,” as Skovoroda wrote?..
— To a certain extent, yes. I lived my life only with work, and all my interest was always in it. Everything outside of it is, perhaps, 10% of my life. I didn’t even notice how the children grew up, how I lived this time.
— Did your descendants become artists?
- Daughter. My son is a driver, like my father, because I come from a family of railway workers. My daughter began to draw from childhood, she has an extraordinary gift for color, what I learned through work, experiments, experiments, she has by nature. Whether this is good or bad, time will tell. Because it is obstacles that do their good work, in the sense that a person either retreats, or, conversely, becomes strong and develops the character necessary for an artist, position and everything else.
Ukrainian painter Anatoly Krivolap recently confirmed for the third time the title of the most dear artist Ukraine. His painting “Horse. Evening” was sold at Phillips for 186.2 thousand dollars, given that before this experts valued the work at 70-100 thousand.
Before this there are two more paintings - “Horse. Night" and "Steppe" were sold in 2011 for 124.3 thousand dollars and 98.5 thousand dollars, respectively.
Anatoly Krivolap is rightfully considered a classic of Ukrainian art. Today, his works can be seen at the recently opened exhibition of Ukrainian art “Distillation with the Hour: Mystery of the 1960s - the beginning of the 2000s” at the National Art Museum in Kyiv.The artist lives and works outside of Kyiv, in the small village of Zasupoevka and rarely gives interviews, but made an exception for Buro 24/7.
Steppe
Tell us the story of your creation last picture"Horse. Evening", which was bought at Phillips auction.
Near my house there is a small park in which two horses graze on the opposite side. One of them is orange. During sunset, the last purple rays absorb the colors with their light, and the horse, dissolving in this radiance, seems unreal. Is it possible to pass by without noticing this?
Horse. Night
How can the commercialization of art and the pure creativity of the artist coexist?
From my experience, I know that the goal " pure creativity“Precisely commerce, and the most expensive one at that. These concepts are essentially inseparable, it’s just that some people manage to combine them, while others do not. I agree with the expression “if a work is sold cheaply, it is commerce, and if it is expensive, it is art.” The irony of this phrase is probably close to reality.
Do you think that art in Ukraine is beginning to at a slow pace reborn?
It's a difficult question. On the one side, modern Art is gaining momentum, on the other hand, we are losing what has always been our strong aspect - a good academic school. And this cannot but worry, since it is not clear in which direction Ukrainian art will move next.
Horse. Evening
Is there a future for young artists in Ukraine? What advice would you give them?
New “cadres” that appear sooner or later go their own way, and, based on the fact that art has always existed in parallel with humanity, the young Ukrainian generation has a future as part of world culture. What advice can you give to art university students? They are faced with specific tasks: the experience of teachers, of course, helps to become a professional, but as an artist, everyone shapes themselves. In this regard, I would like to recall the words of Steve Jobs: “You need to listen to your intuition and live by your own mind.”
