Nonconformism in Soviet culture: origins and originality. “Bulldozer Art”: Truth and myths about the exhibition of nonconformists, which lasted no more than a minute What the nonconformists talked about

Days of free visits to the museum

Every Wednesday, entry to the permanent exhibition “Art of the 20th Century” and temporary exhibitions in ( Krymsky Val, 10) is free for visitors without a tour (except for the exhibition “Ilya Repin” and the project “Avant-garde in three dimensions: Goncharova and Malevich”).

The right to free access to exhibitions in the main building on Lavrushinsky Lane, Engineering Building, New Tretyakov Gallery, house-museum of V.M. Vasnetsov, museum-apartment of A.M. Vasnetsov is provided on the following days for certain categories of citizens:

First and second Sunday of every month:

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every Saturday - for members of large families (citizens of Russia and CIS countries).

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Visiting the museum on holidays

Dear visitors!

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The right to preferential visits The Gallery, except in cases provided for by a separate order of the Gallery management, is provided upon presentation of documents confirming the right to preferential visits to:

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Free visit right The main and temporary exhibitions of the Gallery, except in cases provided for by a separate order of the Gallery’s management, are provided to the following categories of citizens upon presentation of documents confirming the right of free admission:

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Visitors to the above categories of citizens receive admission ticket denomination "Free".

Please note that the conditions for discounted admission to temporary exhibitions may vary. Check the exhibition pages for more information.

NONCONFORMISM

50-60s "thaw". On March 1, 1953, Stalin dies. Many intellectuals of that time were very happy and decided that everything would finally be different. The country began to return to normal life after the cultural failure that occurred during the time of Stalin. Art was distinguished by monstrous conservatism. Socialist realism (based on late Peredvizhniki painting, neoclassical and 20th century sculpture as interpreted by Maillol and Bourdelle) received support. This was an effective anti-modernist strategy. For a living artistic process, this is a monstrous failure. Suppression of dissent. The heirs of everything that was most backward came to the helm of the national government. Closed period. Artists abandoned their ideas and developments. Socialist realism is completely heterogeneous, but still there was unification for the whole country. Picasso ironically said that Soviet artists must have special paint for their uniforms and boots. The individuality of the artists is not visible. In Soviet times, there was no figure of a free artist (freelancer) at all. Everything was strictly organized. Picturesque plant (like a factory). Applications for compositions were received there. A monumental plant, a sculpture plant... An order could be carried out by an artist alone, or a group could work. The artist was provided with work and the income was good. There was a complex mechanism for giving and receiving work: both outstanding figures of the plant and some invited people evaluated it. There was no proper inspiration and passion. There were a lot of tasks, so there was no time to handle all the work responsibly. There was a bank of blanks of various body parts and other things (it was possible to assemble Lenin piece by piece). In Russia, something great was always expected from an artist, but the Soviet artist was most often a conscientious hack. The art of the last years of Stalin's reign and the first works of the Thaw period do not coincide with the pathos of previous years. (tired of Stalinist art: the painting “Deuce Again” by Fyodor Reshetnikov is an anecdotal work). The right to privacy is restored.

Thaw: older generation with accumulated fatigue (the conservative art of Reshetnikov) and the younger generation, which realized the intolerability of oppression (coinciding with the beginning of a more open policy).

Passes through the 50s whole line exhibitions (Festival of Youth and Students). Abstract expressionism is amazing. There weren’t even Vrubel and Serov in the museums. A specific picture of world art was created. And so the latest art of the West falls on such an unprepared Soviet. There is nothing to compare such revelations with. The collapse of the worldview paradigm.

The creative initiative of our artists to overcome such stagnation:

ROUGH STYLE

Divided into right (commitment to the 19th century, the Wanderers) and left (Andronov, Nikonov, turning to the heritage of the pre-avant-garde and avant-garde, OST "a) directions.

Nikolai Andronov “Rafters”, 1960-1961.

Represents the declaration of a new time, a new man. Predilection for Russian impressionism. It was unthinkable for an artist of the Stalin period to abandon the completeness of a painting. People of difficult fate are depicted. Emphatically monumentalized. The form is simpler, tougher, more monumental. Emphasizes the silhouettes of the heroes. Neo-OST pictorial strategy. This is a sermon. Moral guide. (“you should be such simple builders of our future”). The atypical positioning of the figure with its back is a bold pictorial statement.

Art accessible to the masses. Hard style artists will become mainstream. The weakening of ideological oppression and general cultural openness brought to life many artists unconnected with the general art scene and with art education. Artists emerged from the newly formed bohemia (Oscar Rabin, Ilya Kabakov).

Art is divided into unrelated layers.

Vladimir Yakovlev "Cat and Bird", 1981

Reminds me of Picasso. Secondary complex. Constant of the Soviet artist. You can see how the artists are trying to bridge the gap that has arisen. Lots of quotes. Many artists remained in history as interpreters without their own individuality. And many nonconformists are wounded by this secondary nature.

The figure of a messianic figure of the sixties, a prophetic role.

Powerful cultural upsurge, but not everything is so good. At first, the authorities took them lightly, as oddities. But by the 60s. they can no longer be ignored. 1962 - exhibition “New Reality” (Yankilevsky, Unknown, etc.). A Western European correspondent accidentally visited this exhibition and wrote a short note, which was a shock for Khrushchev (in Europe everyone knows about this, but here we don’t?!). This is the wrong art being exhibited in the right environment. An exhibition dedicated to the thirtieth anniversary of the Moscow Union of Artists is being organized in Manege, where Deineka, Falk and others are shown. “New Reality” is also being put there. Our management has never visited an exhibition in such numbers. “hemorrhage in the Moscow Union of Artists”. Khrushchev faces Cézannism and other new experiments. They were nicknamed the "factory of freaks."

The next day they wrote about this exhibition on the front page of the Pravda newspaper.

Ernst Neizvestny

Sculpture “Centaur with Raised Hand”, 1962.

Had a long correspondence with Henry Moore. The main character of the creative world of the Unknown is a centaur. Part animal, part man, and part machine. There are similarities with machine tools. Particularly expressive. There are no calm ones static poses. His plastic art is influenced by Rodin, Moore and others. The idea of ​​the artist's civic duty.

"Hand of Hell" 1971

An abundance of holes in the composition.

Like a wounded human body.

he brought the forced form out of the war.

"Tree of Life"

Initially I wanted a structure of many sculptures, inside of which there would be a building. The sculptures were supposed to show the history of mankind since the beginning of time. It was mounted in a chamber version.

“Tombstone of Khrushchev” The most significant tombstone. Used color as a means of expression.

A number of monuments to victims of repression.

“Mask of Sorrow” near Magadan.

Vadim Sidur

Graduate of Stroganovka. He went through the war and was seriously wounded.

“Self-replicating machine” late 50s. The sculptural equivalent of a mechanism. Delight in front of cars gives way to horror.

“Disabled” The central part looks like a meat grinder.

GrobArt is an ironic variation of pop art.

“Man from the Coffin” (“Dead Man”) Compiled from things found in a landfill.

"Prophets" Water fittings and inflated gloves.

He works a lot as a monumental sculptor.

“Monument to those killed by bombs,” 1965

A sculptor of tragic proportions.

"Monument to those who died of love"

"Sorrow" 1972

“Monument to those killed by violence”, 1965

“Caller” Accuracy of the formal solution. The head is replaced by a powerful gesture of open palms.

Eliy Belyutin

He wrote a book about the history of furniture and was generally a successful interior designer. He set up communal creative hostels and organized exhibitions in the forest.

"Lenin's Funeral", 1962

Storyline with achievements abstract painting. The breadth of the pictorial gesture, the fantastic scope. The length of the canvas is 4 meters. Portrait recognition of Lenin. A fantastic paradox, something that cannot exist. It was easily realized on a wave of creative enthusiasm. One of the most daring and innovative opuses of the 60s in painting.

“Woman and Child” Reminds me of the late Picasso. Large format. Bold application of colors.

Art is dependent on Western art. Domestic art is always catching up. Surrealism was completely absent. Later, interest arose in him as a missed phenomenon. Although at that time it was not new at all, but in general already history.

Hulo Sooster

The closest to his art is Max Ernst. Fixed on an egg motif.

"Red Egg", 1964. rough texture and smudges.

Vladimir Yankilevsky

“Space of Experiences” 1961. “someone caught up with Miro!”

Lianozovskaya art commune. Around the Kropivnitsky family (Evgeny Rukhin, Oscar Rabin, Nemukhin, a galaxy of poets...).

Oscar Rabin

Previous artists were within the framework of the system, but he in no way corresponds with reality. In the position of an outcast.

It carries the culture of the Russian avant-garde of the Jack of Diamonds group. Failed to complete his art education. In the paintings there is “chernukha, gloomy, everyday life.”

"Passport" is the most famous and scandalous work. Reminds me of Jasper Johns (Flag). Gravitates towards the equation of the passport and the plane. It was for this work that he was expelled from the country.

In his apartment in Lianozovo, the entire unofficial artistic component of Moscow gathered. Organized the unofficial artistic life of Moscow. All artists combined legal life with subversive artistic activity.

Anatoly Zverev

I studied for one year at Pyatak. Received Grand Prize to youth and student exhibitions. A brilliant improviser. In fact, he was homeless. Didn't create my own artistic system. He was famous for his creative exhibitionism.

Vladimir Nemukhin

“Still Life with Cards” 1989.

In general, cards are a constant motif in his works. The picture is indicative of a post-avant-garde phenomenon, an attempt to overcome the avant-garde. Borderline state between picture and object. The card is one of the plastic modules. Conventionally suprematist, the borderline state of a real object and geometric composition. The painting is an object, simultaneously a cardboard table and a plane. Further moves are outlined in chalk.

"Unfinished Solitaire" 1966.

Homage to Tachisme (gesture painting).

"Poker on the Beach" 1974. At first glance, abstract illusory divisions are emphasized.

Eduard Steinberg

creative artist unknown belyutin

He doesn’t have a complex about his dependence on the art of the 20s. He feels like an innovator, although he only reacts to what has already been invented. But he is not trying to literally resurrect Suprematism. There is no sharp red, black, white, rich color nuances.

Composition from 1972. A square is taken as a reference point, but it becomes small, so it introduces a sharp shadow. Refined development of Suprematism. A distorted vision of Malevich's work.

“Composition with circular sections” The planes rotate, intersect, a variant of conceiving a geometric abstraction.

“Composition 1983” Rotations, circles. Metaphysical supernatural reality is active at this time.

Dmitry Plavinsky

Type of soil artist. Focuses on the problems of Russian life. Addresses the forgotten world of the Russian village. Fragments of huts, logs (metaphor for the destruction of indigenous Russian life).

"Big Butt" 1978.

The artist is a philosopher. Solid metaphors in the images of rotting huts.

Nikolai Kharitonov

Primitively idyllic images. Conservative soil in Moscow metaphysical painting. Most of the canvases are dedicated to old Russian churches. Something similar to Kustodiev’s art. Consonance with neo-impressionism. It looks very provincial against the backdrop of world art. The image of a romantic outcast.

"Holiday"

Were different ways reconciliation with reality. Some artists plunged deeper into the ugly Soviet reality. Soviet communal cohabitation is becoming one of the key themes of Moscow unofficial art.

Mikhail Roginsky

He depicted various kinds of teapots, primus stoves, matches... Parallel to pop art, but we have a completely different way of life. However, Rabin's gloominess is alien to him; he does not denigrate reality.

"Teapot" 1963.

Emphatically bold, thick painting. Displays the plastic quality of nature. Peering at the environment, I selected the appropriate pictorial embodiment for it. Demonstrative anti-aestheticism.

“In the meat department” 1981-1982.

The pictorial technique and the psychological situation are important.

“Sniper Pavlyuchenko” 1966 The image of an everyday object is enlarged. The box outgrows the size of the painting. The closest parallel to pop art.

Oleg Tselkov

Actively worked in the 60-70s. The artist is an individualist and eschews general movements. Theme of anthropomorphic creatures (muzzles, images). Strange anthropomorphic creatures painted in bright colors. Strange mask. A typical person of a totalitarian regime, a faceless hero of the system. It ties everyone together.

"Acrobats and Dragonfly" 1974. A pile of colored flesh.

"Obituary" 1971. A terrifying, picturesque requiem. Looming red face.

“The sixties geniuses” are a special individualism. The desire to create your own style. Then it began to irritate them themselves. The generation after the second avant-garde is radically different from them.

Moscow romantic conceptualism

(the term was introduced by Boris Groys)

Representatives: Ilya Kabakov, Erik Bulatov, Viktor Pivovarov, Oleg Vasiliev, Andrey Monastyrsky.

Well integrated into the system. We illustrated children's books (a lucrative segment of government contracts). Children's literature offers many opportunities for self-expression and search for new forms. The ethics of Kabakov's circle is to make conscientious hack work.

60-70s - conceptualism.

MOSCOW CONCEPTUALISM

Joseph Kosuth raises the question of the idea as the main thing in art. The presence of an idea determines the value of works.

Fauvism, cubism - a new interpretation of the subject.

The Russian artist yearns for something beyond art world. Kandinsky and Malevich banish the subject from the artist's area of ​​interest. For a Russian artist, the subject is not so important (with the exception of the works of Monastyrsky). A conflict of languages, not a showdown with the subject. Everything is fiction and fantasy.

In Soviet art there are conflicts between languages ​​of description (the language of household advertisements). Obscene vocabulary is very important in conceptualism. The people of the sixties expressed themselves in one language - each in their own.

“Conceptualism is not the painting, but the viewer” (I. Kabakov)

For a conceptualist, the viewer is an accomplice. A conceptualist is a conscientious Soviet citizen. Accomplished people, not marginalized. Other types of behavior in Russian art, which even those who are “in the know” cannot understand.

Expressiveness of content ( Russian art always about something, the artist is trying to tell something). They resort to to the speaking person. This is not the speech of an artist, but of a fictional character.

Ilya Kabakov

“Whose fly is this?” 1960s

Looks like a Soviet bulletin board. In the center there is a fly, at the top there is some dialogue about the fly. A sad tale about communal life. The text is fully involved. The font is like a wall newspaper.

A total installation is a kind of total space for the use of several types of art.

Total installation is an installation built on the inclusion of the viewer inside himself, designed for his reaction inside a closed, windowless space, often consisting of several rooms. The main, decisive importance in this case is its atmosphere, the aura that arises due to the painting of the walls, lighting, configuration of rooms, etc., while numerous, “ordinary” participants in the installation - objects, drawings, paintings, texts - become ordinary components of the whole. I. Kabakov. About total installation. Kanz, 1994.

"Communal kitchen"

Willingly addresses the topic of the museum.

“Explanation board for 3 explanations of 6 paintings” The text of the instructions occupied a very important place. There are instructions, but no pictures, pictures are not important, but instructions are immortal. Artistic quality is leveled.

He's interested in average person, not geniuses.

Illustration for the children's book “The Tale of Terro Ferro”

All contemporary Russian art is a result of creativity.

One of the first installation masters.

"The Man Who Flew Out of His Own Room" 1986

The idea of ​​escaping, of overcoming boundaries, is a frequent theme. It brings the situation to the point of absurdity. A certain Soviet resident carefully planned his escape. There is a huge hole in the ceiling. Shoes on the floor are all that remains of this man. The room is small, there is a folding bed, a chair, something like a table, all the walls are covered with posters. Micromuseum of Soviet mass culture. An installation about a person's escape from the socialist present. Avoids text; the lost narrative must be restored in detail. Maximum detached attitude of the author.

“The Man Who Flew into His Own Picture” A hint of some absurd situation. Overcoming the border between reality and illusion. Chair - absence and presence of a person.

Active appeal to painting from the cycle

"Vacations" or "Holidays", 1987.

Randomly collaged images. Scenes of happy Soviet life. Cut out flowers on top.

A difficult cycle to understand.

“Russian painting is a constant change of simulacra, a collection of fakes”

In painting, he is interested in the average pictorial manner, the average, no pictorial language.

Demonstrative disregard for the integrity of the image. The dominant part of the composition is filled with everyday scenes. Comparison of scenes of tea drinking and swimming, happy everyday life of Soviet citizens.

The average painting style is often used by Kabakov.

Charles Rosenthal - fictional character, medium forgotten artist. Malevich's lost student. Grotesque character, combining different directions. Valuable as an average failed artist. The history of art is the history of geniuses, and he is not interested in them, he is interested in the norm. He has his own “alternative art history.” He invents “normal” artists who also had their own creative path, its development. Not an established artistic destiny, but an exemplary type.

“Red Car” Reference installation

Soviet history is being compressed into one. Soviet reality. The sketch is more clear than the installation itself. Divides the work into three parts. Conditional construction: super complex scaffolding with stepladders. The viewer can enter there. Expressing an idea is an upward movement. Metaphor of unbridled optimism. The construction is pointless - they only built a red carriage. Mismatch between ambitions and results. The carriage is like a closed, frightening space. the last part installations are a dump. The result of all efforts. This is where Soviet history leads. An attempt to figuratively embody Soviet history.

IN short time becomes the most famous Russian artist abroad. Formed the image of a typical Russian artist. It exactly falls into the cliché of how Russian art is perceived abroad.

Eric Bulatov Picture-text.

They were found among various artists; in Russian fine art they were used in the avant-garde and constructivism.

"Glory to the CPSU" Internal conflict With traditional image, the reality of the text projected onto reality. Extremely cold work done.

Shishkin style. Close to Bulatov’s circle, for example Oleg Vasiliev.

Images of leaders, slogans, views of VDNKh - behind all this there is no incriminating information. He simply sees and finds an accurate way to represent what he saw.

"Russian XX century"

Oleg Vasiliev

"Rotation"

The motif of light is often given, as in this work. Executed in grisaille. Draws inspiration from 19th century artists.

"Road"

Only road markings indicate a modern character. Traditional landscape.

Victor Pivovarov

Uses ready-made forms.

“Message board”, a receptacle for compositions on the operation of fire extinguishers, fire prevention, etc. A strange discrepancy between language and content.

“Maria Maksimovna, your kettle is boiling” Ridicules Russian empathy for literature. Reveals to the viewer what he wants to see there. Loves paradoxes.

"No, you don't remember me" 1975

Close to Dadaist and surreal landscapes.

Conceptualists have moments of surreality.

Works with absurd forms.

He works a lot with understanding the artistic issues themselves.

Konstantin Zvezdochetov

“Two heroes” 2005

The language is more lamentable. Simplified silhouettes. The image is interpreted in the Pivovarov style.

“Viola on the table”

Refusal from the image of a great master, from the museum quality of the painting.

Konstantin Zvezdochetov, Sven Gundlach, Mironenko brothers.

Pronounced playful character. Free hooligan treatment, and not any specific outstanding works of art. Inverting conceptualist practices. Bold, shocking young energy. The actions were fun, bold and dangerous. One day they buried one of the group members in the forest and searched for him for two hours until they realized that they really didn’t know where he was. Aggressive hard contact with the audience. Parodies of collective action. They used provocation; pointedly rejected the seriousness of the conceptualists. Clear reduction in plastic requirements. Demonstrative use children's drawing. Homemade pop art.

“Long Ruble” Ineptitude and exaggerated gaiety.

Predecessors of Moscow auctionism.

They recorded the “Golden Album,” a collage of humorous poems and pop parodies. Made as a joke, for friends. But unexpected success befalls.

Nonconformism. Under this name it is customary to unite representatives of various artistic movements in the fine arts of the Soviet Union in the 1950s-1980s, who did not fit into the framework of socialist realism - the only officially permitted direction in art.

Nonconformist artists were actually forced out of the public artistic life countries: the state pretended that they simply did not exist. The Union of Artists did not recognize their art, they were deprived of the opportunity to show their works in exhibition halls, critics did not write about them, museum workers did not visit their workshops.

1. Dmitry Plavinsky “Shell”, 1978

“The creation of human thought and hands is sooner or later absorbed by the eternal elements of nature: Atlantis - by the ocean, the temples of Egypt - by the sand of the desert, the Knossos palace and labyrinth - by volcanic lava, the Aztec pyramids - by the vines of the jungle. For me, the greatest interest is not the flowering of this or that civilization, and its death and the moment of birth of the next..."

Dmitry Plavinsky, artist

2. Oscar Rabin "Still Life with Fish and the Pravda Newspaper", 1968

“The further, the more acutely I felt that I could not do without painting, for me there was nothing more beautiful than the fate of an artist. However, looking at the paintings of official Soviet artists, I completely unconsciously felt that I would never be able to paint like that. And not at all because "that I didn't like them - I admired the skill, sometimes openly envied them - but on the whole they didn't touch me, they left me indifferent. Something important was missing from them for me."

“I didn’t experience any influences on myself, I didn’t change my style, my creative credo also remained unchanged. I could convey the diversity of Russian life through a symbol - a herring on the Pravda newspaper, a bottle of vodka, a passport - this is clear to everyone. Or I painted the Lianozovsky cemetery and called painting "Cemetery named after Leonardo da Vinci". In my art, in my opinion, nothing new, new-fangled, superficial has appeared. What I was, remains the same, as the song says. I do not have my own gallery, which feeds and guides me my creativity. I wouldn’t want to be a domestic rabbit. I prefer to be a free hare. I run wherever I want!”

Oscar Rabin, artist

3. Lev Kropivnitsky "Woman and Beetles" 1966

“Abstract painting makes it possible to get as close as possible to reality, to penetrate into the essence of things, to comprehend everything important that is not perceived by our five senses. I felt modernity as a combination of dramatic achievements, psychological tensions, intellectual oversaturation. I tried and am trying, based on my experience and felt, to create a pictorial form that corresponds to the spirit of the time and the psychology of the century."

Lev Kropivnitsky, artist.

4. Dmitry Krasnopevtsev “Pipes”, 1963

“A painting is also an autograph, only more complex, spatial, multi-layered. And if from the autograph, from the handwriting they determine (and not unsuccessfully) the character, condition and almost illnesses of the writer, if even criminologists do not neglect this decoding, then the painting provides incomparably more material for guesses and conclusions about the identity of the author. It has long been noted that a portrait painted by an artist is at the same time his self-portrait - this extends further - to any compositions, landscapes, still lifes, to any genres, as well as to non-objective abstract art - to "everything that the artist depicts. And regardless of his objectivity, dispassion, if he wants to get away from himself, to become impersonal, he will not be able to hide, his creation, his handwriting will betray his soul, his mind, his heart, his face."

Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, artist.

5. Vladimir Nemukhin “Unfinished Solitaire”, 1966

“The inventory of elements of figurative language consists primarily of objects. They existed before - trees, banks, boxes, newspapers, i.e., simple, recognizable objects. At the end of the 50s, all this turned into abstraction, and soon "This very abstract form began to tire me. This is the state that renews interest in an object, and it, in turn, reciprocates. I believe that the object is very important for vision, because through it the vision itself is viewed."

"In 1958, I started making my first abstract works. What is abstract art? It made it possible to break immediately with all this Soviet reality. You became a different person. Abstraction is, on the one hand, like the art of the subconscious, and on the other - a new vision. Art must be a vision, not a reasoning."

Vladimir Nemukhin, artist.

6. Nikolai Vechtomov “Road”, 1983

"My life is about creating my own artistic space, which I always tried to enrich and tried a lot to achieve this. I realized that each of us is always alone with the cataclysms of the twentieth century."

“We live in darkness and have already become accustomed to it, we can fully distinguish objects. And yet we draw light from there, from the radiance of the sunset Cosmos, it is this that gives us the energy of vision. Therefore, for me, it is not objects that are important, but their reflections, because in they contain the breath of an alien element."

Nikolay Vechtomov, artist.

7. Anatoly Zverev Female portrait. 1966

"Anatoly Zverev is one of the most outstanding Russian portrait painters born on this earth, who managed to express the reverent dynamism of the moment and the mystical internal energy people whose portraits he painted. Zverev is one of the most expressive and spontaneous artists of our time. His style is so individual that in each of his paintings one can immediately recognize the handwriting of the author. With a few strokes he achieves enormous dramatic effect, spontaneity and instantaneity. The artist manages to convey a feeling of direct connection between him and his model ."

Vladimir Dlugi, artist.

"Zverev is the first Russian expressionist of the 20th century and a mediator between the early and late avant-garde in Russian art. I consider this wonderful artist one of the most talented in Soviet Russia."

Gregory Costakis, collector.

8. Vladimir Yankilevsky “Prophet”, 1970s

“Nonconformism” is a constitutive feature of real art, since it resists the banality and stamp of conformism, giving new information and creating a new vision of the world. The fate of a true artist is often tragic, regardless of the society in which he lives. This is normal, since the fate of the artist is the fate of his insight, his statement about the world, which breaks the established stereotypes of perception and thinking created by " popular culture“and intellectual snobbery. To be a creator and to be “in due time” a canonized “hero” of society, a superstar, is an almost insurmountable paradox. Attempts to overcome it are the path to a conformist career.”

Vladimir Yankilevsky, artist.

9. Lydia Masterkova "Composition", 1967

"All the time, with undiminished strength, her abstract compositions either burn, or sparkle, or flicker with a dying fire magic colors. She seems to come up all the time different sides to the magical surface of the canvas. Sometimes the cheerful brightness of flaming sounds, writhing and soaring strange shapes makes one think of Bach's organ chords, and sometimes the greenish-gray, intertwined planes associated with biological forms are associated with Milhaud's "Creation of the World." Masterkov's drawing says a lot. It organizes spots on the plane and the character of colorful accents. It is unique and very expressive of the author."

Lev Kropivnitsky, artist.

10. Vladimir Yakovlev “Cat and Bird”, 1981

"Art is a means of overcoming death."

Vladimir Yakovlev, artist.

"Vladimir Yakovlev's paintings are like a night sky full of stars. There is no light in the night, light is a star. This is especially visible when Yakovlev depicts flowers. His flower is always a star. Hence some special sadness of joy when we contemplate it paintings".

Ilya Kabakov, artist.

11. Ernst Neizvestny "Heart of Christ", 1973-1975

"I share artistic activity(and writing, and musical, and visual) into two types: the desire for a masterpiece and the desire for flow. The desire for a masterpiece is when the artist faces a certain concept of beauty, which he wants to embody, to create a complete, capacious masterpiece. The desire for flow is an existential need for creativity when it becomes analogous to breathing, the beating of the heart, the work of the entire personality. For flow artists, art is a materialized existence, moving, arising and dying at every second. And when I want to build my “Tree of Life,” I am fully aware of the almost clinical, pathological impossibility of this plan. But I need it in order to work. And multiplicity does not scare me, because it is held together by mathematical unity, it is self-closed. All this is an attempt to combine several principles, an attempt to combine the eternal foundations of art and its temporary content. The base, the pitiful, the insignificant are united constantly and eternally in faith in order to become noble, majestic, meaningful."

Ernst Neizvestny, artist.

12. Eduard Steinberg "Composition with fish", 1967

"I can't say that I'm on some kind of on the right track. But what is truth? This is a word, an image. Camus has a wonderful “Myth of Sisyphus”, when the artist drags a stone up a mountain, and then it falls down, he picks it up again, drags it again - this is approximately the pendulum of my life.”

“I discovered practically nothing new, I just gave the Russian avant-garde a different perspective. Which one? More likely religious. I base my spatial geometric structures on the old catacomb murals and, of course, on icon painting.”

Eduard Steinberg, artist.

13. Mikhail Roginsky "Red Door". 1965

"I forced myself to recreate reality based on my idea of ​​it. I still do this."

Mikhail Roginsky, artist.

"Red Door" - outstanding work, which played a pivotal role in the history of Russian art of the twentieth century. Together with the subsequent cycle of fragments and interior details (walls with sockets, switches, photographs, chests of drawers, tiled floors), this work marked the beginning of a new object-based realism. “Documentaryism” (as Roginsky preferred to call his direction) predetermined the emergence of not only pop art, but also a new avant-garde in general in Soviet “underground” art, focused on the world artistic process. "The Red Door" sobered up and brought back to earth many of the Soviet artists, carried away by utopian and metaphysical quests surrounded by communal life. This work pushed artists to carefully analyze and describe the aesthetic aspects of everyday Soviet life. This is the limit of pictorial illusion, the bridge from the picture to the object.

Andrey Erofeev, curator, art critic

14. Oleg Tselkov "Calvary" 1977

“I have absolutely no need to exhibit now. In half a century, it will be extremely interesting for me to show my works. Today I am surrounded by fools like myself. They understand no more than me. People write to understand something. The artist’s hand is not driven by desire to exhibit, but the desire to talk about what I experienced. Once a painting is painted, I no longer have any control over it. It can remain alive or die. My paintings are my letter in a bottle thrown into the sea. Maybe no one will ever catch this bottle, and she will be dashed against a rock."

Oleg Tselkov, artist.

15. Hulot Sooster "Red Egg", 1964

"In his view of nature there is no spontaneity, no surprise, no admiration. It is rather the view of a scientist striving to penetrate the mystery of things. The artist seems to be looking for some ideal formula of nature, its centricity, a formula as complete and as complex as the form eggs".

Currently, the unofficial art of the 1970s has increasingly begun to attract the attention of collectors and researchers, while discouraging both of them, both by the lack of meaningful publications and by the many myths that grew out of unreliable and sometimes deliberately distorted information coming from from the subjective preferences of artists, art historians and collectors.

BANNIKOV Nikolay (1942)
YOUTH. 1970s

The era from Khrushchev’s defeat of the left wing of the Moscow Union of Artists in Manezh in 1962 to the “Bulldozer Exhibition” of 1974 rallied a small group of sixties - nonconformists - initiators of the exhibition action, which ended in a bulldozer defeat.

BANNIKOV Nikolay (1942)
YOUNG WOMAN. 1970s

The ensuing hype and scandal in the Western media forced Soviet ideologists to slightly ease the pressure on some artists and allow, under the close supervision of the “authorities,” “dosed” exhibitions in a small room. Such a place was the trade union of graphic artists on Malaya Gruzinskaya 28, under which a painting section was created, which included this particular group of artists of unofficial art. The first exhibition of the section took place in March 1976. Before that, there were two exhibitions of unofficial art: in February 1975 in the Beekeeping pavilion and in September of the same year in the House of Culture pavilion at VDNKh.

BANNIKOV Nikolay (1942)
ZANDER. 1968

The decision to cut some slack for a small group of recalcitrant artists was not an act of goodwill, but a forced retreat under the onslaught of accusations of barbarism coming from the West after an unprecedented scandal over the destruction of paintings at an exhibition nicknamed “Bulldozer”.

MAKHOV Ivan (1938)
THE SECRET OF THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. 1978

Thus, proactive pressure from within, from an activist group of nonconformist artists, and from outside, from Western ideological propaganda, created a precedent: the authorities opened an exhibition space that was well monitored and significantly reduced the reason for criticism from the previously mentioned vectors of pressure.

BARINOV Mikhail (1947)
NOON No. 1. 1978

This is the beginning of the history of “Malaya Gruzinka”, which presented the most striking exhibition discoveries until 1980. The authorities’ decision was influenced not only by the events mentioned above, but also by the facts of apartment exhibitions in the 60s and early 70s, as well as the activities of some apartment salons, such as the Sychev salon on Rozhdestvensky Boulevard or Nika Shcherbakova’s salon on Sadovo. Karetnaya street. Foreign diplomats also visited here, met with dissidents, purchased paintings, thereby supporting unofficial art.

BELYUTIN Eliy (1925)
TALK. CONVERGENCE. 1981

There is an opinion among contemporaries of the events described above that by creating a small “sump” for exhibition activities rebel artists, the KGB simplified its task of controlling the situation and possibly suppressing individual ideologically charged provocations on the part of nonconformists. At the same time, the role of apartment exhibitions decreased, tracking of which required more complex operational work. There is also an opinion that the KGB sought to dismember groups of unofficial artists, preventing them from developing a unified position, limiting their initiative and creative experiment as much as possible.

VOROSHILOV Igor (1939-1989)
TWO. 1980s

It is no coincidence that the generation of nonconformist artists who began their creative journey at the dawn of the 70s is sometimes called the generation of “outcasts.” Contempt and hostility from representatives of official art left them little reason for optimism. The strict framework of ideological unacceptability determined the unique features of the work of nonconformist artists of the 70s; with the exception of protest art, it could not be oriented towards significant social resonance, reflection, wide discussion, or commercial success.

BLEZE Sergey (1945)
COMPOSITION No. 20. 1975

At best, the audience was a narrow circle of friends and admirers. Working “on the table” or “in the corner of the workshop” opened the way for someone to freedom of experiment, exploration of the inner space of consciousness, its expansion; others were driven into despair by binge drinking. Delamination occurred small group nonconformists - some chose a formal experiment with syntax, composition design, technological and stylistic components.

BLEZE Sergey (1945)
COMPOSITION No. 13. 1974

The other, smaller part went into a spiritual search, into the depths of the metaphysical content of the picture, into the study of the image as a transformer and sublimator of the consciousness of both the creator and the viewer. It was this aspect of creative search in the sphere of the semantic space of the painting that led some artists of this group to theoretical understanding, and then to the practical development of religious experience.

VULOKH Igor (1938)
SCENERY. 1970s

The lack of direct contacts with modern Western art and the inaccessibility of information about the domestic avant-garde of the 20s created an atmosphere of vacuum, “cooking in own juice", which gave the work of the nonconformists of the 70s certain specific features. Fragmentary information about the Western avant-garde came through art magazines in socialist countries. camps and rare editions of Skira that came through the cordon.

GAIDUK Nadezhda (1948)
ODESSA. 1974

This stimulated the process of creating certain myths, both individual and group, about the work and life of artists. It is no coincidence that the seventies are sometimes called “personal mythologists.” Despite all the difficulties, the meager, measured exhibition activity at Malaya Gruzinka, 28 became a creative laboratory for artists in the field of stylistic experimentation and technology, a field for mutual professional exchange of experience, creative search and growth. The conceptualism of the sixties was enriched with new discoveries in the field of form-building and deepening of content.

GAIDUK Nadezhda (1948)
WALK. IN MEMORY OF A. TIKHOMIROV. 1981

A line of students of Vasily Sitnikov developed, moving towards mastering the metaphysical and mystical levels of the compositional dimension. An original line of neo-naive art, as well as neo- and post-symbolism, developed. Personal versions of surrealism, minimalism and hyperrealism were developed. A distinctive trend in painting with religious themes emerged.

GAIDUK Nadezhda (1948)
MOSCOW YARD. 1976

Performance art and group meditation, experiments in the field of stage movement and avant-garde scenography materialized; the creativity of “instant painting” by Anatoly Zverev has reached its dawn; A whole movement of neo-expressionists took shape. Neo-historical painting, metaphysical landscape and even a new version genre painting.

GLUKHOV Vladimir (1937-1985)
LANDSCAPE.1970

Becoming artistic language nonconformists of the seventies took place against the background and in opposition to the official line of the artists' union with its professional guidelines, norms, cliches and prohibitions. By the mid-70s, the “severe style” was declining and the “left wing” of the Moscow Union of Artists was trying to find new plastic languages ​​within the limits of what was permitted.

GORDEEV Dmitry (1940)
YARD IN A VILLAGE. 1977

Basically, these are interpretative “moves” from styles fashionable in the West, which could be adapted to the “general line” of socialist realism. This, for example, is a line of variations on the theme of “naive art”, which were “slipped” under the ideologeme of “folk, native” - or the line of “neoclassicism”, starting from the monumentalists of the Italian proto-Renaissance.

Zhdan Vladislav (1940)
STILL LIFE – PORTRAIT. DEDICATION TO B. PASTERNAK. 1969

Or, for example, the Soviet version of American hyperrealism, which secured itself ideologically with both “documentary plot” and “realism of the done” and presented itself as a fashionable and innovative line of socialist realism. By the end of the 70s, a separate line of the left Moscow Union of Artists became a variation adapted to socialist realism German expressionism 20s combined with technological innovations of American neo-expressionism of the 40s-60s, the line of Pollack and his followers.

PRYADIKHIN Vladimir (1947)
OFFICE. 1994

Thus, in the 70s, the scope of official art expanded significantly, including some plastic developments of the Western mainstream, adapted to the domestic ideology and mentality of art functionaries who carried out the distribution of orders, the purchasing policy of the Ministry of Culture, the Art Fund, and the Union of Artists.

ZUBAREV Vladislav (1937)
COMPOSITION. 1971

A separate plastic line against the background of the artistic life of the 60-70s was the school of Eliya Belutin, and also closer to the beginning of the 80s, the school of Zubarev.

KALUGIN Alexander (1949)
EXPECTATION. 1972-73

These were attempts to “legalize the avant-garde” through the methodology of teaching fine arts, design and composition. The experiment was “legalized” in these schools within the framework of the method of teaching plastic language, considering this language as a formalized pattern. These methods, although carried out within a purely local framework of the pedagogical process, influenced the consciousness and formation of the artistic language of a number of nonconformist artists.

KISLITSYN Igor (1948)
LAMP. 1974

During the exhibition activities in the 70s of the basement on Malaya Gruzinskaya, individual representatives of the “left wing” of the Moscow Union of Artists participated in a number of exhibitions, but in general the artists of this wing were in opposition to nonconformist artists, not to mention the bulk of the members of the Union of Artists, jealously and hostile to their work. A special feature of the exhibition life of the basement on Malaya Gruzinskaya was that it exhibited artists of different generations who were forced out of official art or who openly opposed themselves to it.

KOLOTEV Vasily (1953)
ARREST OF A PROPAGANDANDIST. 1979

By 1980, some of these artists left the USSR. In 1981, the leadership of the trade union carried out a “cleansing” of the ranks of the painting section and expelled from there, under the pretext of lack of certificates of abnormal cooperation with publishing houses, a number of objectionable opposition artists.

KOLOTEV Vasily (1953)
NINTH SHAFT. 1979

Exhibition activities continued in the 80s, but by the beginning of perestroika, nonconformism was increasingly pushed aside by various versions of salon, kitsch art, fake variations of the pseudo-avant-garde, which by the end of the 80s began to prevail, creating, alas, a negative opinion about the painting exhibited in the now famous basement.

KROTOV Victor (1945)
DEDICATION TO GOYA. 1975

Unfortunately, time has mercilessly dealt with the legacy of the nonconformists of the 70s. Recreate, at least in approximation, full picture the creative process of that time is not possible. Firstly, due to the physical death of many participants in this era, the disappearance of their works abroad without a trace.

PROVOTOROV Vladislav (1947)
VISIONS. 1984

Secondly, the lack of exhibitions, discussions, publications about such a phenomenon as unofficial art of the 70s, not about individual personalities, but about the process as a whole, led to the fact that much disappeared from social memory, and what remained was overgrown with mythology, individual and group, both ill-wishers and surviving participants in the events.

KUZNETSOV Konstantin (1944)
TSARITSINO. 1982

The proposed small exhibition poses a modest task - if possible, to identify and introduce art lovers and collectors to at least some of the nonconformist artists from the “first call” of the exhibition activities of the hall on Malaya Gruzinskaya 28, which included them until the early 80s. Most of the artists represented have been involved in the exhibition process since the first exhibition of the painting section in March 1976. The projection for the future also consists in introducing viewers more fully, on a personal level, to the work of these artists.

LESCHENKO Vladimir (1939)
ARMENIA. 1982

This exhibition is a tribute to the famous American collector of Soviet unofficial art, Norton Dodge, the author of the term “Soviet nonconformism.” I would like to note the fact that this exceptional researcher, discoverer and philanthropist not only drew attention to the protest political aspect of this cultural phenomenon, but also to its uniqueness as an artistic event of the 20th century.

SHIBANOVA Natalya (1948)
STILL LIFE. 1972

As part of the history of world art, N. Dodge, thanks to his museum collection, preserved and passed on that page to subsequent generations national history, which biased domestic art critics and modern ill-wishers - “actualists” and co-workers of the globalization of culture - deliberately wanted to silence.

Member of the Moscow Union of Artists S.V. Potapov