Conversation with the artist Tibery Silvashi oil ideas. Tiberiy Silvashi: Culture is dominated by entertainment

Tiberiy Silvashi is a Ukrainian painter, essayist, and philosopher. The integrity of his view and the paradoxical nature of his ideas give us an excellent opportunity to talk with him about the connection between painting and cinema. Thus, a series of materials about the intersection of cinema with other types of art, we are publishing a conversation between Alexei Tyutkin and Tiberiy Silvashi.

What place does cinema occupy in the world of the painter (I know that you call yourself a painter, not an artist) and thinker Tiberius Silvashi?

For our generation, cinema was everything - even more than the profession we chose. Then there was the time of great directors. Of course we watched them. At five o'clock in the morning they queued up to watch "Eight and a half" at the festival screening. Well, Antonioni is like a filter. If there is a test "Tolstoy or Dostoevsky", then we have always had another one: Antonioni or Fellini.

Antonioni! And Bergman! And also Miklos Jancso, Zoltan Husarik (wonderful "Sinbad", "Chontvari" and short films). And a few still young Hungarians at that time - for example, Bodi Gabor (he died young, committed suicide - he has a wonderful job "Narcissus and Psyche" starring Udo Kier) and a few more experimental shorts; in the 60s and 70s, interesting work was done at the studio of Bela Balash. I saw a lot thanks to Hungarian and Czech television. God knows how Godard's films were obtained in French - I remember a girl from Belgium, who studied at the graphics department, translated "Carabinieri".

You named the undoubted classics who created the film landscape of the 60s and 70s. But do you watch films by directors who became famous much later, such as the Dardenne brothers, David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, Lars von Trier or Béla Tarr? What films of recent years have surprised you, touched you, made you think about them?

Of course, I watch films of all the directors you mentioned, but they affect me to varying degrees. Trier perhaps smaller or rather different. There are other authors, and the degree of delight-denial is different. Bela Tarr, for example, is grandiose! I love this kind of cinematography. Still, those first, youthful impressions are different. Now other centers are being activated in perception. And, frankly, I'm afraid to rewatch those films.

In a conversation with you, I would like to connect cinema with painting, to present cinema in the mirror of painting. Here is a naive question: how does a painter watch a movie?

Here is a naive answer - like a painter. Well, seriously, there is no difference: the viewer sitting in the cinema is not particularly different from the viewer looking at the picture. The principles are the same. A painting is a window into the world with a fixed point of view. Cinema is the same window where you see what is happening from the outside. And you are also fixed in place. This is if you discard the knowledge that you are present at the illusion session, and separate the narration.

Shot from the film "The Last Ship", dir. Bela Tarr

But there is an important difference here: time. Cinema is an art that develops in time, painting is a slice of time, working with color, form, creating a special timeless world. Or I'm wrong?

No, of course you are not mistaken! And for painting, the problem of time has always been important, because it was the painting, as a form, that stopped time. And it forced generations of artists to look for ways to express it, building stories, editing plots from the lives of characters - either on the principle of in-frame editing, or mechanically connecting them on a plane in different angles. But time was an integral part of ritual space, including visual space, in a Gothic cathedral and in an Orthodox church. For me, the problem of time turned out to be fundamentally important when a post-institute crisis arose with the clarification of the “subject” of painting. As it turned out later, it was "time".

Here is a question that is probably not so easy to answer. The time of cinema, as I understand it, is the time of thinking in images at different speeds (I generally believe that cinema is something that made it possible for us to feel time) - this is the time of memory, action, feeling, captured on film. The current time, so to speak. And what is it, the time of painting? Is it color time?

In painting, this, like the phenomenal experience of reading different-temperature warm-cold relationships (their times are different), is also a bodily experience, but it also refers to the exit from painting practice.

Remembrance and feeling - this is such a common background and image for any person (this also needs to be dealt with), because modern painting is moving away from such concepts as a traditional image. Here is the "reality" of the fact-color itself. And yes, the color itself has time. After all, I have a difference in the definitions of an artist and a painter. These are two different figures: the artist is a broader concept, the painter is the same, but more specific.

And in the cinema - in the image and likeness of your division into "artist" and "painter" - do filmmakers have such a division? By the principle of relation to time, for example?

Antonioni is a painter of time. Fellini is an artist. Jarmusch, Tarr - painters. Trier is an artist. To stay on your list: Lynch is an artist.

I will try to give my interpretation of your dichotomy “painter/artist” (you can read more about it in your essay “Painter”), and you correct me: a painter is someone who works with the essence of painting, with color and light, in an attempt to express them , and the artist works with genre and narrative, trying to express them with pictorial methods? Or, coarsening: the painter expresses the essence of painting, the artist expresses himself? Accordingly, a film director-painter works with the essence of cinema, with movement and time, and a film director-artist works with a story shown through cinema?

You interpret everything correctly. I have to go around in circles around the topics that we started to discuss. That is, a lot of things are being considered and this process is ongoing, but it is necessary to identify a thing that is fundamentally important for me. We live in an age of paradigm shift, similar to that which took place in the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. This is me again about our game in the dichotomy "artist / painter". In this sense, the artist as an autonomous subject is a product of modern times. All our relations with the world, one way or another, we define through time/space relations. They are the most basic in our game. Therefore, I divorced our heroes according to these defining concepts.

In this risky game of "painting-cinema" parallels, I would venture to give one more example in order to clarify my point. Albert Serra is a painter. He works with time, which "grows" in his frame. The definition of "growing" is from the organic world. Derek Jarman, despite the fact that he works with color, is an artist: he constructs reality, imitating painting, so his “time” is pictorial. Serra observes and fixes (this is natural for the program of a new medium - a movie camera), Jarman constructs in the same program.

As we remember, you become a painter when your profane "I" steps aside, disappears. It's such an impersonal position. And the artist is always a clearly marked prevalence of "I". It seems that I am beginning to contradict the generally accepted point of view on auteur cinema, but we are talking about some special case, which is denoted by a strange pair of "artist / painter". By the way, it seems that for the first time this problem was identified by Giorgio Vasari, contrasting the “Venetian painters” with the “Florentine artists”, and Heinrich Wölfflin described it precisely at the time when this figure received autonomy. It was he who marked the division into draftsmen and colorists. Well, here I am, to say a few words about myself.

And more about time. The painter works as an Aeon - this is the flow of time, not divided; and the artist in this case works with Chronos. It seems to me that there is a connection between the flow of time and the flow of color. And for me, this connection is undeniable. And this flow of color is the same for all painters, of all times. And these people, whom we call painters, in different places of the earth at all times paint one work. This is such a meta-canvas, relatively speaking. But the picture is a product of alphabetic culture, it is a product of literary centricity. The picture is a piece of time. Painting, even in the form of a picture, refers to the preceding point of color in the chain. Of course, in such a picture, the story is only a tribute to the convention.

Shot from the film Eraserhead, dir. David Lynch

Then we turn to the non-narrativity of cinema or painting as a guarantee of working with their essence. Your works - you yourself emphasize this in many interviews - are color objects (your definition from an essay about Alexander Zhivotkov: "A color object is a painting that has forgotten that it was a window to the world"). There were authors in the cinema who did not rely on narrative in its ordinary sense of the word, that is, they did not tell stories - Stan Brekhage, many of whose films are like adaptations of Kandinsky's paintings; Peter Cherkassky with his optical collages; film abstractionist Gregory Markopoulos; Godard's late period is the path to such a non-linear and fragmented narrative that sometimes it seems that there is no narrative at all. Is it necessary to break with narrative so categorically in order to understand and then show everyone the essence of painting or cinema?

Willem Flusser, in his book on the philosophy of photography, divides cultural epochs into epochs of the image and epochs of the alphabet. The image is a magical space. With the alphabet, history and horizontal extension arise, and the world is perceived through concepts. It is obvious that painting is in a "magic" space - as well as "painters" directors. I don't know if "cinema" has lost its essence for those directors who work with narration, it's such a way to see/think about the world. I guess it's like looking at the water while on the shore, or diving into it.

In the essay “The Artist as an Outsider,” you wrote: “The idea of ​​novelty and the presence of criticism, which have nourished art for the past two centuries, are fading. The main thing for contemporary art is not so much the creation of a new work (text), but its interpretation. Today's art is defined through context, through reflection on contexts, through their actualization. It’s even more difficult with cinema: Godard’s new film is coming out "Farewell to language", and many, having not yet looked at it, are already waiting for it to be explained to them. Can cinema, painting, photography do without discourse?

For painting, this is an important issue. And for me it comes naturally. I consider it important to narrow or minimize the space of discourse. In our Alliance22 group, we have built a whole program around this. For almost half a year we will work with the basic elements of visuality. The first is "time". The theoretical part is scheduled for October 22. And then we will work practically.

Well, look, almost all "basic" arts face this same problem. Poetry is trying to return to the auditory, performative form that was inherent in it from the very beginning. The same thing happens with music, theater. Cinema appeared as a new media at the end of the alphabetic era and uses all the formal categorical apparatus of the past. Well, not to give a textbook example of Warhol (a film without words for two hours), but this is already a video. Well, the last scene of the "game of tennis" in Blow Up. But, of course, this is remarkable in contrast to how the "story" develops. Cinema, like music, is a “horizontal” art and works with differences. Painting - works with similarities. This is their difference (despite all the fact that we played likenesses with you), and the role of discourse is different.

Each in his own way, Francis Picabia and Georges Braque said that they are looking for something through painting that lies on the other side of painting. I am sure that many directors who are looking for something transcendent beyond cinema can or could say about cinema. How close is this position to you, do you share it?

Painting is immanence itself. Or, as it was said in my formulations of the early 90s: “Not everything that is painted with paints is painting.” And at the same time - somewhat grandiloquently: "Painting has no goal, it itself is the goal into which being falls with the arrow of the painter." And a picture. It is in it that the grain of the problem lies, and it is determined through the relation to time.

Exhibition of works by Tiberius Silvashi

In one of the interviews, you said that you have several ideas for art films. Let's dream: if the painter Tiberius Silvashi suddenly decided to make a film, and he had such an opportunity, what would it be about? What would he be?

Well ... yes ... When I had not yet formulated what we were talking about above, at the end of the 60s, oddly enough, I saw reality through observation, that is, closer to what Antonioni did, and now Tarr or - with reservations - Serra. This is in order not to scatter names, the focus, the vector, is important.

For example, I had an idea for a film, I tried to captivate many then, I told them, but to no avail. They said that it was impossible to film it, it was boring, etc. And they were probably right. It's really boring, but not for me. This has happened many times in my life and in painting too. When you need to go through a complete rejection of others. After all, what could be "boring", more delusional than monochrome. The same story with my film ideas. It's just that cinema has not become a matter of life.

Well, here's the idea. In the city (suppose, in Kyiv) we observe the life of two people. Man and woman. Young people. Ordinary life, work, study, parties, picnics, funerals. But they do not know each other and will never meet. They will see each other only once in a trolleybus, and she will ask him: “Are you getting out?”. They went to a rock concert together. My friend and I had about ten minutes of recording of a rock concert. Here in this symbolic space, the space of the concert, in the geometric center of the film, they are together. And then they, without meeting, without looking into each other's eyes, will continue to live. So I don’t know and don’t want to know whether they were meant for each other or not. How would they live their lives if he gave her a hand, helped her get off the trolleybus and spoke. I don't know, because the flow of life in the materiality of the film's illusion is important. And, of course, this has nothing to do with the notorious lack of communication skills.

Well, in fact, narrative is present here, but to a minimal extent, to the extent that is present in the daily life of each of us. And when we pedal narration, we construct a story, turning it into a genre. Yes, I think that now I would not change my position very much as a person making a film.

The abstract artist Tiberius Silvashi explores the problem of time in his work and, as he himself says, makes painting about painting. The questions that are now the main ones for art: what is the “posthumous” existence of the picture, how to depict the streams of time and let the river of color pass through itself - this is what the famous artist told about.

About the viewer inside art

To understand art, and even more so contemporary art, one must live with it and think about it. Of course, there are different levels of interaction with art.

You can simply perceive it as part of a "social" pastime with the obligatory selfie. And yet, in order to somehow get involved in this difficult process more seriously, one must be prepared.

You enter the gallery and you see not just one painting, but how all these paintings are interconnected. They call to each other, reflect and comment on each other, ask questions and answer them, speak with what was done by someone on the other side of the world ... And this must be understood - or at least be able to feel.

The peculiarity of modern art is that it reflects on itself, on its forms, on the person who studies it.

Contemplation is only a small part of it, which is more characteristic of traditional art. In the classical version, the viewer consumes, reads the work of art that opposes him. Today, the mechanisms of interaction between the work, the viewer, art and society are different.

Boyce once said that anyone can be an artist. Perhaps he got a little excited. But the point here is rather that the function of the viewer in art is changing. He is already directly, bodily included in the space of art and is part of it.

And the artist takes into account the participation of the public. It is the social forces that determine how the image operates. The conceptual connections between the space of the picture and the surrounding reality become important.

About the Age of Questions

The word "art" we always apply to completely different things: the art of cooking, the art of driving a car, and the like. That is, it already habitually describes a certain skill, craft, and loses its true meaning.

In fact, we have lost the categorical apparatus, the criteria, the exact idea of ​​what art is. And it is not for nothing that many people who really go deep into all these things, get sick and develop theoretical foundations, say that now art has seriously changed.

In art, structures are worked out much earlier, which subsequently begin to manifest themselves in society.

There are epochs when there is a given system of perception of the world, an understandable categorical apparatus. There is a constant hierarchy of high and low, fairly well-defined values, and, finally, if not all, then most questions have answers. And there are times when questions are raised.

Fortunately or unfortunately, we are just living in such a transitional era and we ourselves must look for answers and develop criteria. And one of the main questions now is: what is the function of art?

Perhaps art will never be the same again. What should it become? This also follows from the question of the function of art.

Art works with the problem of the border, it is always on the border and expands it. As soon as an already developed territory appears, it is necessary to leave it. Because patterns, clichés appear inside the existing field.

When you are the first to do something, break through into new territory, offer a completely new concept - they simply do not see you, people are not yet ready for this, their optics are not yet tuned to such perception.

Some artists therefore practice provocation to draw attention to the problem they are working with, as part of their strategy. So the effect turns into efficiency, asking questions - not what this work is about, but what for.

How art affects us

The artist, through the mechanisms of visual influence, alters our views. It works slowly, not immediately. Once Picasso aptly said about his compositions, then still little understood by others: after a while, these structures will enter your life in the form of design.

Through art, we gradually begin to see the world much more consciously than it is given to us in direct sensations. This affects the entire material culture that surrounds us. And this should be brought up from childhood.

Go to any museum in the West, says Tiberius Silvashi - there are always children there, they are brought there from morning to evening. Art is a common thing for them, they grow with it. It seems to us that this is just some other mentality, that there is a different industry that produces beautiful things, builds beautiful houses. But the industry is there precisely because people have been going to the gallery since childhood.

Moreover, in art, structures are worked out much earlier, intuitively scrolled, spoken out, which subsequently begin to manifest themselves in society. The same picture is a reflection not only of the microcosm of the artist, but also of the genome of social relations.

I once said to one of the politicians: if you looked and studied well the things that happened in our art in the 90s, you would understand much earlier where everything is going and what to do with it.

Cultural out of sync

We live in a cultural time-inconsistency. People and entire countries can be in different times at the same time. For example, many of us in our vision are in the 19th century, living pictures and reading them in a way that was inherent in that era. Others are in the 21st century - and do not coincide with those who are around.

These cultural inconsistencies, stratifications are a very important feature of our time, which we must take into account. Such chronological out of sync further complicates the understanding of art and the dialogue about its purpose. And at the same time, this discrepancy between questions and answers is very interesting for the analysis of the era and the psychological portrait of the ethnos.

On the death of a painting

Now everyone says that painting is dead. Well, of course, this is connected with the pretensions of high modernism, with its constantly repeated gestures of the “last” and “first” picture. How many interviews do we read about the funeral of painting and paintings... All these are remnants of ancient modernist discussions.

Of course, specific types of art arise in certain socio-cultural formations that correspond to a certain worldview, certain conditions. And when conditions change or disappear, the relationship of these art forms with society also changes. Some functions of the medium turn out to be unimportant, secondary, while others, on the contrary, become relevant and decide its viability.

But here people confuse painting and paintings. Indeed, we are accustomed to equate these things: when we talk about painting, we mean paintings. While a painting is just an episode in the history of painting. However, painting existed before paintings and will exist after them, it only changes its form.

In fact, the painting has only existed for 500 years. She was born at the turn of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Then specific mediums were developed - a direct perspective and a frame - this is what distinguished a picture from a book illustration or an icon in a Gothic cathedral. The painting is like a window to the world, it is separated from the world and depicts it from the point of view of the viewers who look at it.

This formula, which has been in force since the time of Albert, Mantegna and Giotto, begins to disintegrate in the 19th century with the Romantics and Impressionists and is completely destroyed in the 20th century by Malevich. The picture reaches the "Black Square" - this is the conditional "death" of the picture. And just a few years later, Duchamp opens the era of context and presence.

Dematerialization and pseudo-pictures

Context remained very important in the 20th century as a problem and method of self-reflection. Conceptualism developed Duchamp's ideas, working with language, style and criticism. For a while there was such a dematerialization of art. But now the idea of ​​returning works of art to their material essence is increasingly heard.

If we talk about painting, then now there is already a “posthumous” existence of a painting, or rather a “pseudo-picture”, or “post-painting”. That is, there are all the physical signs of classical painting: stretchers, canvas, paints.

But now we are not talking about the representation of things from the surrounding world, but rather it is a contemplation of the life of ideas, a kind of fluctuation of the modulations of meanings, their combination, deciphering of signs. Everything that is exhibited today in the form of a picture must take into account this moment of the end.

Otherwise, you will simply be an amateur who does not understand and inadequately uses his tools.

Painting in such a post-conceptual sense has become free in combining forms, syntactic figures. And the name of such art is mannerism. At least in its mainstream part.

I call my works not paintings, but colored objects. A picture is a closed structure, even if it is a pseudo-picture. The object is an open structure, and it operates in a completely different way. It can be associated with what is nearby horizontally - and with the neighboring one in age intervals.

For example, you refer to Fra Filippo Lippi, or Beato Angelico with his blue color - and thus connect time streams. Both by itself and as part of a series, the colored object works to maintain the tension between the tautology of the series and the uniqueness of the personal gesture.

How to represent time?

From the very beginning, I felt that I was not satisfied with depicting something - neither a portrait, nor a landscape, nor a chair or a vase ... This picture plane was not enough for me - and then something had to be done. At some point, I realized that the subject of art that interests me is such a strange and contradictory category for visualization as time.

For me it was a difficult test, because the art of painting is somehow unsuitable for this. Later, I developed a whole program of chronorealism - the art of the flow of time. The idea was that along with the subjective time that we live, there is also a “metaphysical” (I can’t formulate otherwise) time. How to combine it?

There are several definitions of time in ancient Greek philosophy. Chronos divides time into segments that line up in a horizontal sequence of the calendar. Kairos is the god of a happy moment that can only be caught face to face. And then there is the eon, the indivisible stream of time.

My painting is just an attempt to work with this flow. It is then that the endless succession of canvases becomes important - such a tautology, while the same canvas is created endlessly. I can work with him for many years, or even my whole life. And it does not matter - with a number of canvases, or with one canvas.

Interestingly, intuitively, I started this much earlier. In 1978, I spent a month and a half in Senezh, when there were such all-Union houses of creativity. The middle of summer, I painted the interior, the sun, the shadow ... And every day I repainted the same blue space.

The people looked at it sadly, some simply raged: everything is already completed for you! And I couldn’t do anything about it - subconsciously I then did what I would do in my monochrome canvases in 20 years.

It's amazing, because it turns out that you seem to be programmed, this thing lives in you in a strange way, which you cannot eradicate in any way until you find a form of expression.

painting ritual

I can't help but go to the workshop. I go there even when I'm not doing anything - just sitting in front of the canvas and thinking about it. The painting ritual can never end - this is the program for me. Most of all I am amused when they ask: huh? But there is no inspiration! I come and do it - and then at some point it grows into something else.

Daily work has become self-discipline for me. On the other hand, this dialogue with the canvas is extremely important for me. This is strange, because you communicate as if with a dead thing - a piece of canvas on which you apply paint.

This is where my schizophrenia deepens - and at some point I get a response from him. Once this dialogue is suspended, then I simply put it aside - and it waits in the wings when it will again need to be spoken to.

This ritual of painting for me is the most important thing in life. Even when walking down the street, in a conversation, or anywhere, that professional fixation remains all the time. The optical apparatus is already set up in such a way that I am constantly translating the image I see into a material - into a visual plastic equivalent.

For example, you play football - and, falling, you see how the leg of the person next to you tenses up, but through all the muscles you still see some people and a car on the opposite bank of the river, and also a boat passing by ... This all happens at the same time, is read and fixed in the mechanism of visual memory.

Now it is not about representing things from the surrounding world, it is rather a contemplation behind the life of ideas.

Archeology of color

It can be said that my work is completed on the first day - and never ends. There are canvases that I paint for 15-20 years. How does this happen? At some point, I lose contact with the canvas.

I put the date on the back, put it off, it goes to the exhibition, returns ... and someday our dialogue begins again. It says something, I answer - sometimes one element is added, or it is completely completely rewritten. This process is sometimes repeated several times - some works have 4-5 dates.

The history of writing can also be seen on the sides of the paintings. Paint flows there, and you can see these layers, and how they were formed. This archeology of color is very important in my monochrome works. Time is all there, on the sides. And also - in those layers of paint that are invisible under the surface of the latter.

Usually the question arises: when is the work finished? There is such a monochromatic artist Mosse, he said: the picture is completed when it was bought. Here I agree - then really everything, you can no longer return to her, now she lives her own life.

How does painting come about?

I have this metaphor: a river of color flows above us, which falls from time to time in various territories. This is how painters appear. There are few of them in the history of art. For example, in abstract expressionism there was only one painter - Rothko. Also in the 17th century in Holland there were a lot of great artists, but only Vermeer and Rembrandt were painters.

Everyone has the same materials in their hands - paints, brushes, palette knife, canvas. But for some reason, Terborch produces an anecdote scene, while Vermeer creates a metaphysical light above the surface of the canvas. At least I see him.

And for me, this light is exactly what distinguishes painting from what is simply painted with paints. There is something here outside of physics, something given by God or nature.

Those whom we call colorists are born with a better and more complex vision of color than other people. But not every colorist becomes an artist. To be an artist, you have to become a conductor - to allow your gift to pass through you a canvas of streams of color that fall on you.

You have to become empty like a reed - you should not be filled with some kind of unrest, experiences. You must remove your profane, psychological "I" - all that romantic natures call self-expression.

Such a rejection of everything that clutters up the "cane" that should let the color through - this is similar to Eastern practices. Somewhere close to yogic things, or to what Japanese or Chinese calligraphers were doing.

Tiberiy Silvashi abstract artist, 2015.

Artist Tiberius Silvashi is rightly called the patriarch of Ukrainian abstract art. For several decades in a row, he manages to remain not only one of the most sought-after Ukrainian artists, but also one of the most iconic figures of contemporary Ukrainian art in general. Tiberiy Silvashi is not just an artist, he is also a serious art theorist and thinker. Despite the fact that as an artist he always avoids narrative, in life Silvashi is an amazing storyteller. Like his art, his stories open up new horizons for the listener, bringing him to new levels of understanding of abstract painting. In this sense, Silvashi is an absolute agent of change.

Tiberiy Silvashi spoke to the ART UKRAINE magazine about the structure of the matrix of Ukrainian visuality, about how painting differs from a painting, as well as about the works from the painting series “Works on Paper”.

Tiberius, your new solo exhibition "Works on Paper" has recently ended at the Bottega Gallery. Please tell us about this project. If I'm not mistaken, some of the works have already been shown as part of the "Book Arsenal" this spring?

Yes, indeed, we have already exhibited some of the works from this exposition at the Book Arsenal. With Marina Shcherbenko we had the idea to show this project in the space of the ShcherbenkoArtCentre.

But over time, it became clear to me that the works should be exhibited on white walls, and we moved the exhibition to the Bottega space. Usually I already have a fairly clear idea of ​​​​the exposure and the process itself takes me a little time. I arranged the work, adjusted the distances, pauses and hang almost without changes. Everything was different with this exhibition: it was the white mats, or rather their size, that broke my entire concept of building the exposition. White space works very specifically with everything related to monochrome and geometric abstraction: each element you bring in becomes part of the work, and the structure with which you work. So it happened here too.

For example, I wanted to hang the works in blocks of 4 or 6 works. But it turned out that in this case they are too far apart in space. And the white paper passe-partout gives such a slightly zigzag relief. The shadows from the paper also began to work, creating an additional rhythm in the space of the gallery. In combination with the active color in these blocks, they simply "tear" the walls. Of course, in certain cases, one could play with this gap. But this was a different story, so I had to make drastic changes and put together an exposure of black and white works and works with very little color.

The ready-made exposition had to be redone on the go. So the project also included works that had already been shown earlier at the Book Arsenal. As a result, out of about 30 finished “papers” of this series, about 15 were included in the exposition of the exhibition “Works on Paper”.

Did you have to finish something on purpose or did you already have all the works for the exhibition ready?

No, everything was already ready. I work on paper almost constantly, in parallel with large sizes on hosts.

That is, “Works on Paper” is not a one-time exhibition project, but a painting series extended over time?

Yes, sure. This series has been going on for many years. The first one I made back in 1993. In Toulouse. There was no way they could bring me rags to wipe the brushes, but there was a pile of French newspapers in the workshop, which I began to use for this purpose. And so, rubbing paint into them, I found that an interesting effect was obtained in its unexpectedness. Moreover, it was, as they say, the “effect of the case”, when you, without looking, without thinking, simply automatically make certain gestures with your hand and get an unexpected result for yourself. Well, actually, it was such a pure "automatic writing" of the surrealists. All in all, I found it extremely interesting. And the technology itself, quite simple, and the mechanism of the case. Since then, along with the canvases, I have always prepared for myself some amount of paper or cardboard for work, where at any moment I could transfer some of the ideas I was working on. Over time, of course, I left the expressive system in which the first works were done, and gradually moved on to more rigorous handwork. And less chance.

Surely the same color can work completely differently on canvas and on paper. This is true?

You know, it probably refers to earlier things. There is a difference there and it is felt. In recent years, this distinction has been erased, and the number of plastic elements has been reduced to a minimum. There is another important element here: the paint covers the text. The text is printed and ink covers the information and facts of everyday life.

Work from the series "Works on paper"

Color is one of the foundations of your entire artistic practice. Your color works truly magically, “pulling” the viewer into the work.

Well, I hope... Yes, color is one of my main tools... You are absolutely right, some of these metaphysical things are undoubtedly present here.

You have color, perhaps even more than color: it is some kind of “color-light” or “light-color” ...

That's exactly how I write, with a hyphen, "color-light." And the point here is not only in some physical presence of a pigment, a material, whether it be oil paint, watercolor, tempera, emulsion or acrylic, or some industrial enamels. The most important thing is the difference between planes, relatively speaking, covered with paint, and planes covered with paint, which multiply the color, turning it into color-light or light-color, as you wish. And it is here that the difference that I talk about all the time is very important - the difference in definitions between "painters" and artists.

After all, you have a classical education, you studied on a course with Tatyana Yablonskaya ...

Yes, I studied at the department of monumental painting, and our academic school was very good. And the monumental faculty made it possible to try different materials, to feel the difference between them, the limits of their expressiveness and, of course, to work with space.

How did your primary interest in abstract painting come about?

It's a long story, it didn't start in one day, and it started from a completely different place - with the definition of an object of art that is important to me. I had a vague idea of ​​what I wanted, but I knew exactly what I did not want to do and would not do. It was a long period of trials, rejection of forms that did not suit me, until it turned out that the range of issues around which my interest is concentrated is very far from the nature of painting itself. And it turned out that this is a category of time.

Time, along with color, is another key vector in your artistic practice. That is, the category of time interested you from the very beginning of your work, from your youth?

Yes, this interest manifested itself during my studies and in the first years after the institute, when I felt helpless in the face of an unformulated problem. So, it was the category of time that led me to what is called abstraction, and then even further. After the institute, it was already clear that I was not interested in painting still lifes, landscapes and portraits. Of course, I knew how to do all this, but I already understood that, obviously, there was something else, something “beyond”. For example, if you paint a stool, then this image must be included in something, inscribed. It is important not just to write an object well, or to tell a story about it. There must be something else.

Gradually the idea took on more or less clear outlines. Approximate plastic forms of its realization have also become clear. In 1978, the milestone program of chronorealism for me was finally fixed. Its meaning, roughly speaking, was that there is a subjective time and time, as I designated it, metaphysical. There is a certain moment in which we are and experience it subjectively, very accurately imagining both the moment itself and the context in which it is placed. But at the same time, what is called world metaphysical time rushes past us. It was the combination of these two time categories that interested me. This is how something began to build up inside me that later acquired quite precise formulations in Chronorealism. The scheme according to which the space of the picture was built was simple, an almost hyperrealistic image is responsible for the specific described episode or scene of subjective time, and planes of pure color are responsible for the space of metaphysical time. There is color, there is a specific situation depicted, and at the same time there is something beyond this scene that cannot be explained.

I confess that this was not easy to implement. To be frank, it may be that works 5-6 of that period more or less correspond to what I am talking about now. There was another problem. After all, it was necessary to connect two spaces on the same plane with a different course of time, which, in my opinion, were not very connected. A third element was needed, which would not belong to any of the spaces, but would establish a connection between them. Such an element for me was the automatic writing taken from the surrealists, such Pollock splashing - “dripping”. The introduction of the third mechanical element into two unconnected times created a kind of eclectic space, allowing me to solve the task of linking subjective and metaphysical time. Such "software eclecticism". It must be said that it was still, to a certain extent, a classic picture, with all its elements. Even the frame in the form of a thin wooden lining was present, and the "horizontal flow of time" of the story-narration. In general, a rather naive idea, but for me it was an important stage. And at the exhibition of "eight Ukrainian artists" in the Central House of Artists, in Moscow, I felt this topic was exhausted.

I began to move precisely in the direction of metaphysical time, and thus a certain transition arose of itself to what I would call abstract painting, especially since I had been interested in it for a long time. I came to the point that I couldn't continue doing what I was doing up to that point. And at the same time, it was necessary to continue, because I was always involved in some projects. Offers of exhibitions, contracts, and in Kyiv the exhibition was held after the exhibition. In general, it was necessary to work. But it was already clear that I had some completely different stage ahead of me.

Perestroika began, I was elected secretary of the Kyiv branch of the National Union of Artists for work with young artists. I threw myself into work. There was a huge amount of organizational work, and it turned out that for two years I almost did not work as an artist. Thus, my plan moved forward two years: what was supposed to start in 1986-87 moved closer to 1989-1990. But this break allowed me to think about many things in a certain way.

Youth exhibitions, Sednev plein-airs went there, there was a lot of interesting work. Incredible energy of change permeated everything. The "youth" exhibition of 1987 determined a lot. It was there (and at that time the youth exhibition was allowed for the first time) that the core of the future Sednevs was formed. During the exhibition committee, we took addresses and phone numbers from the guys, formed lists for the future. It was clear that they needed to be brought together to work together. That is how the idea of ​​a separate group was born.

Work from the series "Works on paper"

That is, in fact, it was a curatorial function?

Yes, it was probably the first curatorial project. Sasha Solovyov took over the function of communication with the artists, he had all the necessary phone numbers and addresses. We had a fairly large list of artists with whom we planned to work. It was 1987, and the first Sednevsky plein air was planned for the spring of 1988.

You are right, it really was a full-fledged curatorial project, because it was necessary to gather people, form a program, make an exhibition based on the results of the plein air - in general, a full range of curatorial functions.

Another of my functions in the Sednev plein-airs was to talk to the artists about their work. Every day I went around all the workshops and talked with the artists, “telling” each of them something that could help in his work. I had to learn how to “switch”, moving from one workshop to another - I called it “plastic mimicry”, because I always tried to get involved in the plasticity of each of the authors, and understand what he wants to say, and how to help him with this. Not all, of course, because some of the guys had an absolutely formed plastic system and mastery of performance. It was time to learn from them.

The first Sednevsky plein air was a breakthrough in every sense.

At the first Sednev, such an incredible atmosphere of friendship and unity reigned that at the end of it, the artists did not want to leave, they gave each other works as a keepsake. So I have a small collection from there (points to one of the walls of the workshop - author's note).

I still believe that the main result of the first plein air was not that it brought together a group of authors, and not even that a certain program was lined up, but that the artists comprehended themselves as a generation. They then felt an extraordinary need for each other. Somewhere in the middle of the race in Kyiv, there were rumors that “something like that was being done” there, a pilgrimage began, guys from all over Ukraine came. Some came for the weekend, some stayed for a long time. The crowning achievement of this story was the arrival of the youth commission from Moscow. Suddenly a call from the Union of Artists: “Get ready, the Moscow commission is coming to you!”. And I, of course, knew these people, and I knew that beyond Moscow and Senezh (a creative base near Moscow), they never go anywhere. Then in the fall there was a youth exhibition in Moscow, in the Manege, and the exhibition did not give up when voting on our work. And before that there was an exhibition at the House of Artists in Kyiv. The ideological department of the Central Committee "worked" us both from the stage at the discussion and in the press. But then everything was already moving towards 1991, and no one could stop us.

After the second "Sednev" we were given the opportunity to make an exhibition at the National Museum. It was a recognition that Sednev had become a phenomenon. The National Museum had a huge exposition, for which we were given three halls on the second floor. This was important because the works were very large, just huge. I then said that if you hang a blank canvas measuring 1.5 x 1.5 m on the wall, then it will be just a pure white canvas. If you take a clean five-meter canvas, then this is already a concept (laughs - author's note). A canvas of this size already works monologue. It was a very important experiment related to the size of the painting, how it works. And of course, the energy of such a canvas is powerful. And the guys worked productively - for example, Oleg Golosiy or Pasha Kerestey could make 2-3 large canvases per night. After the second plein air there was a break. Something was wrong, everything began to repeat itself. There was a feeling that everything had stopped and was not moving forward. We decided to skip the 90th year, and to hold the third Sednevsky plein air already in the 91st.

Returning to your personal artistic practice. When did you resume it after a break?

It was the 89th year. By that time, I was ready to return to active work. But there was one phrase that prompted me to do it without delay. One of the critics wrote an article about Sednev, I think, in some Polish magazine, and in his material there was a mention of "the organizer of the plein air, Tiberia Silvashi." You see, I was not an artist, but an “organizer”?! The next day I was in the workshop.

And, of course, this “pause” time was a time for thinking about the problems that were important to me. In addition, I looked closely at artists who shared ideas close to me and, by the nature of their gift, were close to me. Then I singled them out in a separate group, just out of sympathy and friendship, without any specific goal.

It is obvious that you are talking about the "Scenic Reserve". It follows from your description that it was also a curatorial project…

… Yes, probably… . (smiles - author's note). In conversations, when discussing works in workshops, building a chain of predecessors, a logical line of succession emerged, throwing "bridges" between individual practices of artists of the 50s and 60s. , the avant-garde of the 10-20s. and sacred art. As a matter of fact, Zapovednik consciously undertook the task of filling the gap of modernism. By the way, the almost simultaneous emergence of the “Paris Commune” and the “Picturesque Reserve” is a paradoxical phenomenon in its asynchrony. We still feel this asynchrony both in society and in culture. And, perhaps, this also fits into the dual model of the development of society - the Wilder model (Wilder Pensfield, author of the dual development model — author's note).

The “Paris Commune” and the entire transavant-garde are built on the mechanism of narration, working with myth, on building certain cultural codes, while things related to abstraction, which we worked with in the “Picturesque Reserve”, were just moving away from narration. That's why in 92-93. I began to conceive a big project "Non-Narrativity", which was eventually implemented, I think, in the 95th. Non-narrativity was a very important element, which, let's say, opposed the narration built by the artists of the Paris Commune.

It turns out that the artists of the Paris Commune and the Picturesque Reserve, both vertical and horizontal, together formed a kind of matrix of Ukrainian visuality…

... you are absolutely right. You have even formulated now exactly as I called the text, which I still can’t finish – “The Matrix of Ukrainian Visuality”. We can say that the vertical of this matrix was done by the “Reserve”, and the “Paris Commune” was responsible for the horizontal of the narration. This does not mean that there was nothing interesting next to these groups. It's not like that at all. Simply, certain breaks in history reveal the construction of what we have designated as a matrix. Hidden for the time being mental mechanisms, structures of artistic language begin to implicitly influence the choice of artistic strategies. And this choice is made intuitively or consciously, it does not matter. This is a special case of the action of historical forces.

And another very important thing, at the formal level. Because everything we talk about is superimposed on the history of the picture as such. The picture emerges precisely when the problem of subject-object relations arises. An autonomous subject contemplating the world as an object through a picture window. Not everything that is written in paint is painting. There is an established opinion that painting is always a picture. We speak of painting and see it in only one single form, the form of a picture. But, in my opinion, this is not entirely true. Painting existed before the appearance of the picture, and will exist after it. Stained glass is the same kind of painting, it is light installed in time. The works of the same Rothko are color installations in space, this is the same painting that has already gone beyond the picture.

Here, the dominance of the pictorial form in all its forms (from transavant-garde to abstract) in Ukraine and Kiev, both in the case of our two groups and all their other varieties, made it possible to consider and analyze the difference in its specific features. Then it became clear to me that not everything that is painted with paints is painting, and I introduced the concepts of “artist” and “painter” for myself, as two figures with completely different strategies and existence within the framework of art. But this is one part of the problem, and the other is the function of the “picture” during the collapse of the “subject-object” relationship, when the viewer becomes part of the space of the work. Behind this is the experience of minimalism. And with the entry into the electronic era, the conversation is completely different ...

Returning to the category of time with which we started. In ancient Greek philosophy, there is not one, but several gods responsible for time. There is Chronos, which is responsible for dividing time - from seconds and minutes to years and centuries. There is an Aeon that works with infinite time. It is time without end, the flow of time. So, the "painter" works with Aeon, with infinite time. And the "artist" always works with articulated time, with Chronos. And it is this division of time that is the basis for the emergence of the picture. Paintings with a frame limited in time and space, a direct perspective, the unity of time and action, which the artists tried in every possible way to overcome, indulging in all sorts of tricks. This is a rational space, with the image of a story or a story about an event. While “painting-painting”, even existing in the form of a picture, is always an undivided stream of time. And the image plays an auxiliary role in it. The plasma space of painters operates in a different way. Perhaps this is what Lacan says about this, that in the “object of contemplation” there is a certain “blind spot” of visual desire, which he calls “gaze”. But this "look" does not belong to the subject, but is an invisible lure of the thing itself (painting).

According to Lacan, in this "look" the subject loses his self and falls into the unconscious essence of his existence. Here we are dealing not with an image, but with an element bordering on a continuum of reality, which gives rise to painting. It is customary to consider everything that is written with paints to be painting. Formally, this is so. And there, and there is a painted surface. Although, already Vasari distinguished between "Venetian painters" and "Florentine artists", noting the prevalence of form in the latter. Now, if we exclude what is a natural gift to see the world as a flow of color (namely, such people we call colorists), then only the difference in the use of time allows us to understand the nature of what we call “painting”. Real painting is like a "black hole" absorbs time and space. Before such painting, you lose the physical sense of time and fall into it, as into a space-continuum devoid of gravity. And this is not a value judgment, but an attempt to analyze nature, such a phenomenon as painting.

So, continuing the history of the "Reserve" ... At some point, somewhere in the mid-90s, we felt the exhaustion of collective action. And, as we said then, we went on an individual voyage, each with their own ideas and priorities. For me, the experience of Yves Klein, both minimalists and monochrome artists was important. And, of course, it was impossible not to take into account the experience of conceptualism, overcoming it. And then I tried to work with these problems: with "color objects" instead of a picture; with "color space", avoiding "language games", reducing visual elements. Fortunately, both Marina Shcherbenko and Pavel Gudimov (gallery owners and curators with whom Tiberius Silvashi worked - author's note) understood what I was doing and helped in the implementation of projects. But of course I felt alone with my ideas. I had to wait for almost a whole generation until new people appeared who were close (to a greater or lesser extent) to my ideas. This is how the Alliance 22 group arose. In general, the further, the more I see artists involved in this process.

Tell us about working with this group. Does it exist relatively recently?

Third year. The group includes the artists Badri Gubianuri, Sergey Momot, Konstantin Rudeshko and myself, a little later, a woman, the philosopher Yana Volkova, joined the ranks of the founding fathers. It all started with an international seminar on non-figurative art at the Bottega Gallery. Everything was great, but there was a feeling that it was not enough. And then Badri proposed the Bulgakov Museum as a platform where we could hold meetings and discussions. Since then, every 22nd of every month we show the artist's personal project. Usually this is one work - painting, object, photography. Necessarily created in collaboration with someone from the representatives of other professions - a musician, philosopher or other artist. And rigid parameters - minimalism, geometric abstraction, monochrome.

At one time, the "Picturesque Reserve" gathered here, in my workshop, every year on December 27th. Now Alliance 22 has inherited this tradition. Perhaps this is due to my love of ritual and repetition, and besides, it again refers us to the cyclical nature of time.

What is Alliance 22 working on now?

Last year, in the third season, we decided to reformat our work, and work for six months with certain categories, such as "Time", "Color", "Light", "Material", "Structure", "Language". The first two projects in this format were theoretical and devoted to the theme of time. I think we will continue to explore this topic. As you can see, what began with chronorealism gradually flows into these forms.

You said that you have been waiting for artists with whom you could continue what you started with the Picturesque Reserve, almost a whole generation, more than 10 years. And if we talk about a new generation of young artists, those who are commonly called "new blood"? Do you see those who are about to start breathing down the back of 30-35 year olds?

Yes, of course, this is just the age of understanding yourself and your place in art. It seems to me that they continue the same ideas that the previous generation of artists started. They are critical, social, feel freer in the choice of medium and form. I am glad that many of them are interested in the problems with which Zapovednik began to work. But, of course, this is all completely different and about something else. And if we talk about modern painting, then it is important for the painter to realize and retain his own conventionality, “autonomous” and structured according to its own internal laws. And it works as a "reality" precisely because of its conventionality.

For me, leaving any function of narration is a very important thing. For example, I write quite a lot of texts in order to comprehend what I work with. But at the same time, I try to keep the practice of painting as far as possible from the discussion field, to minimize the space of interpretation. For me now it is much more important how the mechanisms for the production of the visual are built. How a space is created that is common for the work and for the person included in it. And this is not the contemplation of a “beautiful” object, but the production of a situation, each time unique for the observer. And the visible is only a part of this scheme of intersections between the product and the observer. One well-known monochrome painter once said: "There are so many colors in the world - we live in a reality where absolutely everything is colored." And this is true, especially now - the first nature is today obscured by the second.

The second nature is technological, it is characterized by an abundance of media images, bright, redundant color of advertising clichés, all this is a solid picture. So the monochrome “cuts out” the color from this hyper-colored world and makes it isolated. It isolates what is everywhere. It can be said that monochrome is the most critical in relation to the external society precisely because it limits its external manifestations. You isolate and limit the color and say: "That's it." It's like drawing a square in the sand on the beach. Enclose this square among mountains of sand. This is some kind of internal limitation, it is not so easy to work with it.

Returning to the theme of young artists. Some of them today are building their careers bypassing Ukraine as a zone of interest. Even working in Ukraine, they think outside of it. Are you worried about these trends? Or is it ok?

This is completely normal. I do not see anything wrong with this, besides, this is exactly the age at which it is worth traveling and studying. Well, to understand what the modern system of art is. The art industry with all its institutions that make up the power structure. In a word, today an artist has an individual choice - you choose whether to join this system or not, to maximally or minimally adapt to it.

I can't help but ask a question about the viewer's interaction with your art. The fashion for art as a kind of entertainment has given rise to what the viewer today often expects from art to be attractive. But your viewer, perhaps, is still more thoughtful and “watchful”?

I think yes. But this is a very small number of people. You understand, when in the early 90s we started working with the Picturesque Reserve, what we did was “our own” also for a small number of people. Of course, things have changed over the years. I think we can say that we have raised our audience.

Tiberiy Silvashi is often called a classic of Ukrainian abstract painting, and for 30 years he has managed to be relevant in contemporary art. In addition, Silvashi, although he does not sell his paintings at international auctions, nevertheless consistently ranks among the top ten most expensive domestic artists.

His paintings are in demand among Western art collectors, and he often exhibits them in Europe. So the meeting of the journalists of the Novoye Vremya edition with Tiberiy Silvashi took place after his return from the opening of a large exhibition of Ukrainian artists in the famous Saatchi Gallery in London, the very one from which one of the most expensive contemporary artists Damien Hirst and many of his other successful colleagues took off.

Silvashi is talking to NV in his workshop, located on the top floor of an ordinary Kyiv high-rise building on Antonovicha Street - there are high ceilings and natural light falling from the attic window. “This apartment was originally designed as an art studio,” the artist explains as he prepares coffee.

— How were Ukrainian artists received in Saatchi?

“Most of all, I was afraid that the exhibition would be of interest only to Ukrainians living in London. But at the opening there were mostly English people, and so many people came that in half an hour we left the gallery with [artists] Alexander Solovyov and Alexander Roitburd.

The next day there were also a lot of people - in each hall there were 10-15 people, mostly young people who sketched the works and photographed them. Not yourself against their background, as it is now fashionable, namely the work. It was absolutely amazing: they were sitting on the floor, drawing something, coming up and watching how it was done.

— To what extent are Ukrainian artists inscribed in contemporary art?

— Quite. The time when we looked back at someone is over. There are some technical difficulties - many modern works require serious financial investments, but in terms of the quality of ideas, we are absolutely world-class.

For a long time we did not have a natural development in art. There were single figures, but there was no reflection and criticism, so few people knew about them. In Soviet times, if an artist did something unusual, at best they didn’t pay attention to him, and at worst, they declared him crazy. For example, we had an absolutely wonderful performance artist Fedor Tetyanich, but then there was not even a concept of performance. Art in our country existed in parallel with society: artists lived their own lives, and society lived its own.

Now, in many respects, we have aligned with the rest of the world. But we will probably never be the first. Behind art is always an invisible shield the economic power of the country, and as long as Ukraine is a third world country, we will be artists of a third world country.

“You are the ideologist of the well-known in the 1990s art group Picturesque Reserve, which included Anatoly Krivolap and Alexander Zhivotkov. Tell us, how did modern Ukrainian art begin?

— In the mid-1980s, two art groups spontaneously arose — the Paris Commune and the Picturesque Reserve. Artist Alexander Klimenko found an empty house on Mikhailovskaya Street in Kyiv. Alexander Gnilitsky, Vasily Tsagolov, Alexander Solovyov and others joined him, they called their group the Paris Commune [this is the old name for Mikhailovskaya Street]. The group was engaged in figurative painting, filled with cultural quotes, references to mythology.

I was more interested in working with color, and I began to look for artists who would be close to me in ideology. As a result, in 1992 a small group was formed: me, Anatoly Krivolap, Alexander Zhivotkov, Nikolai Krivenko and Mark Geiko. The name for the group came up with a friend of mine, also an artist, with whom I always stayed in Paris. After looking at our work, he said with surprise: “Listen, this is a reserve, there is no such thing anymore!” Later I learned that in parallel in different parts of the world there were groups working with similar ideas - the same New York Radical Painting.

We were all close to abstraction. Someone had more color, someone had less, someone worked with texture, someone didn’t. Each had its own internal program, but at the same time, we deliberately threw conditional bridges to the past — the artists who worked in the 1960s, to the avant-garde of the 1910s and 1920s, and even further — to the icon and sacred painting.

— Why did the Picturesque Reserve fall apart?

“Even when we created the Reserve, I said that any group can exist for five years or five exhibitions. Sooner or later, the internal principles by which artists unite begin to contradict their needs. And so it happened: the group acquired a certain status, and each of us acquired a status with it, and then we went on solo voyages.

The 1990s were a time of synchronization with the processes taking place in the West. We filled in Ukrainian art what was missed during the years of Soviet power, and what art in the West passed naturally. Only after that modern trends began to appear in Ukraine.

Is it possible to create something revolutionary in art today?

— It seems that everything has already been done and invented. Now the very term art is being questioned. Probably one of the most important questions that the artist must decide for himself: what is the function of art in today's world? There are times when answers are given and times when questions are asked. We live in an era of questions, and this is much more important.

“So you don’t have an answer to the question, what is the function of art now?

“I'm afraid I don't have a definitive answer. I've been asking this question to smart people for 20 years now, and no one has been able to answer it. The only thing everyone agrees on is that the function of art has changed a lot. It has become commonplace, we consume art and want something new all the time. You know, in the 1950s, there was a popular expression: soon everyone will be an artist. So, it turned out that this is not about the fact that anyone can create a work of art, but about the fact that the viewer becomes part of the artist's intention. Your interpretation of art depends on experience, cultural background, how you have lived your life.

— In one of the interviews, you said that you have been painting one picture all your life. What is it about?

— This is such a figurative expression. Painting, as I imagine it, is a process where the personal creativity of a particular artist is part of a larger process. I paint as a ritual, every day. No matter what you write, no matter what mood, no matter if there is inspiration.

Tiberiy Silvashi via Facebook

— To what extent do the events taking place now in the country affect your work?

— When I close the doors of the workshop, citizen Silvashi remains outside. Of course, everything I react to outside the workshop is reflected in some way in the structure of the work. But I never wanted to broadcast things - they should be hidden behind a veil of paint. For me, it is more honest and more organic to participate in charity auctions than to reflect events in my works.

— You are one of the most expensive Ukrainian artists, but at the same time you deliberately do not take part in commercial auctions. Why?

— Whatever money we get at auctions, they are still lieutenants. The art system dictates the rules of the game, and I don't want to play them. I prefer in this situation to remain free and not included in the race.

Photo: Alexander Medvedev / NV, Tiberiy Silvashi via Facebook

Tiberiy Silvashi is a Ukrainian artist, without whom the domestic art space would not be the way we know it today. And here the point is not even in his works and the incredible consistency with which he develops the language of abstract art, but in the personality itself.

It is hard to imagine that at the rate at which our artistic environment is changing, it seems incredible that the same person can be an authority for the generation of Soviet artists of the 80s and revolutionary 90s, and the politicized 2000s, and continues to be important figure for the newest generation of Ukrainian artists.

Incredibly, this person combines two seemingly mutually exclusive qualities: extreme sensitivity to everything that can be attributed to the sphere of aesthetics, and cold rationality.

Once upon a time, he found his "balance point", which allows him to be at the forefront of artistic life for more than one decade in a row, never having been on the "spare bench" during this time.

We talked with Tiberius about his work and Ukrainian modernity, about teachers and attitudes towards the market, as well as about the relationship between abstract art and alchemy.

ARTIST AND SOCIETY

- How does Tiberius Silvashi live in this time and space? In Ukraine at the end of 2013?

This question is difficult to answer in one word. We live in a very difficult time and in a very difficult society. I would like to say that I am happy and have a wonderful life.

Rather, life consists of happy moments of the fullness of life and a sad statement of the imperfection of man and society. I have been doing what I love all my life...

Now is the period when experience coincides with opportunities. Good luck is as organic as the effort put into making it happen. Losses are compensated by the joy that loved ones are nearby.

And years in art and in the same society forced me to build a system of priorities that would allow me to exist comfortably enough in any time and space.

- What are these priorities? Could they become a universal recipe for a comfortable existence?

No, I think it's mine personally. Rather, these are methods of psychological self-defense of the body, allowing me to build my life in such a way that I can work and, accordingly, provide for my family, help children ...

I don’t like this word “comfortable”, because it instantly builds a system of compromises, but I’m not talking about compromises, but about such a way of relations that maximally limits the possibility of any pressure from society on me.

You once said that when you enter a studio, you are only an artist, but when you leave it, you become a citizen. How do you do it? Preserve your inner territory of freedom, being inside the permanent situation of conflict in which we all find ourselves today?

It seems to me that at least a little, but I understand the mechanisms by which society functions.

Perhaps this is an illusion, but I have an understanding of how our professional community is included in these mechanisms, how it interacts with the global cultural space, and so on.

It's like in abstract art, when people ask me how one monochrome canvas differs from another, I answer: the difference is in the structure. If you see the structural level, then many of the mechanisms that work in art, oddly enough, are also manifested in society.

If our politicians had thought about what was happening in the early 90s in art, they would have understood how these same processes became decisive for social development. Art, I think, reacts to social changes earlier. You just need to see them.

- What do you have in mind?

In the late 80s and early 90s, a situation arose in Ukrainian art when it was necessary to make a choice of a model on which to move forward. This model determined the further development of art.

Then there was an obvious confrontation between two groups - two thought structures - the narrative "Paris Commune" and the non-narrative "Picturesque Reserve". One turned the Soviet painting tradition inside out, thereby continuing it, while the other called for a transition to completely different models.

From the same time and all the procedural problems of our art system. For example, when the Soviet system collapsed, we tried to inherit Western models, but recreate them in a poor country.

Then, in conditions of terrible inflation, barter was common practice. And we began to pay with paintings for exhibitions and projects. So there was something with which now everyone is at war.

- So, you introduced this vicious practice?

Yes, unfortunately, we introduced it, and now no one knows how to get rid of it. I do not know if anyone used it before us, but we first used it in the third "Sednev" ( we are talking about the famous Sednev plein-airs organized by Tiberius Silvashi when he was the head of the youth section of the Kyiv branch of the Union of Artists in 1988, 1989 and 1991 - ed.).

Then it was a salvation, now it is obvious that the situation has changed dramatically, but this mechanism still remains, we are fighting, but we can’t change it in any way. Alas.

- If you were offered to reform something in the social structure, what would you change first of all?

I am afraid to interfere in the order of things, because he, this order, will be preserved regardless of you, your efforts, beliefs, for the sake of which you are doing this. You have done some work, something has changed, but only on a superficial level. But at that internal structural level, it turns out that no changes have taken place.

It takes time and interaction of different forces. Of course, you need to make efforts, only the result may well turn out to be exactly the opposite of your expectations.

- That is your recipe: non-action?

I guess it's yes.

- You do not believe that the artist is able to influence something?

It does, but on a different level. Today we perceive influence as a direct action. The ability to influence directly. While the artist influences otherwise.

Everyone knows Picasso's fairly fair formula that you can ignore artistic achievements, but they will still come to your house in the form of a toilet bowl.

Art allows you to see the world from the inside. A person usually glides over the surface, and the artist sees the relationship of things to each other. Hidden connections. It's like in painting: the artist is able to see how the pictorial power flows collide, while the ordinary person remains at the level of the surface of the canvas.

- But what about Boyce's statement that every person is an artist?

I think he got excited. If you remember Merab Mamardashvili, he said that you need a daily effort in order to remain a person, and in order to remain an artist, perhaps even several orders of magnitude more effort is needed.

- Sometimes, even understanding how everything works, it happens that the artist needs to make a political decision on the territory of art. For example, as in the case of the shaded work by Vladimir Kuznetsov in the Mystetsky Arsenal. In this situation, everyone who participated in the exhibition "Great and majestic", the entire professional community, were forced to take some position. Now it has turned into a boycott. This is the vulnerability of your theory: it is not always possible to confine oneself to understanding alone.

My first desire, when I learned about this incident, was to remove my works from the exhibition, because the case is really egregious. But after an hour, I realized that this can not be done. Now, after the lapse of time, I think it was the right decision.

Of course, this is an act of vandalism, but getting involved in a boycott situation is also unproductive when we are dealing with an institution that has not been fully formed.

It is wonderful to boycott Western institutions with well-established mechanisms of functioning. In our country, everything is still in the process of formation, and what is needed here is not a tough confrontation, but a dialogue. And in this case, it was initially clear that there would be no dialogue. As the result showed - the dialogue did not work out.

And perhaps the most important thing. After all, behind the scandal, behind the disassembly of groups, the confrontation of vanities, a unique opportunity was missed to analyze what can be called the matrix of Ukrainian visuality. But at this exhibition, works were collected in one space, the artistic code of which, upon careful reading, made it possible to see certain patterns of the historical development of our visual experience.

Moreover, it was spelled out in the exposition itself. And no one wanted to see it. And there are the roots and causes of many processes that we face today in artistic life and not only.

As for the boycott, I still don't understand why none of the artists has privatized it yet. This is a brilliant media situation that can be deployed in time.

Perhaps our management calculator or the determinism of ideology turned out to be stronger than the instinct of the artist and a point version was chosen. But if you really boycott, then you need to boycott everything. What does it mean to boycott one institution? If you want real change, you need to boycott the system. All.

After all, even the Arsenal institution, which is not yet perfect in its functioning, is part of this global system. You can send notification letters every morning to all the world's art institutions with the appropriate statements. And then to collect these documents in a separate book, which can then be published.

And do it consistently for the rest of your life. At large forums such as the Venice Biennale and others, at Basel and other fairs, not to mention the various auctions there, you can physically attend, demonstrating criticism of institutions.

Ter-Ohanyan did it in Paris, but he protested that his work was exhibited in the Louvre. And then there is the global project of institutional criticism. This is a radical position, then this is a boycott. And an artistic gesture.

- What interests you in the modern Ukrainian artistic process?

Not everything can be watched, and not everyone wants to, but, one way or another, everything is a subject of analysis for me. I threw out the words "like" or "dislike" from my vocabulary a long time ago - what remains is the analysis of aesthetic codes.

Filmed an episode with Marichka. The one where she was pregnant descending from the mountains, and a witch grandmother was going to meet her. The film crew went upstairs, and I already wrote a sketch and went down the mountain. Parajanov and Yakutovich stood leaning against the fence and waited for the group to rise.

I approached them with a sketchbook and saw the ironic smile of Parajanov, who said to me: "Well, did you write a postcard again?"

This phrase, which seemed to be thrown in passing, made a huge impression on me, I don’t even know why. That is, after the fact - it's clear! Now, if before that I was so, rather carefree, a student doing everything right, striving to master the craft, to achieve mastery - fortunately there were examples, then after this episode I seriously thought about what art is.

This phrase made me take up the theory. Trying to understand yourself, to understand what is happening in the world, what is happening with art. Books, albums, going to museums, communicating with artists, I was lucky for people. Life gave me a meeting with many outstanding personalities, each of which left me something, changed something.

Then, much later, after going through many trials and attempts to work in other forms of art, I returned with the realization of what I needed. I was interested in working with time. Obviously, it has been a long journey. At first I tried to work with him in mimetic forms and this resulted in chronorealism, and then into abstraction, and then further .... And I don't know what it might lead to later.

- Who is the main teacher for you in this case?

I always name three people. In addition to Tatyana Yablonskaya, of course, my friendship with the elder Yakutovich and Danil Danilovich Leader had a very strong influence on me.

Long conversations with them gave me a lot. Valya Ulyanova, who taught us drawing. Valera Kononenko, a wonderful painter who graduated from Stroganov. In fact, there are a lot of people I have learned from. Sometimes even a random word or shown work can change a lot. It's like in the East: "The student is ready, and then the teacher appears."

I was just such a pickup antenna that soaked up everything that could be received. It is clear that I could not catch everything right away, because Duchamp and Malevich came later. Malevich, by the way, through theoretical work.

Photo by Masha Bykova

- What and how did Tatyana Yablonskaya teach you?

She, at first glance, did not have any special method. Rather, it was a work related to general cultural depth. That "norm" that was then at the institute, she somehow opposed. She taught us to perceive the entire history of art as a kind of cultural layer, which makes you an artist.

Of course, in purely professional, technical terms, she gave a lot. She was a fantastic master, but it was not about discovering some tricks. Rather, something was laid that transformed your vision over time.

For the first time, for which she was much criticized, she elevated copying to a serious practice. Along with outdoor productions, we made copies of masterpieces. Today, the Fayum portrait, next semester, Brueghel - which was not in the originals, was copied from reproductions. The Infanta Velasquez and some other works were painted to the Museum of Western Art. In another semester we went to St. Sophia Cathedral, on the second floor, where there were mosaics from St. Michael's Cathedral and copied the mosaics.

It was a permanent actual direct living of the history of art. Materials have always been taken into account in studies. After all, we had a monumental faculty. The transition from painting to mosaic, from mosaic to sgraffito.

For example, a full-length, naturalistically executed figure of a model was made with charcoal, after which it was transferred into a rather conditional form, into cardboard, and then this image was transferred to sgraffito. So one image, realistically made, was brought almost to the state of a sign - in a very conditional form. And this brought up a completely different attitude to art.

It must have been intuitive. But it was a very competent method of educating an artist. It was an expansion of vision. From natural drawing to completely conventional things, the ability to transform what you see in space.

ABSTRACT ART AND ALCHEMY

- Does your art need to be seen or understood?

Seeing is the tool, understanding is the result. And all together - a unique experience.

If one day a viewer comes to your exhibition who has not yet learned to see, but would very much like to learn to understand, what would you advise him?

In my case, it's quite difficult. This is generally a problem of analytical painting. This is an extreme case. I really hope that if this viewer has reached here, then he already has some ideas about what he sees.

- A direct experience is not enough?

We can say that in the painting itself there are some force fields that act directly on a person. But usually an adult person already has certain knowledge, some "cultural" experience, some "prejudices" that block his direct experience.

Conditionally. A man stands in front of a monochrome canvas and thinks. Wow, this is just a painted over surface, why did he expose it and call it a work of art?

That is, for this person, the sequence of reflections is as follows: a wall or a door can be painted over, and in the gallery I want to see something done. After all, he cannot admit that there is another form of being made. There is no visual message here. He sees just a painted canvas and he concludes "I can do that too."

And here we meet with how direct experience is blocked by such reflections.

When there is nothing, you need to make an incredible effort in order to understand what is actually in front of you. Oriental art has always worked with this. You look at the scroll, but the scroll in front of you is just a papyrus with ink - it's just an excuse to penetrate yourself. It seems to me that this is a way of abandoning the current culture of entertainment. However, it is quite ancient and traditional.

We think differently. We are waiting for the finished product to be delivered to us. We must consume. And thus, the further - the more the culture of entertainment prevails in the culture. We expect to be surprised, entertained, amazed, and so on. And, there is one more word of the current "culture" - the word "cool". That's what we have "cool" art.

Photo by Masha Bykova

You often say that you have been writing the same work all your life. And that this is for you the process of comprehending painting as such. Doesn't this remind you of the alchemical practice of finding the Philosopher's Stone?

Certainly! Of course, this is a certain level of knowledge. There are different levels of discovery-concealment, knowledge in hermetic. And when you are asked "what is painting" you can answer that painting is a way to make a living, going further you can say that it is a way of applying paint to a canvas in a certain way.

But at the third, fourth level, you begin to understand that this is about how the dead, inert matter of the coloring matter turns into a metaphysical state of light.

It is no coincidence that now at the exhibition the red canvas is called "painting. Cinnabar" ( Until the second of November in the Shcherbenko Art Center you can see the exhibition of Tiberius Silvashi "Monochromia"- ed.).

Everything you are talking about is so far from the radical transformative pathos of the Ukrainian art scene with its political slogans and collective marches that it seems that you are either from another planet or know something.

I had a period when I was very actively involved in the transformation of our artistic society. And very successfully. In what we have now, the state in which our artistic community is, a large share of my work.

I think that critical art, politically engaged art - the result of working with the problems of modern times - is a rather reactive practice. Which is kinda important. Rapid response area. Criticism of power, its mechanisms, requires special forms of work, and, I think, a certain temperament.

But what if the detached work with the structures of thought is even more critical in relation to the world than a direct reaction to some actual events?

Because you do not fall out of the social context, but on a completely different deep level, you work with things that implicitly affect the mechanisms of thinking. But it is precisely they that determine the social processes to which critical artists react.

This is what alchemy is. Alchemists also wanted to change the world that did not suit them. But not on the surface, but on the structural level.

That's it. ( smiling)

Photo by Masha Bykova

MARKET AND ARTISTIC VALUE

There is a lot of philosophy in your work. In fact, they are the documentation of the thought process. And this is a very personal, intimate sphere. How do you experience the fact that they become a commodity, an object on the market?

I divided their life into life in the workshop, when we coexist together, and what is called social existence. There they are included in rather complex relationships, commodity-money, but also value.

Being in a different place, they are included in a different context, which can also be extremely interesting.

- How do you feel about the market - a structure absolutely necessary for the existing system of art today. Do you follow what is happening in the market? You wrote that the recent scandal with the forgery of your work happened by accident.

Yes, by chance I just saw a catalog with this work, and it made me doubt. I can't say that I'm not at all interested in the market circulation of my works, but as long as I have the opportunity to live and work, providing for the life of my family, this does not affect me in any way. And this topic of ratings, constantly exaggerated by the press, with the use of the words "most, most" ...

I once went in for sports, but I could not become a professional athlete, because I do not have the spirit of competition, so here.

- Why do you never give your work to auctions?

This is a system problem. The lack of debugging of its mechanisms with us. But, of course, my skepticism about the regulatory function of the market in art is reflected here.

Of course, the market eats everything. There is nothing he can't digest. What shows the sad experience of conceptualism, which began with resistance to the market. But sometimes I give my work for charity auctions.

- Is it a political decision for you not to participate in commercial auctions?

In a certain sense, yes. It is obvious to me that the momentary actual price almost never coincides with the unconditional artistic value. And for me, value problems will always be higher than price ones. But, knowing the variability of living conditions, I cannot exclude the possibility that at some point I will have to change my mind.

- Is there anything you are missing?

- (thinks for a long time) I don't even know. I never thought that I was missing something.