Nonconformist artists. Nonconformists "Prague Spring" for art

At present, 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 have grown on the basis of unreliable, and sometimes deliberately distorted information coming from from the subjective preferences of artists, art critics and collectors.

BANNIKOV Nikolai (1942)
YOUTH. 1970s

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

BANNIKOV Nikolai (1942)
YOUNG WOMAN. 1970s

The ensuing hype and scandal in the Western media forced the Soviet ideologists to slightly ease the pressure on some artists, and allow, under the close supervision of the "organs", "metered" 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. Prior to 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 Nikolai (1942)
ZANDER. 1968

The decision to give a small group of recalcitrant artists a small break was not an act of good will, but a forced retreat under the onslaught of accusations of barbarism coming from the West after the unprecedented scandal with the destruction of paintings at the exhibition, nicknamed "Bulldozer".

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

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

BARINOV Mikhail (1947)
NOON No. 1. 1978

This is the beginning of the history of the Little Gruzinka, which was the most striking expositional discovery until 1980. The decision of the authorities was influenced not only by the events mentioned above, but also by the facts of holding 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. There were also foreign diplomats who met with dissidents, acquired paintings, thereby supporting unofficial art.

BELYUTIN Eliy (1925)
TALK. CONVERGENCE. 1981

There is an opinion of contemporaries of the above events that by creating a small "sump" for the exhibition activity of rebel artists, the KGB simplified the task of controlling the situation and possibly suppressing individual ideologically colored provocations by nonconformists. At the same time, the role of apartment expositions decreased, the monitoring of which required more complex operational work. There is also an opinion that the KGB sought to dismember the 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 career at the dawn of the 70s is sometimes called the generation of "outcasts". The contempt and enmity on the part of representatives of the official art left them little reason for optimism. The rigid 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.

BLESE Sergei (1945)
COMPOSITION No. 20. 1975

At best, the audience was a narrow circle of friends and admirers. Work “on the table”, “in the corner of the workshop” opened the way for someone to the freedom of experiment, the development of the inner space of consciousness, its expansion; others were driven into despair, binges. There was a stratification of a small group of nonconformists - some chose a formal experiment on syntax, composition design, technological and stylistic components.

BLESE Sergei (1945)
COMPOSITION No. 13. 1974

The other, smaller part, went into a spiritual search, deep into 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 picture 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 contemporary Western art and the inaccessibility of information about the domestic avant-garde of the 1920s created an atmosphere of vacuum, “boiling in one’s own juice”, which gave certain specific features to the work of nonconformists of the 1970s. Fragmentary information about the Western avant-garde came through magazines on the art of socialist countries. camps and rare editions of "Skir" that got through the cordon.

HAYDUK Hope (1948)
ODESSA. 1974

This stimulated the process of creating some 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 dosed exhibition activity at Malaya Gruzinka 28 has become 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 by new discoveries in the field of shaping, deepening the content.

HAYDUK Hope (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. There was an original direction in the painting of religious themes.

HAYDUK Hope (1948)
MOSCOW YARD. 1976

Materialized performance and group meditation, experiments in the field of stage movement and avant-garde scenography; the dawn of the work of "instant painting" Anatoly Zverev; a whole trend of neo-expressionists took shape. Neo-historical painting, metaphysical landscape and even a new version of genre painting were developed.

GLUKHOV Vladimir (1937-1985)
LANDSCAPE.1970

The formation of the artistic language of the non-conformists of the 1970s took place against the backdrop of and in opposition to the official line of the union of artists with its professional guidelines, norms, clichés and prohibitions. By the mid-70s, the “severe style” was fading, 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 THE QISHLAK. 1977

Basically, these are interpretative "moves" from fashionable styles 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 a line of "neoclassics", 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 insured itself ideologically with both “documentary plot” and “realism of doneness” and presented itself as a fashionable and innovative line of socialist realism. By the end of the 70s, a variation of German expressionism of the 20s, adapted to social realism, in combination with technological innovations of American neo-expressionism of the 40s-60s, the line of Pollack and his followers, became a separate line of the left MOSH by the end of the 70s.

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 distributed orders, the procurement policy of the Ministry of Culture, the Art Fund, the Union of Artists.

ZUBAREV Vladislav (1937)
COMPOSITION. 1971

A separate plastic line against the backdrop of the artistic life of the 60-70s was the school of Eliy Belyutin, 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, construction 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 regularity. Although these methods were carried out within the purely local framework of the pedagogical process, they 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 expositions, 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 feature of the expositional life of the basement on Malaya Gruzinskaya was that artists of different generations were exhibited in it, ousted from official art or openly opposed to it.

KOLOTEV Vasily (1953)
ARREST OF THE PROPAGANDIST. 1979

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

KOLOTEV Vasily (1953)
NINTH SHAFT. 1979

Exhibition activity continued in the 80s, but by the beginning of the perestroika period, 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 famous basement.

KROTOV Victor (1945)
DEDICATION TO GOYA. 1975

Unfortunately, time has mercilessly dealt with the legacy of the nonconformists of the 70s. It is not possible to recreate, at least in approximation, a complete picture of the creative process of that time. Firstly, due to the physical death of many participants of 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 on individual personalities, but on the process as a whole, led to the fact that much disappeared from social memory, and the rest was overgrown with mythology, individual and group, both ill-wishers and survivors of the events.

KUZNETSOV Konstantin (1944)
Tsaritsino. 1982

The proposed small exposition sets a modest task - to identify and acquaint art lovers and collectors, if possible, with at least some of the nonconformist artists from the "first call" of the exhibition activity of the hall on Malaya Gruzinskaya 28, in their composition until the early 80s. Most of the artists represented have participated in the exhibition process since the first exhibition of the painting section in March 1976. The projection for the future also lies in the fact that more fully, on a personal level, to acquaint the audience with the work of these artists.

LESCHENKO Vladimir (1939)
ARMENIA. 1982

This exhibition is a tribute and respect to the famous American collector of Soviet unofficial art - Norton Dodge - the author of the term "Soviet non-conformism". 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 Natalia (1948)
STILL LIFE. 1972

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

Member of Moscow Union of Artists S.V. Potapov

Spiritual situation at the end of the 20th century. poses an obvious problem of understanding the Soviet cultural heritage in all the diversity of its historical and artistic features. This problem is especially relevant in connection with those changes in the cultural life of modern civilization, which are so characteristic of the end of the 20th century.

The domestic culture of the Soviet period undoubtedly belongs to the category of the most peculiar phenomena in world history. This applies not only to the past century, but also to a broader perspective. An analysis of the development of Soviet culture is a fertile ground for understanding contemporary general cultural processes.

The most common "meaning" of the cultural space of the late XX century. (both domestic and Western European) are associated with the concept of "postmodernism", which is a kind of emblem of modern culture. Post-non-classical trends in modern natural science, "post-modernization" of the technical and economic sphere, outrageous political technologies, "rhizomes" of the cultural space are only a few outlines of this big problem.

The well-known non-dialectic and eclecticism of postmodernity grows out of the desire to overcome the stereotypes of classical rationalism, which is the main object of criticism from the adherents of the latter.

At the same time, it should be recognized that one of the features of Soviet culture is an amazing combination of eclecticism, modernism, revolutionary spirit and strict rationalism. The Russian revolutions of 1917 only continue the trend of general radicalization and modernization of social and cultural life. As M. Epstein writes, “historically, social realism, like the entire communist era in Russia, is located between the periods of modernism (the beginning of the 20th century) and postmodernism (the end of the 20th century). This intermediateness of socialist realism - a period that has no visible analogue in the West - raises the question of its relationship with modernism and postmodernism and where, in specifically Russian conditions, the border between them lies. It is Russia that is the birthplace of the leading trends in modernist art of the 20th century. And it is here that the latest trends in social life and revolutionary practice are being radically tested and adapted for the first time. The "collective unconscious" of those interpreters of the Soviet period of Russian history who consciously exclude from analysis the initial phase - the phase of fratricidal wars and mutual political terror - ultimately reveals only positive qualities in Soviet history. In this form of analysis, the boundaries of the end of the Soviet period are naturally erased. Soviet history, as it were, did not end at all (and will never end). She always is and will be "more alive than all living things." Nostalgia for lost Motherland replaces the objective realities of the ongoing (and naturally completed) process of the evolution of society, and the very concept of "Motherland" is identified exclusively with the Soviet period of the great history of Russia.

An amazing property of Soviet culture is that in it the official totalitarian space coexists with the highest manifestations of the human spirit, clearly handicraft and ideologically biased elements of culture coexist with brilliant insights and the highest creative achievements. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is precisely the Soviet art of the pre-war period (and not just the Russian art of the beginning of the century) that in its most interesting variants expresses the dynamics of the formation of the world avant-garde and post-avant-garde. One can hypothesize that Soviet culture in its developed forms is a qualitative synthesis of directly opposite and, at first glance, incompatible elements. In other words, rationality, brought to its "incommensurable" (Feyerabend) limits, characterizes this peculiarity.

In this regard, it is natural to ask how countercultural (nonconformist) processes functioned in Soviet culture, what driving motives of these processes are priority, and how, while externally maintaining rationalistic orientation, Soviet culture prepared the phenomena that occurred in it in the 90s. years of the XX century.

The comprehension of the postmodern situation in Western philosophical thought has led to many intriguing conclusions. Western ideology constantly shows a desire for ahead of cultural time and space The result of this is the birth of various models of the end of history (from Spengler and Toynbee to Baudrillard and Kozhev). At the same time, this situation clarifies the mythology of conquest space and time as "young masters of the Earth", so characteristic of the post-Soviet consciousness. Modernity on domestic soil appears as a truly unique phenomenon. It brings together political reconstructions, ideological myths, artistic practices and philosophical discourses into a single continuum. Therefore, one of the marks of modern intellectual life in Russia is no less than in the West, a mixture of genres and styles of intellectual activity.

The above situation is a consequence of the important features of national self-consciousness. Soviet culture felt its full value and completeness in a situation of constantly ongoing struggle of opposing tendencies. So, the movement of the sixties in the XX century. was both a cultural and a countercultural process. It was on this antithetical cross-section that such unique and seemingly internally incompatible cultural phenomena became possible, such as the cinema art of the 50-70s (Kalatozov, Tarkovsky, Ioseliani, Parajanov, Chukhrai, Danelia), theater directing (Efros, Tovstonogov, Lyubimov), music (Shostakovich , Sviridov, Schnittke, Babadzhanyan, Khachaturian, Gavrilin, Solovyov-Sedoy), a whole galaxy of amazing actors (Urbansky, Demidova, Smoktunovsky, Bondarchuk, Dal), literature and dramaturgy (Nekrasov, Vladimov, Vampilov, Volodin, Solzhenitsyn), author's song ( Okudzhava, Vizbor, Vysotsky, Dolsky), philosophical creativity (Ilyenkov, Batishchev, Mamardashvili, Lotman) and many others.

In retrospect at the end of the 20th century the initial internal incommensurability turns into a regularity. The famous lines of B. Okudzhava about “commissars in dusty helmets” or the non-classical “walks with Pushkin” by A. Sinyavsky, which have repeatedly been the subject of ideological speculation, just express this unique compatibility in the domestic cultural space of contradictory trends, which, in fact, constitute its unique originality.

In the literature on Russian postmodernism today, criticism of the sixties is very strong as people who have not fulfilled their duty to the end to transform the totalitarian ideology of the Soviet type. At the same time, the sixties are also criticized from other positions, namely, for the collapse of the Soviet ideology. However, both critical trends do not take into account the obvious fact that the domestic counterculture (including the phenomenon of the sixties) had other tasks. These tasks stemmed from the originality, sometimes quite tragic, of the evolution of both Russian culture in general and its Soviet stage in particular. It was about constructing a special model of post-totalitarian space, for which the path of revolutionary renovationism was unacceptable. In this regard, domestic non-conformism also rethought the goals of Western counterculture, in which the non-conformism and revolutionary spirit of the 1960s were almost imperceptibly replaced by reconciliation and the “new bourgeoisie”. One of the aphoristic expressions of this, perhaps utopian, model of the Soviet counterculture are the poetic lines of Y. Shevchuk: “ Revolution, you taught us / To believe in the injustice of good ...».

Recent trends in Russian culture (music, theater, cinema, humanities) allow us to say that the legacy of the great Russian culture of the XIX-XX centuries. not lost. As well as the main antithetical features of its originality are not lost. Soviet culture in this perspective occupies a quite worthy place and paradoxically and harmoniously fits into the situation of postmodernity.

The totality of postmodernism has set the teeth on edge. Today it is much easier to be ironic about him than to puzzle oneself with scientific criticism: the sore points of an almost defeated enemy are too obvious. This kind of pathos ignores (consciously or not) the potential non-aggressiveness of postmodernity as a possible ideology. Aggression and “secret intent” are included in it by critics who are used to existing in the paradigm of violence (including intellectual violence). The easiest way is to systematically and logically-synergetically criticize what does not fit into the Procrustean bed of once and for all hardened academicism. And it does not matter that cultural gestures reminiscent of postmodernity, most often in history, filled and deepened the rhythm of the movement of civilization. It doesn't matter that the "imaginary worlds" of postmodernism are fragile and incapable of retaliatory violence. The critic himself chooses his complexes and hits them. A well-known way: "whoever hurts, he talks about it."

But the main problem is not this. The global attack on the positions of modern culture by post-communism against the background of the general defeat of postmodernism seems not so dangerous, quite trivial. What is it, post-communism, to criticize for this. Somehow get along with such criticism. Or another option: communism will disappear by itself - why pay attention to the ideological spectacle it is playing out.

Let's not get along. And it won't disappear. Synthesis and assimilation, of course, can reconcile a lot for a while, but the situation of “challenge and response” will ultimately put before each of us the question of global responsibility to postmodernity, in line with which the communist idea is advancing today, often insinuatingly and imperceptibly. . At the same time, it is very important to understand that the end of communism in Russia will also mean the end of the era of postmodernism. What will replace the one and the other, why these two processes can be completed almost simultaneously - this is another topic.

Free visit days at the museum

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Zebra - Fri, 20/11/2009 - 12:23

participant

Instead of portraits of production leaders - portraits of lovers. Instead of the vast expanses of the Motherland - extraterrestrial civilizations in red tones. Instead of building five-year plans - Zamoskvoretsky yards, beer and placers of crayfish. No deals with your own creative gift, no compromises. An exhibition of nonconformist artists has opened in Moscow.

Tatyana Flegontova is the author of the idea and curator of the Nonconformists project. "It's just a different art," she explains. "Unofficial. There were canons of socialist realism, they didn't paint according to these canons."
This is the first collective exhibition of former representatives of the Soviet underground of the 60s and 70s. But not the first in the history of Moscow unofficial art. On September 15, 1974, Oscar Rabin, Vladimir Nemukhin, Vasily Sitnikov, Vitaly Komar exhibited their works in the open-air Bitsevsky Park. They had no other chance to go to the audience. The works hung for only 30 minutes, after which the artists and visitors were dispersed by bulldozers.

The exhibition went down in history as a "bulldozer" exhibition. It was 35 years ago. However, it was she who laid the foundation for official recognition. "An artist is like a child. If he does something, he must be shown! Otherwise, he cannot live!" - says one of the masters.

Officials from the arts called them unequivocally - formalists. But they were very different. Anatoly Zverev, Ernst Neizvestny, Alexander Kharitonov and Vyacheslav Kalinin did not have a single creed. They were united by the rejection of official art and the desire for self-expression. Lydia Masterkova, who started with realism, felt true freedom only in abstract painting.

Giant flat faces of incredible colors - the discovery of Oleg Tselkov. In them - not the image of an individual, but a universal portrait of humanity. A rebel from childhood - he already did not want to paint classical still lifes at the school.

Oleg Tselkov painted in those days when the choice of colors was small, so the artists had to invent a lot on their own. Sometimes they wrote down their recipes right on the back of the paintings. For example: "For a liter of water - 100 grams of edible gelatin plus chalk, the soil is treated with pumice."

In what, in what, and in ingenuity, artists can not be denied. The work "The Funeral of a Child" Boris Sveshnikov wrote in the camp, on an ordinary oilcloth. Convicted on charges of anti-Soviet propaganda, the 19-year-old artist thought a lot about death. She became a character in almost all of his works.

Oscar Rabin is considered the informal leader of the Soviet underground. It was in his small room, in the Lianozovsky barracks, that independent artists and poets gathered. Here were the first screenings of paintings. Friends jokingly called Rabin "an underground minister of culture."

It is today that their works cost tens of thousands of dollars and adorn the best museums in the world, but even in the middle of the 20th century they were outcasts who did not want to write from dictation, and therefore lived from hand to mouth. They were accused of all mortal sins, they were not accepted into the Union of Artists, they were not hired. And they were just experimenting. In other words, they did what they wanted.

I will write a little about the artists and exhibit a few works of each.

Fri, 20/11/2009 - 12:39
Zebra

participant

Fri, 20/11/2009 - 14:11
Zebra

participant

Fri, 20/11/2009 - 16:08
Zebra

participant