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| Vladimir Yankilevsky |
Eduard Shteinberg |
Ernst Neizvestny |
Komar and Melamid |
Alexander Kosolapov |
Erik Bulatov |
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ARTISTS’ PORTRAITS
2001
Zaretskaya Nina
TV Gallery has been working on a series about nonconformist artists for about ten years. We have gathered very interesting materials and newsreel, which present individual proofs of the epoch of resistance and survival. Two documentaries have been issued – "Wings of Freedom, or One Collection’s Stories", and "From Gulag to Glasnost. The Art of Resistance". They were successfully shown on "Kultura" TV Channel.
Each issue tells about an artist whose works proved to be significant for the contemporary home and world art. The works of our heroes are exhibited in prestigious galleries and kept in the most famous world museums. The issues are united by one stylistic and structural solution. The program is based on the talks of Nina Zaretskaya, a show host, with the artists telling about their life, the stages of their art work, about complicated mutual relationship between the new rebellious art and the Soviet power, and what particular determined the way of the artist he is following until now. The interviews are accompanied with the artist’s works, which help understand his ideas and images. In the films photo and video archives are used reproducing various stages of the program hero’s life. These are photographs from the family album, with old friends and associates, video materials of the latest exhibitions. The musical accompaniment is in accordance with the individual character of every artist’s works. The comments of the author help the viewer understand that nonconformism is not either a style or a trend in art, it is rather a social and psychological vector of freedom for a creative personality. And in each case it acquires its own individual traits.
1. First issue is called "How to Draw an Apple" and tells about Vladimir Yankilevsky, about his excruciating creative search, from participation in that well-known "smashing" exhibition in Manege to the world recognition.
2. The hero of the second issue, "The One Who Steals the Air", is Eduard Shteinberg. His art illustrates his unwillingness to keep within the bounds pressed by the outer world, to march in step in the ranks of the Socialist regime. Though the artist was not recognized by the public and official culture in the Soviet time, he managed to preserve himself and his inner freedom.
video: Eduard Shteinberg (128 Kbps. fragment)
3. Ernst Neizvestny is the hero of the third program of the cycle about nonconformist artists – "The First Underground Sculptor". Probably, he is the only informal artist known to every Russian now. This program tells about the artist’s life and creative work. He was pretty lucky first – studying at a school for gifted children, getting prizes at All-Union competitions; then he volunteered to the Army during the Great Patriotic War and got an order, studied at the country’s best art institute, his works were exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery and Russian Museum, and then – 30 years of "underground". He had to emigrate. The artist’s first personal exhibition in his motherland was held only in 1996 when he was 70.
4. The heroes of the forth issue, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, confess that the first impulse for their art was "A Dream to Create a Painting". They are considered the founders of the trend that became the calling card for nonconformist art — Sots Art. They are unpredictable, original, unorthodox people confirming their own views on life. They break borders and overturn canons.
video: Komar & Melamid (256 Kbps. fragment)
5. Mayakovsky’s words "Streets Are Our Palettes" became an epigraph to the next program of the cycle "Portraits of the Artists" dedicated to Alexander Kosolapov. Many people think that this artist made a great ideological diversion in the USA with his art project "Lenin and Coca-Cola". His biggest picture as high as a house wall is hanging in Soho district, New York. Although the artist has been living in America for more than 25 years, he consideres himself a Russian artist and makes all his projects for Russia.
video: Alexander Kosolapov (128 Kbps. fragment)
6. The hero of the last program of the cycle, Erik Bulatov, gave the following definition to his art work – "To Look Straight into a Sore Point". More than one generation of the Soviet people grew up with his works – after graduating from the institute Erik Bulatov in co-authorship with Oleg Vasiliev have been illustrating children books for more than 30 years. We remember princes and princesses, kind and wicked wizards drawn by the artist. Anyhow, the world of fairy-tales was very far from the Soviet reality, so, like many other nonconformist artists, Bulatov had to leave his motherland.
video: Eric Bulatov (128 Kbps. fragment)
Project Head and Author
Nina Zaretskaya
The site has been created with the assistance of the "Open Society Institute" (Soros Foundation). Russia
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