Boris Isajenko

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iborisblog.wordpress.com

Assessment 1, Part 1

21/12/2018

2880 words

Essay: Protest of Russian avant-garde painters against the Soviet Union government.

University of West London

Graphic design (Visual Communication & Illustration)

Ideas & Perspectives

AD50178E

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Table of Contents

List of illustrations

Section 1 Beggining

Section 2 Birth of Russian avant-garde paintings

Section 3 Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party Decree

Section 4 Temporary lull

Section 5 New Reality group

Section 6 Protest against Khrushchev and the USSR Politics

Section 7 Lianozovo group

Section 8 Bulldozer exhibition

Section 9 Conclusion

Illustrations

Bibliography

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List of illustrations

Figure 1. Unknown. (1915) Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings.

Available at:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/

0.10_Exhibition.jpg/1600px-0.10_Exhibition.jpg

(Downloaded: 13 December 2018).

Figure 2. Unknown. (1961) Ely Mikhailovich Bielutin.

Available at:

https://forum.artinvestment.ru/attachment.php?

attachmetid=1552021&d=1330353932

(Downloaded: 12 December 2018).

Figure 3. Ustinov, A. (1962) Untitled.

Available at:

https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/tanjand/

44781189/63309798/63309798_original.jpg

(Downloaded: 13 December 2018).

Figure 4. Unknown. (1968) Eugene Leonidovich Kropivnitsky and Olga

Potapova,

breakfast. Available at:

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http://finbahn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Evgenij-Kropivnitskij-i-Ol-

ga-Potapova.jpg

(Downloaded: 13 December 2018).

Figure 5. Palmin, I. (1974) Destroyed works by Lydia Masterkova and

others.

Available at:

http://tranzit.org/exhibitionarchive/wp-content/uploads/1974/09/

bulldozer02.jpg

(Downloaded: 12 December 2018).

Figure 6. Abrosimov, M. (1974) Untitled.

Available at:

https://www.calvertjournal.com/images/uploads/embeddable_slideshows/

Bulldozer/_large_crop/11.jpg

(Downloaded: 15 December 2018).

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Protest of Russian avant-garde painters against the Soviet Union government.

Beginning

During its existence, the Soviet Union was very strict about the compiling

rules and restrictions. Most of the time, all of the creative fields of work

were under the total control. Thus, it was really hard to do something

disagreeable for the state and keep living without having serious

problems. In spite of this, there are always those, who are not afraid, who

dared and managed to go against the system.

Birth of the Russian avant-garde paintings

The unifying principle for Russian avant-garde artists can be considered as

the belief that their works create the prerequisites for the transformation

of a person, the ways of perceiving reality and the whole reality itself.

The beginning of Russian avant-garde painting, in fact, was due to the

same processes and influences as in the West — the main pictorial trends

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that predetermined all the revolutions in the visual art at the beginning of

the 20th century were impressionism, post-impressionism and symbolism.

In the works of Russian artists, impressionist features appeared almost 20

years later, but in the early 1900s, many authors would perceive the

stylistic techniques. Including the future avant-garde masters such as

Vasily Kandinsky, Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova, Kazimir Malevich

and many others. Since 1904, mainly due to the collections of Sergey

Shchukin and Ivan Morozov who were buying considerable numbers of

modern French painting recent art of the West became accessible to

Russian artists. Schukin opened his doors every Sunday so artists had

easy access to the works of French Impressionists, Post-Impressionists,

Fauves and early Cubists (Briony, 1983, p.8). Especially, the paintings of

Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse and Cezanne were the most inspirational for

representatives of Russian avant-garde painting (Briony, 1983, p.8).

Symbolism played no less significant role in the development of the

Russian avant-garde, and French influence here was not as noticeable as

the traditions of the Silver Age in Russia (Briony, 1983, p. 9). The idea of

transforming of all the aspects of life through art, the theory of synthesis

of the arts, the search of new metaphysical foundations through artistic

and aesthetic activity, despite all the antagonism between the

representatives of symbolism and the next generation, turned out to be

the most important component of the avant-garde. Along with that, and

despite the symbolist aesthetics, the Russian avant-garde already at an

early stage focuses on grassroots forms of art and creativity - signs,

splints, children's and amateur drawings, urban and rural folklore, street 6 of 22

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inscriptions, refers to the archaic layers of culture and primitive. Almost

simultaneously with the rise of interest in Old Russian art in theological

and art criticism, avant-garde artists discovered and partly adopted the

techniques of icon painting - not only formal (colour, composition, etc.),

but also concerning the inimitable, conventional principle of the image.

The Russian Avant-garde kept moving to new stages of its developing, the

most influenced figures, such as Alexandra Exter and Mikhail Matyushin,

Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova, Kazimir Malevich and Vladimir

Tatlin and many others on this stage were under the enormous influence

of French Cubism. Later the combination of its principles with the general

tenets of Italian Futurism became visible. Russian Avant-garde was alive

and could not stand still, kept developing from month to month. Yet, one

day managed to change everything.

Central Committee of the All-Union

Communist Party Decree

April 23, 1932 was marked as the culmination of the artist’s independence

in Soviet Russia for a long period. According to Bowlt (1976, p. 288),

Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party issued a decree on

the reconstruction of literary and artistic organizations. The direct result of

the 1932 decree was to disband all official art groups immediately and to

propose a single one convenient for the government named Union of

Soviet Artists. As a result, the closing of pedagogical and scientific centres

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of the avant-garde, the gradual collapse, and then the ban of exhibition

activities happened, which led to artist’s renouncement of their publicity.

A phenomenon of “quiet art” appeared, which no longer shared avant-

garde radicalism.

Most of the artists, who previously formed the basis of the Soviet-Union

Avant-Garde just succumbed to the Soviet Union government. Kazimir

Malevich changed his style and became very realistic in his last paintings,

Girl with a Red Pole is a great example of it. According to Milner (2009,

p.51), Rodchenko left the group called "October" and became a

photojournalist in the Moscow publishing house Izogiz. From early creative

work imbued with revolutionary romantic enthusiasm, he switched to

fulfilling state propaganda tasks. And there are many more examples, but

the fact is one: Russian avant-garde, which was constantly developing has

been put on hold, although, no one was thinking about forgetting it.

Temporary lull

At the beginning of the 1960-s, fully engaged with the current political

issues, both internal and external, the Kremlin formally weakens control

over the country's artistic life, as pushing it into the background.

According to Dobrochinska-Klishko and Moleva-Bielutina (2013, p. 31), for

artists it was considered as a start signal, they have opened their minds to

abstract paintings and sculpture and begun creating, fully ignoring the

principles of socialist realism. The creative intelligentsia, inspired by the

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anti-Stalinist program of Khrushchev, which was aimed at partial

liberalization of public life, perceives this program as an affirmation of true

freedom. For the group of artists called the New Reality group it can be

considered as the beginning of the road to their recognition as well.

New Reality group

The year 1954 can be considered as the year of the beginning of the

studio “New Reality” when students of the printing and textile institute

united together. Artists under the leadership of Ely Bielutin, who was an

artist as well, retain their silence and indestructible inflexibility,

completely rejecting the idea of renouncing their principles. The aim of

the studio was a deep restructuring of art its liberation from the principles

of "academism", but the question of allowing or banning academism

turned out to be included in the field of purely ideological problems of the

party, unfortunately, resorted to the coolest measures. Many years they

have been studying and achieving a popular recognition, which is only

happened in 1962.

In November 1962, the exhibitors of the studio of Ely Bielutin received an

official invitation from the Minister of Culture to present their works

together with a retrospective exhibition of the Moscow Union of Artists.

This exhibition was created in addition to the official authorities of the

Soviet culture, which was launched in the Manezh building nearby the Red

Square in Moscow. As it was an official demonstration, the leaders of the

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Soviet Union Party were to attend this exhibition, as well there were

invited more than 150 of the greatest Soviet scientists and even a number

of foreign correspondents.

In spite of official status of the exhibition, it turns out to be complete

unexpectedness for the widest mass of the public. Nikita Sergeyevich

Khrushchev who was then the First Secretary of the Communist Party of

the Soviet Union has strongly criticized this exhibition, he felt free to

express his feelings. It was a long speech, full of swearing, about the

presented paintings and lack of connectedness them with art, which

ended with the words: "Gentlemen, we declare war on you!". On the next

day, the exhibition was already closed.

Formally, the Manezh exhibition and the subsequent government

communicator become a convenient excuse to put the Russian avant-

gardes of Bielutin's direction into genuine isolation - painting a relatively

small group of people with the great potential of creative search and too

little hope for recognition. As a result, a situation arises in which this

group of avant-gardists gains the full public support of the audience (of

course, in its cultural part), but from the moment of the attack on their art

in the Manezh, they have been forced to return to creating in silence.

According to the article (Pravda, 1963, p. 17) numerous groups of

intellectuals send hundreds of protest letters to the Central Committee. A

group of young abstract artists declares, on behalf of Bielutin's direction,

his right to creative quest as the only guarantee for the development of

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painting and the creation of “socialist art” itself, because without constant

searching for any progress, development of art is impossible.

Protest against Khrushchev and the USSR

Politics

Everything that happened showed that everything has to be started from

the beginning — Ely claimed. I could not give up the struggle for the

artist's right to be free, to which I gave so many years of life. But, besides

survival, for the artist, it was necessary to continue working so that time

and art would not leave him behind, which means there was a need for a

base - a workshop where students and just looking artists could work

independently of the Union of Artists. Thus, New Reality group moved to

Abramtsevo. This is the manor house located 60 kilometres away from

Moscow. It was a part of the new story, which began in there.

According to the article (Komsomolskaja pravda, 1990, p. 4), they were

fully isolated from the Soviet Union government, because of the location

of this place, which gave them full independence. As Ely remembered: “In

general, a strange life began after Manezh. Complete isolation not only

from letters from abroad, but also from Moscow itself - it was useless to

write to our address, a permanently damaged telephone, a device of

provocations, and then suddenly a proposal to go with students on a boat

on Volga. Striking people appeared and disappeared. What they first said

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and what they wrote later was, to a certain extent, customary, but

humanly disgusting.”

Being a part of New Reality studio was not easy. According to the article

(Komsomolskaja pravda, 1990, p. 4), for belonging to the studio, artists

were expelled from the Soviet Union of Artists. However, that did not stop

them, the number of members of the studio increased. There were around

600 of them. The food was cooked in a common bucket. They slept in

bags and ten-ruled folding beds. They went to all hardships because in

their hearts they knew that Belyutin was right.

A month later after moving, they have made an exhibition. There were a

lot of people, not only from Moscow. There were artists from Leningrad,

Kiev, Riga, Gorky, and various cities of the Moscow region. According to

the article (Komsomolskaja pravda, 1990, p. 4), as they entered, they saw

a spruce alley, but at the turn to the main building, they were surrounded

by paintings. Huge planes, unusually rich in colour and texture were

placed throughout the forest, eclipsing all the beauty of the sky and trees

with their colour saturation.

After the first exhibition in Abramtsevo, from time to time there were

arranged many others. One of these was the exhibition called “Chao,

Khrushchev”, it was the last show of their works in 1962. In his memories,

Bielutin mentioned, that everyone applauded, and we took ten days for

ourselves to organize everything. The exhibition has taken its place in the

snow. Canvases, like huge bouquets of flowers, stood among almost bare

trees. Ely tried to make a good exposition so that the canvases looked

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whole - along with the trees, the houses. People walked, took pictures,

discussed (Dobrochinska-Klishko and Moleva-Bielutina, 2013, p.50).

Several hundred people arrived, and the site, all overwhelmed with

canvases, gave the impression of some sort of free feelings, experiences,

hopes.

Six months before that event, there was another attempt at trying to

organise another exhibition in Moscow (Dobrochinska-Klishko and Moleva-

Bielutina, 2013, p.52). The unofficial exhibition of the studio that the new

reality group has organized in the basement near the former Beria’s

hangman’s house in Vspolny Lane was closed down with the help of the

police and State Security officers. Twenty-eight policemen, who arrived in

several police cars, and about thirty plain-clothes agents broke into a

basement full of people and began to push people out of there, shouting

that they would turn around, otherwise they would be taken away.

Someone resisted, someone was indignant, someone left. The whole yard

was cordoned off. Stood cars, motorcycles. The workshop was sealed, and

the works were kept for several days at a police department. Thus, ended

the last exhibition of the studio in Moscow.

Lianozovo group

In the middle of 1950s pupils of Eugene Kropivnitsky formed the first non-

conformist group, called “Lianozovo”. The name of this group is connected

with the fact that many artists-members of this group lived in Lianozovo

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(place in Russia). Formally, this group existed from 1956 to the mid-

1970s. The core of the group was a poet and artist Lev Kropivnitsky, who

was the son of Eugene. The group of artists from Lianozovo included as

well: Heinrich Sapgir, Vsevolod Nekrasov, Igor Kholin, Jan Satunovsky,

Oskar Rabin, Lidiya Masterkova, who were not the last people in the

history of the Russian avant-garde.

According to Andreeva, it was a kind of formally thematic matrix of non-

conformism as an artistic movement: at Lanozovo’s screenings, viewers

could see the main thing that non-conformism contrasted with Soviet art

— critical realism, abstraction, surrealistic fantasies, and simply

“unprincipled” painting (2012, p. 134).

The masters of Lianozovo group tried to convey their ideas to the

audience as far as possible. As the members of New Reality group, they

have started to arrange unofficial exhibitions, thus became progenitors of

the “underground art” in Soviet Russia. Exhibitions were held in the

barracks, where Rabin and Kronivnitskaya lived (Andreeva, 2012, p. 134).

Despite the extreme wretchedness of others, the exhibitions of Lianozovo

group drew attention. Numerous visitors have been coming to the

apartment of Rabin, wishing to join the non-mainline line of Soviet art.

From time to time their exhibitions were visited even by foreign diplomats

and journalists.

Bulldozer exhibition

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The exhibition of their paintings, which later became known as the

"bulldozer", was organized in the open air in Belyaevo on September 15,

1974. The exhibition took place on the edge of the city, which was too far

away for security services, but at the same time, it was easy to access for

invited people. In the area, where construction was supposed to be,

however, at that time there was only a wasteland. The exhibition has

received this sound name because it was dispersed by the authorities with

the involvement of a large number of police officers, as well as watering

machines and bulldozers. On that day in Moscow, the initiators of the

exhibition, which were Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid along with

the artists from the Lianozovo group led by Oscar Rabin, who did not

receive written permission from the Moscow City Council to organise the

exhibition, but also did not receive a refusal, organised that raucous

exhibition. Among the participants are O. and A. Rabin, L. Masterkova, V.

Komar and A. Melamid, N. Elskaya, V. Nemukhin, V. Vorobev, I. Kholin,

Borukh, from Leningrad - E. Rukhin and K). The exhibition was originally

conceived as a protest against the excommunication of non-conformists

from the audience. Artists invited Western diplomats and journalists, and

the presence of representatives of the KGB was also naturally expected in

advance.

The paintings were hung on improvised racks. The exhibition was small,

but the authorities approached this action seriously. Within half an hour, a

group of three bulldozers, water cannons and dump trucks were sent to

the exposition. About a hundred policemen in civilian clothes dispersed

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” The unauthorized exhibition was literally razed to the ground with the

help of bulldozers and watering machines, and fragments of works of art

were simply piled up and burned. Artists tried to defend themselves, hung

on the buckets of bulldozers, but such resistance was doomed to failure in

advance. The most active participants were detained, the rest were

dispersed with cold water.”

Yelshevskaya (2018) provided information that, the organizer Oscar Rabin

told in an interview in London in 2010: "The exhibition was prepared as a

political act against the oppressive regime, rather than an artistic event. I

knew that we would be in trouble, that we could be arrested, beaten.

There could be public trials. The last two days before the event were very

scary, we were anxious about our fate. Knowing that virtually anything

can happen to you is frightening."

The “bulldozer” exhibition had an international resonance, serious foreign

publications responded to it, which disturbed and affected the

government. For the artists, it was a success, because as a consequence

this event the Soviet authorities were sent back on their covert and

officially authorized holding of a similar exhibition in the open air two

weeks later in the Izmailovsky Park.

Yelshevskaya (2018) provided information that, the event took place on

September 29, 1974, there were exhibited paintings by 40 artists, and it

lasted about four hours. Only one and a half thousand people were able to

visit the exhibition, but it allowed to hold exhibitions of informal artists in

the future and was of paramount importance for Russian contemporary

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art. After it, they did not try to disperse the exhibition with bulldozers. And

then, non-conformist expositions did begin to be held both in Moscow and

in Leningrad. They were short-term and irregular, but the fact that they

broke the wall of forbiddance is very important. The Bulldozer Exhibition is

still one of the most well-known public actions of unofficial art in the USSR.

Conclusion

Right after the Soviet Union’s decree about the restrictions regarding art

in the country, no one from the influential Artists tried to resist and fight

back. I believe because it was dangerous for them and they were afraid

for their lives. It’s always much easier to pass out and just agree with all

of what the government says to you, even if it is not right at all and it

hurts you. However, I believe people bring changes. Great people — great

changes. It seems to me that if there would be at least one person, who

stood on his own, we could have another history.

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Illustrations

Figure 1. Unknown. (1915) Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings.

This picture shows the example of the Russian avant-garde in its

beginning.

Figure 2. Unknown. (1961) Ely Mikhailovich Bielutin.

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This picture shows Ely Bielutin, the person who has created New Reality

studio.

Figure 3. Ustinov, A. (1962) Untitled.

Picture represents Nikita Khrushchev on the Manezh exhibition.

Figure 4. Unknown. (1968) Eugene Leonidovich Kropivnitsky and Olga

Potapova,

breakfast.19 of 22

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On this picture is Eugene Kropivnitsky, the person who has formed

Lianozovo group.

Figure 5. Palmin, I. (1974) Destroyed works by Lydia Masterkova and

others.

Picture shows destroyed paintings after the bulldozer exhibition.

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Figure 6. Abrosimov, M. (1974) Untitled.

This picture shows the policeman on the bulldozer exhibition.

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Bibliography

Abrosimov, M. (1974) Untitled.Available at: https://www.calvertjournal.com/images/uploads/embeddable_slideshows/Bulldozer/_large_crop/11.jpg (Downloaded: 15 December 2018).

Andreeva, E. (2012) Ugol nesootvetstvija: shkoly nonkonformizma. Moskva –Leningrad. 1946-1991. Moscow: Iskusstvo – XXI vek.

Backstein, J. (2014) ‘The rebels: 40 years ago today an underground exhibition changed the face of art in Russia forever’, Calvert Journal. Available at: https://www.calvertjournal.com/opinion/show/3090/bulldozer-exhibition-moscow-soviet-union-joseph-backstein (Accessed 28 November 2018).

Barnet, S. (2015) A Short Guide to Writing About Art. Boston:

Pearson.

Bowlt, J. (1976) Russian art of the avant-garde: Theory and criticism, 1902-1934. New York: Viking Press.

Brandon, T. (1992) Art and literarure under the Bolsheviks. Vol.2, Authority and revolution, 1924-1932. London: Pluto Press

Briony, F. (1983) Russian Art and the Revolution. Milton Keynes: The Open University Press.

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Dobrochinska-Klishko, A. and Moleva-Bielutina, N. (2013) Ot “ottepeli” do milleniuma. Moscow: GART.

Lindsay, I. and Lavery, R. (2017) The art of the Soviet Union. London: Unicorn.

Milner, J. (2009) Design Rodchenko. Woodbridge: Antique Collectors’ Club.

Milner, J. (1983) Vladimir Tatlin and the Russian avant-garde. London: Yale University Press.

Palmin, I. (1974) Destroyed works by Lydia Masterkova and others.Available at: http://tranzit.org/exhibitionarchive/wp-content/uploads/1974/09/bulldozer02.jpg (Downloaded: 12 December 2018).

Pravda (1963) ‘Exhibition in Manezh’, 1 January, p. 16.

Rezanov, G. and Horoshilova, T. (1990) ‘Manezh, 1962. Kak eto bylo’, Komsomolskaja Pravda, 26 December, p. 4.

Sopotsinsky, O. (1978) Art in the Soviet Union: Painting, sculpture, graphic arts. Leningrad: Aurora.

Unknown. (1915) Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings.Available at:https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/0.10_Exhibition.jpg/1600px-0.10_Exhibition.jpg(Downloaded: 13 December 2018).

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Unknown. (1961) Ely Mikhailovich Bielutin. Available at:https://forum.artinvestment.ru/attachment.php?attachmetid=1552021&d=1330353932(Downloaded: 12 December 2018).

Unknown. (1968) Eugene Leonidovich Kropivnitsky and Olga Potapova, breakfast. Available at: http://finbahn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Evgenij-Kropivnitskij-i-Ol-ga-Potapova.jpg(Downloaded: 13 December 2018).

Ustinov, A. (1962) Untitled. Available at:https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/tanjand/44781189/63309798/63309798_original.jpg(Downloaded: 13 December 2018).

Yelshevskaya, G. (2018) The Thaw and the 1960s. The birth of the underground. Available at: https://arzamas.academy/materials/1234 (Accessed 01 December 2018).

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