Artist Sergeï Volokhov has been living in and around Brussels since 1990. For most of that time he has been resident in the facility commune of Sint-Genesius-Rode, with his wife Tatiana and their daughter Xenia. “I feel neither Belgian nor Russian, I feel a painter. I speak the language of painting, which is universal.” Sergeï is one of 7,000 Russians living in Belgium.
10 there to here THE BULLETIN February 2011 Artist Sergeï Volokhov has been living in and around Brussels since 1990. For most of that time he has been resident in the facility commune of Sint-Genesius-Rode, with his wife Tatiana and their daughter Xenia. “I feel neither Belgian nor Russian, I feel a painter. I speak the language of painting, which is universal.” Sergeï is one of 7,000 Russians living in Belgium. SHUTTERSTOCK R ussian “ A ſter I had taken part, as a young painter, in an avant-garde and dissident demon- stration in Moscow in 1974 – known as the ‘Bulldozer Exhibition’ because the forces of order quite literally crushed it with their bull- dozers – I was arrested and stripped of all the privileges I had acquired from win- ning a contest for young painters organ- ised by the regime. From then on in, I no longer had the right to painting materials and began working with recycled mate- rials. What’s more, I continually had to move heaven and earth in order to avoid problems with the authorities. I had lost my livelihood and all those without work ran the risk of being sent to labour camps. So I chose to work and exhibit clandes- tinely, and in order to be able to produce a work permit I worked as an illustrator Brussels identities from A to Z for a publisher and for the Moscow record label Melodia. It was a rough time, I had to do some- thing to get by. I first came over to the West in 1988 for an exhibition of Russian painters at Brussels’ Botanique. I was taken aback by the opulence and beauty of this city. It was a revelation, and a shock. At school and in the media we were always told that people in the West lived their lives in abject poverty and misery. I took pic- tures and filmed everything to expose the lies of the regime to my friends. But even as a child, I already had my misgivings about all the prop- aganda. While we were being taught in school that the Soviet Union was perfect, I mean- while suffered from cold and hunger every day. People didn’t speak about this but you could sense the constant fear of being arrested or exe- cuted. Everybody was afraid of everyone else. When I was able to leave that world, and came ‘At school we were always told that people in the West lived in poverty and misery’ 010_011_a to z.indd 10 20/01/2011 10:51:45
Transcript
10 there to here
THE BULLETIN February 2011
Artist Sergeï Volokhov has been living in and around Brussels
since 1990. For most of that time he has been resident in the
facility commune of Sint-Genesius-Rode, with his wife Tatiana
and their daughter Xenia. “I feel neither Belgian nor Russian, I feel
a painter. I speak the language of painting, which is universal.”
Sergeï is one of 7,000 Russians living in Belgium.
shuttersto
ck
Russian
“ A fter I had taken part, as a young painter, in an avant-garde and dissident demon-stration in Moscow
in 1974 – known as the ‘Bulldozer Exhibition’ because the forces of order quite literally crushed it with their bull-dozers – I was arrested and stripped of all the privileges I had acquired from win-ning a contest for young painters organ-ised by the regime. From then on in, I no longer had the right to painting materials and began working with recycled mate-rials. What’s more, I continually had to move heaven and earth in order to avoid problems with the authorities. I had lost my livelihood and all those without work ran the risk of being sent to labour camps. So I chose to work and exhibit clandes-tinely, and in order to be able to produce a work permit I worked as an illustrator
Brussels identities from A to Z
for a publisher and for the Moscow record label Melodia. It was a rough time, I had to do some-thing to get by.
I first came over to the West in 1988 for an exhibition of Russian painters at Brussels’ Botanique. I was taken aback by the opulence and beauty of this city. It was a revelation, and a shock. At school and in the media we were always told that people in the West lived their lives in abject poverty and misery. I took pic-tures and filmed everything to expose the lies of the regime to my friends. But even as a child, I already had my misgivings about all the prop-aganda. While we were being taught in school that the Soviet Union was perfect, I mean-while suffered from cold and hunger every day. People didn’t speak about this but you could sense the constant fear of being arrested or exe-cuted. Everybody was afraid of everyone else.
When I was able to leave that world, and came
‘At school we
were always
told that
people in the
West lived in
poverty and
misery’
010_011_a to z.indd 10 20/01/2011 10:51:45
Sergeï and his wife Tatiana, in their home in Sint-Genesius-Rode: “This is the place where I love being the most: our house, filled with my paintings – it’s a sort of private museum. Thankfully, my wife and daughter don’t mind.”
11
In praise of...• The Museum of Ancient Art (3 Rue de la Régence) is my Walhalla in Brussels: I can spend hours here, enjoying the masterpieces of the Flemish Primitives, as well as Bruegel or Rubens and many other geniuses of painting. I am familiar with and follow the developments in all contemporary trends in art, but I am trying to tread my own path which is very important to me. I am hoping that this path of mine will be noticed by art lovers and art critics.
• Le Roy d’Espagne on the Grand’Place is a bar where I love to go and have a Duvel or a Leffe. I can also quench my thirst for history here, because it’s at this supremely beautiful square where the Flemish counts of Egmont and Hoorn were beheaded by the Spanish Duke of Alva, on June 5, 1568. They resisted the spread of Spanish power and the terror of the Catholic Inquisition against dissenters. You can find a statue of these martyrs of free thought at the Petit Sablon Square. What a difference with Moscow, where everything that smells of history is razed to the ground – only the Kremlin is still standing.
• Délices Ukrainiens (81 Chaussée d’Alsemberg). This is where we go shopping for Ukrainian specialities and products we Russians are attached to, such as Borodin bread (which you have with butter or caviar) or sunflower oil. I also take my visiting friends to the flea market at the Place du Jeu de Balle where they can have a taste of caracoles (snails). I just love those.
to live in Brussels where I met Tatiana, a huge weight was lifted off me. It was the start of a tire-less artistic exploration, which is still continu-ing today. All those amazing artists whom I had learnt about at Moscow University, whose work I could simply go and look at here in museums and churches – it was incredible. Bruegel, Ensor, Magritte, Bosch, Van der Weyden, Van Eyck... What an unspeakable joy it was to find myself in the very same places where those great artists used to live and work!
For my wife, too, our getting together was an eye-opener. Though of Russian descent, she was raised in fear of Russians – all communists! And all of a sudden there she was, having a relationship with a genuine Russian. To her, it was a very emotional thing to be able to speak the language of her parents, who were both deceased – they had arrived in Belgium with the first wave of Russian migrants: aristocrats on the run from the 1917 Revolution. I moved into Tatiana’s apart-ment, which was, in accordance with the prevailing fashion at the time, sparsely and sternly decorated. In no time, of course, I filled the place with my paint-ings and sketches. Our house in Sint-Genesius-Rode looks like a jam-packed museum, and I like it that way. I like to entertain guests in my home, but it’s best that they speak Russian, as unfortunately I haven’t managed to learn to speak French. But sometimes my wife or my daughter serve as interpreters.
What I find beyond belief here in tiny Belgium is the interminable bickering between Flemings and Walloons. Mind you, I know this all too well: it reminds me of how the Baltic states relate to Russia, not only on a political, but also on a personal level. When I used to visit Riga or Tallinn in the Seventies, and I asked the way in Russian, people refused to answer, even though they spoke Russian perfectly well as they were all obliged to learn it at school. Something similar is going on in Belgium. Here, language is no longer an instrument for dialogue, but the carrier of an ideol-ogy. It makes me think of Bruegel, who lived in a time when life was approached with more openness and when language was a means of communication. He and his contemporaries were the true cosmopolitans!”
You can see work by Sergeï Volokhov in the permanent collection of the Museum of Ixelles (71 Rue Jean Van Volsem, www.museumofixelles.be)
