In memory of Mikhail Roshal-Fedorov

Everyone remembers “Communication Pipe” and “Iron Curtain” from the film “Assa,” but few people know that Sergei Solovyov, who assembled his cult film about underground culture like a collage, used specific works of a specific artist. And these works were done back in the mid-1970s, long before the time of the story about snow-covered Crimea. The artist's name is Mikhail Roshal-Fedorov. Or rather, they called it. A few days ago he passed away.

I don’t know if this was Solovyov’s motivation, but Misha is genetically connected to cinema. He was the grandson of the famous director Grigory Roshal, who made films about Russian composers and Karl Marx, and also filmed “Walking in Torment.” From my grandfather I inherited an apartment on Leninsky Prospekt, a bohemian childhood - and now a place at the Kuntsevo cemetery. But there was no person further from Soviet officialdom than Roshal Jr.

The youngest participant in the “bulldozer exhibition”, which the KGB officers, dressed as “landscapers”, literally swept away from a vacant lot in Belyaev (September 1974). Co-author of the most daring work at the exhibition in the “House of Culture” pavilion at VDNKh - there Roshal, together with Viktor Skersis and Gennady Donskoy, hatched eggs in a two-meter nest, which is why the name “Nest” was assigned to a group of extreme radicals from unofficial art (September 1975 ). The firefighters removed the nest on the second day, but were they firefighters?

“Nest” in its actions and objects parodied the vocabulary of the USSR, dissecting it through literal materialization and bringing the thesis about the social usefulness of art to the point of absurdity. “Helping the country in growing bread” (1976) is actually plowing in the Moscow region. “Let's Be a Meter Closer” (1977) - digging a hole towards the Western Hemisphere. "In Defense of the Environment" (1978) - a minute of breathlessness with pinched noses. But in terms of the degree of foolishness, these “works” slapped not only the authorities, but also the refined intellectuals from the underground art community with their penchant for abstruseness.

But Roshal knew how to be friends. And after the collapse of “Nest” (1979), he came up with (1982), together with Sven Gundlach and Nikita Alekseev, the apartment gallery “APTART” (apartment art, “apartment art”), where uncensored art was shown. In 1984, the KGB destroyed it too.

After perestroika, Misha calmed down - apparently, there was no one to fight with. His last noisy project was an action at the ARTKlyazma festival (2004) called Art against Real Terror. He burned a real bus, as if expelling the demons of terror with this artistic fire. He again entered into battle with evil, but now international.

No, here's another thing. On the eve of the New Year, Roshal, having learned that I was preparing an exhibition called “An Artist’s Diary,” said that he had a new, this time serious project ready for her: “It will be about life and death.” A few days later Misha was gone - he died in his sleep.

This was his last performance. But just too serious. And desperate, as always.

Alexander PANOV