Translated material
Requiem to the unknown
The famous sculptor was remembered on the Web
The first about the death of Ernst the unknown was announced on Facebook by his friend Oleg Sulkin .
The unknown Ernst died. I can’t say anything yet, tears approach. Stunned. Suppressed. This is a huge loss - for Russian culture, for everyone who knew this unusual person.
The social networks responded to the sad news by condolences and necrologists.
The unknown Ernst died.
He left Russia at 52; He died, having lived for 40 years in America.
The famous sculptor and the artist received at one time to catch up with Khrushchev in a standard vein - "Why are you so breaking the Soviet people." Later, the truth of Khrushchev changed his point of view, and on his grave there is a sculpture of an unknown half black, half white
Andy Warhol will say the famous phrase: "Khrushchev is an average politician of the ernst era of an unknown."
- Alexey Venediktov (@aavst) August 10, 2016
The uncle was an uncle. That's who was not afraid to experiment and generally live.
Many remembered the famous Requiem of Andrei Voznesensky, dedicated to the unknown:
The only Russia
My only
The only thanks
What did you choose me.
Lieutenant Unknown Ernst,
when surrounded by a woman,
How is ichthyosaurus a drunk
You sleep at my table
When fuckers and crooks
Brying that you are weak in Gulb,
I feel,
Like a monument
Touring in you.
I will expose my head
and politely tell them:
"Of course, you are freshly bombed
And the taste did not change you.
But were you killed
For the right homeland? "
This is, in fact, the main thing, and not the fact that he died in New York in the 92nd year of his life.
As Julian Tuvim once said correctly, now is the time that people who had not died before at all. Here Ernst the unknown died.
I recognized his name more than 40 years ago when I read the verses of Andrei Voznesensky "Unknown - Requiem in a two way, with an epilogue." And then I was surprised to learn that Ernst is unknown not to the lieutenant but the sculptor, the author of the monument to the disgraced Khrushchev. And then I learned everything else about him. And a few days before his death in the ribbon, it seems, the Faybisovich seeds I wrote a sho type that his historical significance greatly exceeds the artistic. And then he died and I remembered these verses. And of course. Today I perceive in a completely different way of unknown and Voznesensky, and that art, and that war, and that homeland. But I want to post these verses in memory of the deceased artist and what impression they then made on teenage me.
Ernst Unknown, Rip.
The mayor of Yekaterinburg - the hometown of the sculptor - said that in honor of the unknown they would name one of the streets and art school.
In honor of Ernst the unknown, we will call a street in the ECB and art school. Great sculptor and powerful person. pic.twitter.com/hi7110rgb3
- Evgeny Roizman (@roizmangbn) August 10, 2016
IMO of his sculptures very accurately expressed his character - heavy, angular and thin in unexpected places.
The great Russian artist Ernstnetne was left from us! A -A -ah !!! The power of the tragedy of the Russian soul embodied in forms, volume, movement of its drawing, his sculpture - the source of sincerity - a powerful poet of the Renaissance ... your example of heroism of creativity keep me in art and retain my passion for this life - you always strengthen my hope ... I love you my sun ... Fly to your giants !!!! Always with you Andrey Bartenev
I have my own unknown in my house. TEFI figurines of his work. Which now seem to be a reminder of some epic and a long time ago.
When this symbol - Orpheus, tearing his chest - seemed an absolutely unmistakable symbol of the profession I had once chosen. Which then could only be proud of, and live like that - for a break.
I only once saw Ernst the unknown and remembered the feeling of monumentality, strength and depth, which came from him almost more than from his great works.
And I also remembered the story how he returned to Sverdlovsk after the war, a severe injury and funerals that his relatives received. And who considered him the dead mother, Bella Dijur, suddenly saw her son in the courtyard of their house, and did not immediately recognize, envying to the neighbors, to whom the son returned alive.
The son will then survive from the USSR, mother, children's writer, will be announced by the cosmopolitan, and seven years, at the age of 80, will not be released from the country into emigration to their son. Both of them will not forgive communism.
And I will have the figurines of Ernst Unknown, in memory of what was.
Many published photo galleries.
The well -known works of Ernst Unknown Pic.twitter.com/jpwe3ixnva
- Eating My Soup (@raclepigfuntik) August 9, 2016
Those who happened to cross with the artist talked about meetings.
I visited Joseph Moiseevich Unknown and Bella Abramovna Dijur - the parents of Ernst. They lived on Sverdlov, in the house where the Grard "Nature".
Bella Abramovna, a man of rare kindness and naivety, said that closer to the end of the war she received two funerals for her son, after which Ernst returned on crutches and with the "For Courage" medal.
Shortly before the emigration, she tried to persuade him: "Eric, what is it for you! Make at least once some Lenin with a cap, and then you will work as you like!" The answer was, in general, expected: "Mom, what you should - send our Lucyu (Ernst's sister) to work as a station prostitute. And then she will return in a month, she will wash off and become a good girl again."
I just found out: Ernst was not unknown!
One of the most striking creative people with whom in the far already 60s, and indeed in my life, brought me fate brought me together.
I happened to see him and listen to a 17 -year -old boy - a freshman of Moscow State University in the very famous workshop on a Sretenka, where the door was “closed” on a wire where one could go even in his absence, and roam among these incredible sculptures and layouts of monuments. Where, walking, it was even to spend the night on the trembling room, and early in the morning, waking up, to find yourself in the phantasmagoric world! ..
Ernst struck and dumbfounded - breadth, freedom, incredible and frightening courage of statements. But first of all - with their sculptures and graphics.
92 years ... 16 years ago we were in his workshop in Soho, in New York. I presented him a young artist. He sketched her portrait and presented her with his inscription. He gave advice, showed his injuries, he really fought in that war! Even then, we looked at him as a myth. The shake was strong, like a grip in a vice. Eternal memory ...
It is very sad to find out that the unknown is no longer. The story of how our paths crossed was written a long time ago, when it was easy to write about it, and therefore not in the tonality of the necrologist.
*
“Ernst, this is my sister Maria, I came to live in New York,” Ira represents me with a low, ridiculous, mustachioed, elderly man.
The owner drives us among his works, I politely look at a large loft, paintings and sculptures. I am not at all interested in the workshop of genius, I absolutely do not understand anything in his creations, but the famous sculptor himself is very interested in. In the corners of the room, or not all kinds of young people, either students, or apprentices create or not themselves.
The master tells me one of those phrases that women remember forever:
- You, Maria, have an extraordinary combination of severe facial features and soft expression. I would like to sculpt and draw you.
My face is in perfect order in comparison with my heart, which is torn into pieces by many years of exposure to braids of my complex character on someone else's stone even more nasty. I took the bleeding shreds of my stubborn blood supply organ from Jerusalem to New York, to heal with distance, time and pride. In those days, the light years ran between the two capitals, and I solemnly vowed to live in New York for a year, pesturing the soul poisoned by unforgettable insults. My useless body, which will never, will never bring either the slightest joy to me or anyone else! - then found in Washington Hights.
After work, I go to the channel Street, from there on foot to Soho. An unnecessary body, a mortal container of a sagging soul, is dressed in a lovely, recently soldered suit a la, lazel sewing Christian Dior. The unknown sits on the contrary, considers his future model.
- Lesbian?! - Suddenly he exclaims loudly.
I look back at the cat, which wanders on the back of my sofa.
- This cat is so called? I ask, Oshalev.
- No, you! Are you a lesbian? - Ernst points to the chain on my ankle.
I am not a lesbian, but what is the unknown in this, I do not know.
“Of course, I can pay you for the posing,” the dazhy sculptor discusses, “but this is tiny money!” Better I give you some picture ... or a drawing, it will be much more profitable for both of us.
Money never occurred to me. Am I a model? In my performance, I am a muse. I will be happy to substitute for the creative contemplation of the features and the expression of my face for the sake of one honor to inspire genius.
It was twenty years ago. I only remember only a day - October 19, a lyceum anniversary. Yakimchuk asked me to meet Ernst Unknown early in the morning and bring him to Pushkin to the hotel. And in the evening at the ceremony to the unknown should be awarded the Tsarskoye Selo Prize.
I, faithful to the idols of the sixties, happily agreed, firstly because to meet the legend at the station is a big gift of fate (youthful from Voznesensky surfaced in my head: "... anxiety and spangelide /unlike self-sacrifice /only people") and secondly, I still worked in the newspaper and calculated in the manner in the time Turn on the recorder and ask Ernst Iosifovich about myths, which in oral reproduction have repeatedly heard. For example, how he threw a pack of money at the car window - it was a fee from the Khrushchev family for a black and white monument. An informal interview with a great man - no journalist has already prevented it!
The first beautiful beauty Anna - wife of maestro entered the platform. We slightly discussed with her the plan of our trip to Tsarskoye Selo and the schedule of the coming day, but when I said that I would like to urgently urgently and ask the sculptor three to five exclusive questions, a hands flashed a kind of smoke in my eyes. However, not alerting me at all.
And in the doorway of the car the future laureate of the Tsarskoye Selo Prize appeared. The drives gently escorted him. Apparently, we managed to make friends along the road. And their faces were as if they looked at the wedge of the cranes flying in the sky. Although both were distinguished by a special Russian article, rising above our guest. And they made such movements with their hands, as if they wanted to brush the fluffs from his shoulders (in those years, the pillows in the wagons were still downy).
The unknown carefully examined the meters, there were not many of us. Anna said that I am a journalist and counting on an interview. He acquired me as a long -standing girlfriend and said that everything would tell me everything, but at first he should rest. And we slowly moved along the platform in a cloud of good cognac. The drives waved after.
And when we got into the car and drove off the side of the Tsarskoye village, I, breathing in this cloud, already forgot about my native newspaper: all the letters, paragraphs became just some kind of husk and stupidity in the magnetic field of an absolutely irresistible person. Well, I would fool his head with my stupid questions when you could just look at him and be touched? As those conductors.
This has never happened in my reporter practice again.
Today I learned that the sculptor Ernst the unknown died. And although I did not know him personally, I was still lucky to work with him. No matter how loud it sounds.
Together we erected the Memory of Kuzbass Memory: he made a sculpture, and in the ranks of the construction detachment I made the formwork, cast a pedon from a pedestal and an alley leading to the monument. It was in the summer of 2003. Today, many media outlets, among the most striking works of the sculptor, remembered our miner, I remembered how the first time I saw him, how I considered terrible black faces on the sculpture at his feet, how he grew over our heads, when he raised his lifting crane, a feeling of admiration and surprise, almost no one could restrain a strong word behind his teeth, because the miner was beautiful and very terrible at the same time ...
I remember how many jokes appeared (the same type, mainly) associated with the phrase "sculptor unknown."
Eduard Limonov said in his memoirs that "the unknown did not have much talent."
I remember how he kicked us out, youth, from the workshop on a Sretenka, because Sergey Khrushchev had to come to him. We (I seemed to be with Bakhanyan) remained in the yard to see the younger Khrushchev. He walked past us with the face of the cow's udder, in the antediluvian already in those days of the Cartuz (now they would say "in Zhirinovka"), there were chairmen of collective farms, and even then in films.
I don’t remember what year it was, if after the death of Nikita Khrushchev, then his son came to agree on the monument to his father. I know the unknown since the fall of 1967, as I arrived in Moscow, I was reduced to him.
Ernst fought, and he had a special wound on his side, such a mysterious hole, which went into the darkness of the body, for some reason it did not overgrown the flush with the surface of the body.
In New York, he had a workshop, somewhere in the center of the quarter of artists on the Lower East Side for Houston Street. Once someone, or he himself gave the keys to his workshop and I had fun there all night with a stranger wife, then flowing into repentance and tearing to leave, then flowing into ecstasy and not spoiled to leave. In general, with someone else's wife, this is not Christian, but I was not familiar with my husband.
Ernst sculpted the "Tree of Life" all his sculptor life, he had his own sculptor ideology, and he was known in Moscow with his quarrels with the authorities.
His friend poet Mezhirov wrote about him:
"Where on a stone pillow
sleeps Vladimir Lugovskaya,
sculptor Ernst clay is knocked down,
Mosha's leadership is beating
It does not let Moscow fall asleep ... "
Ernst had no particular talent. The sculptor he was, in my opinion, provincial. I think he left Russia in vain. There, outside of Russia, he was lost.
In Russia, he was Trublemaker. Part of his charm in this was.
In the United States, he failed to be Trublemaker.
Part of my life is connected with him, I am on the generation younger than him, and always felt like a kid next to him. And it was a pleasant feeling!
Goodbye the old man!
Vitaly Portnikov called the unknown "sculptor of honesty."
The talent of the monumentalist in the Soviet Union implied successful cooperation with his native party and the emergence of meaningless monuments that would cause delight in the Central Committee and the regional committees.
Actually, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the situation has not changed and sculptures continue to appear on the streets of the cities of the former “one sixth” that cause delight among the archaic authorities - but have nothing to do with art.
An unknown could choose such a career. But did not choose. Because he was an honest man who was not going to betray himself, his talent and his admirers. This honesty, one might say, became fatal for him throughout his life.
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Alya Ponomareva
Social Networks Editor Radio Liberty