CDH of discord

The Supreme Court of Russia decided to abolish the International Confederation of Unions of Artists (ISSC) . By and large, no one stood up for the successor of the Union of Artists of the USSR, not a single cultural figure with a loud name raised his voice to its defense. Those related to the exhibition business only waved sluggishly: they say, yes, we went to the artist’s central house for the Non/Fiction book fairs and other loud projects, but the everyday, everyday life there was faded and slurred. Is it worth it to regret that the building on the Crimean shaft will now go to other hands?

A large and serious collector, philanthropist, curator of several noticeable exhibitions in Moscow, artist Viktor Bondarenko states that he fully supports the court decision:

You do not want to have a building of the Union of Artists of the Sumero-Walolian state?

-This is regardless of the fact that I personally have a positive attitude towards some people. That I am familiar with those who controlled this building. But in fact, it was a private bench that did not carry any public burden, hiding behind the fact that it was a public organization. What kind of public did she carry the load, except that she rented out the premises and, obviously, some people sawed grandmas among themselves? Supported artists, built a studio? Or did the needy artists and retirees pay a pension? Maybe I don't have enough information. But what I know gives reason to believe: it is correct that the Supreme Court eliminated this incomprehensible organization. This is my opinion. If this is a confederation of artists and they received this building, then, probably, all artists had to receive some benefits from the rental of this building.

- As for the benefits for individual artists, I don’t know, but at least they held exhibitions.

- So what?! So you can hold exhibitions without owning this building. So they will hold exhibitions there. Probably, the teakovka can spend them better. The building of the Central House of Sciences was built in the Soviet Union. All citizens of the Soviet Union paid money for this. Why did some people dispose of, indefinitely disposed of this real estate? Ten years! Are they such passionate ministers of the Fatherland, or passionate ministers of the CIS, or the Union of Artists? What union of artists, by the way?

- They inherited the property of the Union of Artists of the Soviet Union.

- So there is no longer the Soviet Union, and there should not be institutions of the Soviet Union! An incomprehensible formation of some state that is no longer. You do not want to have a building of the Union of Artists of the Sumero-Walolian state? I will be glad if there is a Tretyakov gallery there.

- Do you know, this is the resolved issue?

- I don't know. I just heard that the Tretyakov Gallery for this building claims. If the state is transferred, it will probably be correct. At one time, I was in the Board of Trustees of the Tretyakov Gallery. I think that the Tretyakov Gallery will hold exhibitions no worse than the long -term leadership of the Central House of Artists.

Perhaps it is necessary to transfer this building to the Union of Artists of Russia and the needy artists. I guess I would do that. If the state wants to support the Tretyakov Gallery, let them build another building. And I would probably take this building so that the Union of Artists would rent it under the strict control of public organizations, so that this money is distributed between the needy artists. That would probably be very humane and human, ”says Viktor Bondarenko .

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Victor Bondarenko on the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation

Be that as it may, persecution at the ISSC is most reminiscent of the story with the long -suffering international center of the Roerichs . Despite the loud names, both institutions are poor and low -power. At the same time, both are owners of solid real estate in Moscow. Accordingly, half of the house of the artist and the estate of the Lopukhins. An important circumstance: both structures are public organizations whose property should now move to the state. Museum of the Roerichs - the State Museum of the East. CDH - it is possible that a neighbor in the building, the State Tretyakov Gallery, whose leadership has long states that it is crowded in the current spaces.

Once, it was in 2008, the confederation was already trying to take away the building. Yuri Luzhkov and Elena Baturina planned to demolish the Central House of Sciences and in his place to build the so -called "orange" according to the Norman Foster project. In the Confederation of Artists, they then declared their disagreement to be dispossessed, referred to the fact that it was the property of a public organization, the Moscow government has no right to dispose of it. But we must admit: troubles did not happen only because the economic crisis broke out and was not up to expensive objects.

Unfulfilled project of the Norman Foster's Workshop "Orange"

Now no one is going to demolish the artist’s house, everyone agreed that this is a valuable monument of architecture of the Soviet period. As for the sins, on the basis of which the court decided to eliminate the ISSC, the chairman of his executive committee artist Masut Fatkulin considers them imaginary or insufficient. He intends to continue the struggle:

- Naturally, we do not agree with this decision. We will captivate it, in all instances and within the framework of the law to fight for our rights and legitimate interests. The Supreme Court was a court of first instance. There is an appeal, then there is a third - a cassation instance. If the possibilities of judicial resolution of the dispute within the country are exhausted, we can contact some international instances.

We are talking about the defeat of a public organization in order to withdraw its property

We believe that this decision was infringed on the rights of artists, citizens of not only the Russian state, but also citizens who are included in the unions of artists of the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which are members of the Confederation. Because they are the founders of the Confederations, all these CIS states, all 12, they are legal, all these unions, successors liquidated in 1992 as a result of the self -destruction of the Union of Artists of the USSR, legal successors, heirs. They established this confederation and handed it over to her as a contribution part of the property, which they were transferred to them in the section after the liquidation of the Union of Artists of the USSR. They handed it over to them by the international confederation of the Unions of Artists.

- Indeed, there is a statement by the chairmen of the Union of Artists of a number of countries in which they express concern about the lawsuit of the Ministry of Justice of Russia. In particular, there are such lines: “The background of endless checks from the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, the tax service of the Russian Federation, which have been conducting for a year and a half, one of the results of which was the claim for the liquidation of the ISSC, is becoming more and more obvious. We are talking about the defeat of the public organization with the aim of withdrawing its property - our common property, formed by the labor of several generations of artists of our countries.” It turns out that, unlike the Russian Union of Artists, only their foreign colleagues spoke in your defense? How do you explain this?

-The Confederation for 25 years worked, strengthening the connections between artists of the entire post-Soviet space, engaged in humanitarian activities, cultural, educational, socially significant. We have never used budget or state financial support. Our income has always been received from their own activities, as much as she could receive, she did so much.

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Masut Fatkulin on the judicial persecution of the International Confederation of the Union of Artists

And it turns out that it was eliminated on the grounds that the law does not give. The law has a clear list for the liquidation of a public association, but this is not a single sign in the lawsuit that the Ministry of Justice filed. All the grounds on which the international conference should be liquidated as a public association were not in the statement of claim or in the course of the court hearings.

- What were the grounds of the court?

We leased our own property, not someone else's

- There we are talking about insignificant administrative violations that were corrected at one time. We were ready to do this even further, but the measure that was applied is absolutely not proportionate to these violations identified during the audit.

- You said that you were engaged exclusively with cultural activities. But one of the claims to you is that you leased premises, including Alfa Bank.

- You know, this is again the statement of the Ministry of Justice, which is not supported by specific facts. They say that this is not spelled out in the charter of the Confederation. Firstly, we leased our own property, not alien. Secondly, our charter provides for entrepreneurial activity. And the third, even we eliminated this circumstance. Yes, we had a certain violation. This type of activity was not indicated, but we also registered this. That is, it turns out that now there are absolutely no obstacles to conducting this type of activity - renting your own property. At all! We corrected everything, eliminated, and this is recognized by the court.

- You say that there is no reason to destroy a public organization, but then you should think about who was beneficial?

The Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation claimed the rights to all this property

-To whom it is beneficial-we knew it a long time ago! It is beneficial to those who put their eyes on the property that we retained for 25 years. It turns out that since 1992 - devastation, plunder. The property of public organizations of the former USSR all pulled out, who could. And we saved everything and continued to collect further. That's when we collected everything, preserved, created the appropriate conditions, many people who wanted to get this property appeared, ready. It is all in good condition. No need to repair, take it and use.

-You can clarify who still put his eyes?

-I do not take the assertion, but, in fact, interested parties spoke at the trial. In this case, the Ministry of Culture of Russia, which claimed the rights to all this property, declaring it state property, addressed the petition. For some reason, not a single authority said that this was state property, but the Ministry of Culture came up with a petition that all the property that belongs to the Confederation is a state. Therefore, it is necessary to include the Ministry of Culture and the Federal Property Management Agency in order to properly dispose of it.

- And to dispose of correctly - how is it?

“They themselves are interpreted like.” Naturally, pick up from us and get at our disposal.

- There are no official messages on this score, but there are deaf rumors in the professional community that the Tretyakov Gallery claims these premises.

While her mice ate and ate the fungus, nobody cares about her

- You know, there were many different versions, we would not want to comment on them. I can only say that in this case, the Ministry of Culture has a clear document - there is a petition with which they went to court, this was July 6, 2017. But the court, however, refused this to them. But we have a petition, a document signed by the acting Minister of Culture Aristarkhov. So we have a documentary evidence of their interest in this property.

- There is a lot of noise that you are the works of Soviet artists from the Confederation Assembly illegally taken out of the country for sale ...

- We legally formed their export, by the way, through the Ministry of Culture. By the way, at the same time, the Prosecutor General’s Office made an order for numerous violations in the design of the procedure for the removal of works. We also have a documentary certificate - a letter from the Prosecutor General’s Office to the Ministry of Culture. It turns out that here the Ministry of Culture has enough its problems.

- What will now be with the rich collection that the Confederation owns and which was inherited from the Union of Artists of the USSR?

- An interesting question. This is the collection that we preserved from plundering, from the plunder, for which we created the proper storage conditions, created it propaganda, sharply increased its status and capitalization as a result of the fact that, thanks to our actions, it went into world cultural turnover and was shown at the most prestigious world venues. Now there were a lot of people at once. In the meantime, she was dusting for 25 years in a warehouse, while her mice ate and ate the fungus, no one had dealt with her. When this collection was presented to the world, when everyone saw what a high level of achievement is here, masterpieces, who wanted to immediately increase.

- And those who wish - is this a Ministry of Culture?

“Again, I will not specify, but those who wish, as I understand it, are people who, one way or another, belong to the world of collectors,” says Masut Fatkulin .

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Yuri Podporenko about the fate of the Galart publishing house

Among other things, the International Confederation of Unions of Artists owns the Galart publishing house, which specializes in books and albums in modern visual arts. Galart editor -in -chief Yuri Podporenko says that the money from the sale at the Sothebs auction work from the Confederation Assembly went to the authorized activities:

Since the beginning of this year, our work has been paralyzed

- A significant part of the money was aimed at publications. We just began to publish a new series of albums "Master of Fine Arts of the CIS countries." About 80 percent of this series managed to publish.

- If the decision of the Supreme Court comes into force if it cannot be challenged, what will be the fate of the publisher?

- Already now she is very problematic. The lion's share of our orders was made up of confederations. Now funding has practically stopped, and it must be admitted that there are very few publications that we can carry out on our own. In addition, it must be borne in mind that the room we occupy is also the possession of the Confederation. Moreover, the Confederation is the founder of the publishing house.

- In other words, "Galart" is also under the threat of destruction?

- It's hard to say. In any case, since the beginning of this year, our work has been paralyzed. In January, searches were held in the confederation office. Of course, this turned our life. The catalog of the Moscow Art Salon, which was supposed to be held in March, was ready to surrender to the printing house. There was a great album "Masterpieces of Soviet Art." All this froze. All this so far exists in electronic form, and there is practically no hopes that it will be released, ”says Yuri Podporenko .