“In the sideboard - butterflies and a crow's nest.” Artist Oleg Grigoryev

In St. Petersburg, the Avangard on the Neva published the book Oleg Grigoryev, in which the famous poet is represented as an artist.

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"Cultural Diary": On the painting of Oleg Grigoryev

Who does not know what "Prokhorov Sazon // Vorobyov fed", and who asked "Electrician Petrov, // Why did you wrap the wire on the neck"? But the fact that the author of these immortal lines, the poet Oleg Grigoryev was also an artist, and very interesting, is not known to everyone. And it is clear why: the electrician Petrov and Prokhorov Anton became part of the city folklore, like the author himself, about the colorful existence of which legends went. Drunkness, criminal record and term for parasitism, criminal record for rowing, persecution of official literature, first of all, Sergey Mikhalkov, who apparently sensed a dangerous competitor in the children's poet, a refusal to accept writers, a variety of scandals, classical work for the unofficial writer, the work of the Kochegar, the janitor, and the watchman - all this is more or less known. But it turns out that Oleg Grigoryev, who studied at the SCC - an art school at the Academy of Arts, continued to draw all these years. And, opening the album "Oleg Grigoryev", we see a bizarre graphics, sheets made by watercolors, gouache, and we understand - these are not just drawings, it is a very special view of the world.

“I took the paper and the feather, drew an iron ...” - this line became an epigraph for the publication, but I want to continue it: I drew a chair, a broom, a hanger, a mosquito, a fly, a glove without one finger, and not just because they turned up by the arm. This is also Grigoryev’s glove with such a character that you involuntarily shive, and you definitely want to step back from the forceps to stretch the canvases. As, however, from the threatening crowd of brooms, and from the gang of keys, and from the doll - a little golem, and the Viennese chair is clearly with greetings, this is how he wrapped a torn part of the bent back around him, and it is still unknown what to expect from him. And the jackets hanging over the bucket also do not inspire confidence, not to mention the views of cans, teapots and buckets. The artist fascinates the world of man -made matter, these are not just drawings - it is a philosophy of things so dependent on the touch of the hands that breathed a ghostly life into it. On most drawings of Grigoriev, there are things from which the warmth of human hands has long evaporated, the tragic abandonment of things is perhaps the main theme of these sheets. The clusters of hanging clothes, still preserving the shape of bodies, piles of clothes piled on a chair that does not store anything - like onion husks or potato cleaning, empty barrels, piled up on each other, sand clocks, fragments of broken dishes - they all seem to appeal to a person: look what you did with us! And as if they are taking poses, one shocking than the other to only attract attention.

The book “Oleg Grigoryev”, publishing house “Vanguard on the Neva”

Both in the verses - Sidorov, Petrov, and in the drawings - the little man naked and anonymous

It is interesting that when Oleg Grigoriev turns to the living, this shocking almost disappears - we just see the drawings: here are soft, melancholy landscapes, here is a tree, a large and strong, although with a difficult character, here is a bird's nests (haven’t a Japanese draw them with such attentive tenderness?), Here is a hare, here is the sleeping dogs, here With admiration for her pimpled article, here is a rainbow green fly - the artist increased her once every five hundred and showed how solemnly beautiful she was. In the image of a raven, a hippo, a lion, a curled snake and even rats there is no twist, no mockery: creatures, large and small, are not deprived of a feast of life. But the separately lying twisted chicken paws ... I want to turn this page as soon as possible, and it is impossible to break away. And when the living intentionally turns-not just into non-living, but acquires a kind of borderline state, the drawings become ominous-there, for example, where faceless figures similar to plastic nules, if only nuples can be adults and skinny, put a log or huge scissors in obscure efforts, which is about to cut them out. Natural for the artist, admiring the world, the search for harmony as if they are replaced by fear and impotence in front of the upcoming chaos.

Several articles from the compilers were invited to reproductions of the album, one of them was written by an art critic, a specialist in the Leningrad Art Andegrana Lyubov Gurevich . She believes that the output of this book is an event.

- In this book, and at the recently held exhibition, his work was collected for the first time, before that no one saw his works. I read many memories of him, and no one even mentions that he is an artist. Only those who studied with him at SCC recall that although Mikhail Shemyakin was his classmate, Grigoryev was considered the most talented. In principle, he was and remained a graphist, he has very few painting. Moreover, he did not try to come true as an artist, he simply painted, this graphics in no case were sketches or preparation for some picture. He could have a lot of drawings on one sheet, he could draw on the back, but this schedule turned out to be very interesting, and its phenomenon is a real sensation. He once recalled that the Picasso exhibition, which he saw at 13 years old, in 1956, made an amazing impression on him. And the painting of the artist Nekrasov at the Academy of Arts on New Year's Eve-at this time it was allowed to do what was not allowed in ordinary times, and Nekrasov portrayed some extraordinary alien creatures. Oleg Grigoryev said that he realized: art is not a reflection of life, but a certain other reality. And in his schedule - two principles, just as in his poetry: on the one hand, immersion in reality, and the most humiliated, and on the other - a game with this reality, fantasy. In his verses, his grandfather falls in cabbage soup, and a little old woman rolls a coil the size of a huge house. This is a constant game, constant shifts. In the initial period, he studied a lot of Picasso, which, it seems to me, was very interested in - probably how reality is transformed. Obviously, he was brought closer to the Picasso tragic - neither one nor the other has a beautifulness. All Grigoryev’s graphic work is either detailed, naturalistic drawings of animals, plants, objects, not people - or some transformations, shifts. There are drawings where not an image of an object is given, but its sign. He never portrayed a person realistically - only schematically. Both in the verses - Sidorov, Petrov, and in the drawings - the man naked and anonymous. And constant flow of the subject into an object, one living creature into another. In verses, he describes how the log grows from it, from the log - a Christmas tree, and he turns into a cross to this Christmas tree. The same transformations are constantly performed in his schedule - a process stretches out of a person with the head of the kettle, water is dripping from there. He has such a quatrain: “I took the papers and the feather, // I drew an iron, // tore the leaf, threw a knock in a bucket - // In the bucket, a knock was heard” - that is, the object of the drawn acquires the properties of a real object. He has a huge number of animal drawings, they are completely realistic, and their expression is often very tragic. Either some fish heads with live eyes, or mutants like a frog with chicken paw, but since the images are not realistic, they do not repel, this is perceived as convention. When people appear on the sheets, a cruel black humor appears with them: a female body flowing into the toilet, or a person who put his own head in a meat grinder, which he fiercely twisted. This is the imagery of Oleg Grigoriev. There are also abstractions where abstract forms also flow into one another, merge with specific ones. In subject compositions, he loves multiplicity-for example, many, many keys, many, many fleows. I don’t know, maybe there is the influence of communal crowding of that time. Some things acquire human features: the same forceps for stretching the canvas appear eyes, teeth and sinister expression. In addition to objects, animals, plants and people, he has compositions where everything is mixed, at first it seemed to me that it was coming from Picasso, but Grigoryev’s plots are much more saturated. The entire scale is mixed up there - a bunch of men, for example, squeeze huge scissors. In these compositions there are people, objects, animals, buildings, pipe smoke, the funding of the universe itself. Sometimes the scene is visible - a football field or a communal kitchen, but it is usually not clear where all this unfolds.

Lyubov Gurevich

- Lyuba, do you think that Grigoryev’s imagery has its own, original?

Grigoryev lies drunk, Beethoven is transferred on the radio, and he immediately says who performs this thing

- Yes, amazing imagery. There is, for example, he has an image of a landfill - only this is a landfill of naked people, that is, his graphics are not devoid of some literature. It seems to me that the picturesqueness is not in contact with him, his color is sharp, painting is a kind of soaring, and he has a specific and strict thinking, and always - the plexus of tragedy and laughter. He writes very simply - easier for him, it seems to me that no one wrote at all. In two lines - a tragedy, and never banal. The bearer of evil is constantly a man - and the author himself, I do not even know another poet who would have no self -surpassion, narcissism, everything from the word "itself". He is part of the cruelty of life, he took his topic low reality and paid all his life for this choice - he lived. At least his life corresponded to this. Everyone who wrote memories of him mentioned his incredible, subtle erudition. Ponizovsky recalls how Grigoryev is lying drunk, Bethkhoven passes on the radio, and he immediately says who performs this thing. Such a clash of the alcohol appearance, which was most remembered, especially for those who, as a composer Tishchenko, knew him from his youth - and a striking culture and erudition.

- And why is this all this -warped, old, used world of Oleg Grigoriev's graphics, it seems so human?

- Because he has a pity for all this. This is a crow's nest at all in the sideboard stood, I saw him myself. There was a snake in a bank, some bird with a broken wing could be with him. I had to do with him, because then I already planned to make my dictionary of artists, I wanted to record a biography. I had to come many times to find him in the condition when he can speak. And when she found, it was also something - he said 5 hours, but nothing about himself, only about others. I never had this in practice. Usually, if you ask artists about someone else, they are angry, angry. And he still had an intonation of admiration all the time - about Moscow artists, Zverev, about Shemyakin. The first time I was taken to him by the collector of Grasetov. Oleg met us in a short jacket, from under which the shirt stuck out a bubble, and the first urge was to apologize, and then he said-no, I should have it. And immediately asked: are you lovers? If lovers, you can go to that room. And then he read poetry, a poem about football, but then I did not get it, just listened and was surprised. And he hung an exquisite, aristocratic painting of Ustyugov with whom he was friends. And at the door - small photos of the rulers - Brezhnev, Stalin and all the others. In the sideboard there was a collection of butterflies and a raven nest, nothing more.

“ Did he treat you anything?”

He did not belong to his art, he simply painted at the behest of his heart, and all

- He tried to shake with Brekhotov, but Blazutov is a hardened man who walks around the artists all the time. And then I myself came to him several times, and it was not easy - I lived in Vsevolozhsk, but he had no phone. I had to come, knock on this door - I don’t remember what time I found him and for which time he could speak. There is a film about Grigoryev, but it is somehow completely incomprehensible where the verses come from-complete alcoholic idiocy, a daughter in the orphanage, and nothing more. But on the second culture, on the young generation, he had a strong influence. Although this is something that is impossible to imitate - go write two lines so that they pierce you. And he did not belong to his art, he simply painted at the behest of his heart, and that’s all. But he was exhibited at the Nevsky recreation center. The drawings remained from his wife, and they were bought by front -line, he was not only an artist, he still loved and collected several artists - Arefievites, for example. And he bought the whole legacy of Grigoryev from his wife, who wanted to improve the living conditions. And when they began to make a book, they threw a cry on Facebook, and someone had something else, someone sent from abroad. The artist of Nekrasov, who left for America, is close to him-he also painted people naked people, for example, women put rails, someone climbs on a pillar-and all are naked. And so, he says that he still writes paintings for two mental spectators: Alexander Arefiev and Oleg Grigoryev.

- Do you know why Grigoriev was kicked out of the circuit?

- They gave a good craft education, but all the talented were kicked out. And so - the whole Arefievsky group, except for Vaimi, Ustyugov, Shemyakin, Zelenin - so many large artists came out of there, and after all, they did not study anywhere else, but they were technically completely at the level. But when Arefiev studied there, they could just drive out for putting on the wrong cap. But the school was in the Academy building, and Oleg Grigoryev said that they had an appropriate atmosphere there - interiors, costumes, silk, brocade, naked nature, so they felt "above the crowd."

She knew Oleg Grigoryeva and literary critic, philologist, specialist in the Russian avant -garde Tatyana Nikolskaya .

I reviewed my position, I read Winner and understood everything, I really love Jews

- I met him on Saturday by Ivan Alekseevich Likhachev, where Oleg Grigoryev was. They didn’t talk about painting there, he read poetry there and there was a big debate. There was one such case: once he quarreled with my husband Lenya Chertkov because of the Jews-they opened the guide of the Writers' Union, and Oleg said that there were more Jews than Russians. They quarreled. In general, we talked, he was with us, but here Lenya says: no, if you are an anti -Semite, I will not call you to visit. And so, he called us and called us, and then came to us in a communal apartment with a clear order and says: Lenya, sorry, I reviewed my position, I read Winer and understood everything, I really love the Jews. In general, he apologized 10 times, said that he was absolutely wrong, and began to visit again. And another episode was when I met him after serving the term. They said that he, in a forest van, raised a little white, a hedgehog and a funnel, it seems - in general, he was busy with animals that were bad, people confirmed this. And then many years passed, and already in the late 80s I began to meet him at the Belarusian, where he came with a notebook of poems. And so he had a peculiarity - when he drinks, he could cut a neighbor on the table with a knife and a fork, and the Belolinsky often had guests, and no one wanted him to reach a riot in a dick. Therefore, when they knew that he would come, they poured a little into the decanter, and the food was good. He will drink, and after a while he asks if there was still, they told him that they would try to ask the neighbors. The communal apartment was large-they went somewhere, brought a little more in the Capancer-here, the neighbors were cast us. They played such a game with him so that he was not drunk. He did not just treat Misha and Vick Belolinsky, he listened to them, so he came not only to read poetry, but also to listen to opinions. And the last time I saw him in the WTO - I meet him, and he says: I now don’t drink, they came to me with vodka "Rasputin" - I even refused to drink it. He all wanted his old acquaintance, Edik Zelenin made him a challenge to Paris, and many said that this was the only chance for him not to sleep. But while these conversations were going on, he began to drink again and died.

On the cover of the album "Oleg Grigoryev" - "Self -portrait under the fly", tempera, 1980. The artist portrayed himself naked to the waist, with a brush rested on the cheek, and a giant green fly on his head. The fly lies upside down, wings down like a hat. One eye of Grigoriev in the shade, the other is the one that directly under the fly carefully looks somewhere, his face is twisted with a slight grimace of disgust. The state "under the fly", intoxication of the holiday of life does not prevent the artist from seeing its dusty folds and dark corners.

The book also has an article by Nikolai Grayotov, which is mentioned by Lyubov Gurevich. "Конечно, черный юмор и веселая злость могут показаться превалирующими в творчестве Олега Григорьева, но чувствуется в них очищающая сила искусства, – пишет Благодатов. – И светлые струи, пробивающиеся на поверхность, свидетельствуют о том, что автор совсем не мрачный мизантроп, но полный жизни и талантов раблезианец, попавший в странный, "постный" и "не свой" век, и весело и зло He told him to the inhabitants who did not live here by chance, his impressions about him. "