Ukrainians in Bobur

Kharkov school of photography, Odessa conceptualism, Ukrainian non-conformism in the center of Pompidu

A large collection of contemporary art of Ukraine went to Paris, to the constant exposition of the Center for Contemporary Art Pompidu (Bobur) . This is a serious work of French and Ukrainian curators, and the latter would like to separate their international Contemporary Art stars from the Russian context of the last thirty years, after the collapse of the Union. An exhibition was held in the Kiev Center for Contemporary Art of M-17 , prepared specifically for the showing in the Pompidu collection and for the international conference of private collectors. One of his curators Victoria Bavykin talks about the project. Listen to Podkast Babylon Moscow and subscribe to other podcasts of Radio Liberty.

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Who is going to Pompidu?

- How long have you worked, how did you get into the project? Who will go to the Pompidu museum, how many works, how many artists?

- I work with the Grinev Foundation, Grynyov Art Collection , this is Boris and Tatyana Grinevya, they are from Kharkov. Back in the mid-90s, they began to collect art, although they were not connected with art. Boris Viktorovich - physicist, academician. Now their collection has more than four thousand works. Boris Viktorovich was one of the people who stood at the origins of the transfer of work in Pompidu. This was initiated by the collector Zenko Aftanaziv, then the collection club gathered. Most of the Kharkov school , which fell into Pompidu, transferred the Grinev Foundation. The part was handed over by Sergey Lebedinsky , Kharkov photographer, participant and co -founder of the Shilo group, director of the Kharkov school museum of photography, who should soon open in Kharkov, near the railway station. This is a large industrial building, a former factory, beautiful, from red brick, with a view of the railway, and now there will be a museum on the top floor with access to the balcony. When you go from Kharkov to Kyiv, you can see the roof of the museum and this building.

- Will it be the center of modern photography of the European type?

- What they do is serious research. They have a large archive of the Kharkov school. Now in the "Ermilov-Center" there is an exhibition of the Kharkov school, which is initiated by the employees of the museum. And another part of the Kharkov school was transferred to Tatyana and Evgeny Pavlov. Evgeny Pavlov is a participant in the Kharkov school of photography, one of her foundations, and Tatyana Pavlova, his wife, art critic, one of the basic researchers of the Kharkov school. 164 works went to Pompidu, most of the Kharkov school. Someone went in a whole series, someone with one photograph, such as Yuri Rupin , but all the work speaks vividly about the practice of their authors, and even one work is enough to understand the peculiarity of this practice, a feature of the Kharkov school.

Yuri Rupin "Two by the Sea", 1978. Grynyov Art Collection

- Let's describe the photograph of Yuri Rupin.

-This is a black and white photograph, it is called "two and the sea", there are several such photographs, they are similar in the plot.

- This is a pair of nude on the seashore, the photo card is processed. The Kharkov school is a h/b or a painted photograph, this photo resembles a graphics, not a photo.

- Yes, this is the so -called solarization. This method, this technique was used by many representatives of the Kharkov school. For example, Oleg Malevanny , who was in the Time group. Rupin, Malevanny, Pavlov and many other artists were in the group "Time", from which the appearance of the Kharkov school is counted.

- Boris Mikhailov grew out of the Kharkov school. When the name of Boris Mikhailov is called, everyone understands that we are talking about a tough anthropological photograph, which shows the behavior of people from the most glamorous side. This is the life of humiliated and insulted, as well as social marginals, which, because of their own, say, innocent, allow Mikhailov’s cell to come close enough.

- It’s not only about simple -hearted, but also in Mikhailov’s ability to talk with these people, find an approach to them.

- This is a very artistic photo card. The work of Mikhailov from the so -called documentary photography is very far away. I was once again convinced by part of the exhibition, which is dedicated to Kharkov photography. I saw an extremely sophisticated East European art that plays with reality, very Arty. What time does the foundation of the school belong to?

-70-80s. This happened on the basis of a regular photo club, a typical Soviet one. With men, women were not in this field.

-There is not a single woman photographer at the exhibition.

- I was long interested in: where are women in the Kharkov school of photographs? In addition to Vita Mikhailova, who only recently began to fit in explication, and Tatyana Pavlova, but she is an art critic, not an author.

Where are women in the Kharkov school of photos?

When I talked about this with the authors, I asked where women, everyone said that there was one woman, photographed something, but indicatively, no one even remembers her name.

- This is understandable, if we talk about the practices of those years. If the Polish heroines of "solidarity" are not remembered by the male rifelines of the movement, what can we say about another post-Soviet space.

At the exhibition in the center M17

- These photographs are very representative for context, social and political, and the very practice of the work of these photographs is representative. In the Grinev Foundation, we are preparing a book about Oleg Malevannaya , this is his autobiography. He is a man not writing, this happens in interview mode. But this is a first -person book. And besides his concepts, a creative path, a story about series, he told how the process of creating photographs took place. Many photographers worked at another work, because it was now difficult to earn a photograph, and then it was unrealistic, and someone worked part-time in the photo studio, someone shot graduations from kindergartens, took children's photographs. Oleg Malevanny worked in the design bureau and at the factory, he needed to work at 9 in the morning. He got up very early to take up the photo, went to work, came home from work, was engaged in photography, or went to Boris Mikhailov, Yuri Rupin to discuss the work.

The woman also went to work, but also contained this whole huge one called life and family

At the same time, he had two children, and of course, the issues of raising children retreated, not for the reproach of the small one, this is a reality in which almost all people lived then. If he still had issues of raising children, maintenance of life, a question with a photograph and the ability to engage in it would be very large. The woman also went to work, but also contained this whole huge house and family, and even if she had a desire to engage in photography, then there was no opportunity. According to the stories of the Malevna about how they lived then, hung out, how they discussed the photograph, and new methods of the Kharkov school arose from the discussion, you can understand the social and political context.

Oleg Malevanny "Age of Beauty", 1972 Grynyov Art Collection

- The second most of the work of the Marevan is Soviet demonstrations. I will say about the first - this is an erotic part. Erotomania of the Kharkov school is its trick. But what is curious, there are a lot of not only female acts, that is, women are not objectified: many couples, many male nude, attention to the body. And if we talk about the Malewan, its second branch is the bodies on the street, the collective body of the Soviet demonstrators. How can you comment on this? This amazing isolation, concentration of the gaze - many photos of nude in the interiors of the then apartments, then these are the shabes of the witches, then the reference to the famous Czech photographer Jan Saudek. The gaze of the Kharkov photographer is trying to focus on a person in different circumstances of his life, but the political context makes this space closed. And in this sense, these cards are Eastern European: if we compare them with the art of about the same time that was produced in Central Europe, we will find a lot of similarities. Nude theme. It seems to me that no one passed her from the Kharkov school.

- Alexander Suprun has no photographs with bare bodies. He, like a large esthete, a collagist, with his subtle instinct of the picture and an incredible ability to fold this picture manually from different objects, he is also a human center. But, unlike colleagues, who in the photographs are mainly colleagues, a bohemian party, wife, husband, mistresses, Suprun turned out somehow amazingly. He has a rural theme, the study of another person, not a city resident who runs away from big politics to his apartment and arranges there shabashi there. He has a completely different person - a rural worker, the other amazing side of this world. Two works by Suprun were chosen by the curators Pompidu, they gave them to Sergey Lebedinsky. And the work is very indicative. This is a manual collage. Suprun needs to look from the inside, it is from the inside that manual gluing is visible, very important.

Alexander Suprun without name 1997 Museum of the Kharkov school photography

- These are portraits of old women on such symbolically almost apocalyptic and at the same time decorative background. These are frightening heaven and very beautiful flowers.

- Heaven is one of the key "chips" Suprun, in all photographs it is the sky that occupies most of the photograph.

- You focus not on a person who seems to be a central figure, but on completely different objects, they are background, but they take a look more. Kharkov photography does not hesitate to use emotional pedals on the verge of kitsch. How Suprun uses the sky: his man is like a symbol. It is put in a metaphysical position so that the viewer has no doubt. The rest of the authors work about the same, a strong emotional pedal is available in this visuality.

- Sometimes even a certain emotional manipulation.

- This is a way of relations with the viewer, who confused me a little in Boris Mikhailov. But when I see from which school this aesthetics has grown, everything falls into place. These are people who lived in the airless space, were fantastic aesthetes and created an endless theater from their lives, you can add an absurdity, they loved absurd very much. This is visible from photographs.

- Yes, the absurdity is insanely clearly visible. You mentioned the witches sabbath. Firstly, this is Roma Pyatkovka, whose practice is built on erotica, on a female body, although it also takes off men, but more often we see naked women. He skillfully works not even with the body, but with how to show this body in the absurd man, how to make this body strange, incomprehensible, not very attractive, and this is its aesthetics.

He skillfully works not even with the body, but with how this body is shown in the absurd man, how to make this body strange

This happened in the apartments of friends, at home, these are kitchens and rooms that are endlessly repeated, they are the same for everyone, and these are the aesthetics of Soviet apartmentmen. The only space where then people could gather and feel quite free was the apartment.

- We would now say that these are grandmother's interiors, a carpet, an ornament, such an east, a TV with a large lens, a Yugoslav cabinet ...

-Yes, yes, the wall that everyone had, and still remains with many.

- And against this background, soaring witches are naked girls who jump. This makes a stunning impression. They with blessed smiles, Soviet witches cannot be called.

Roman Pyatkovka, from the series "Shabash Witch", 1988. Grynyov Art Collection

- The practice of Pyatkovka’s novel is built on the contrast: Soviet, personal, public. This is the Antagonism of the Soviet one, he took this form of dialogue - Soviet in the form of interior, Soviet symbols, Soviet newspapers, and as a contrast to this Soviet one, the crushing - the body, as something symbolizing freedom, as the fact that the authorities are difficult to maintain, control and authorize. I think Roman, when I invented it all, Foucault did not read, but it fits perfectly under the concept of Foucault perfectly.

- Actually, the Mattlee has a similar concept, but a demonstration is an open space where numerous bodies, faces, both are the same and individual. And the world of a naked body, which is individualized. All these characters are very different, it is interesting to watch them, this is such a theater of naked bodies. They were not attracted for pornography? In the Soviet Union, it was difficult with nudity.

-Perhaps someone was involved in some conversations, but it did not reach serious criminal cases. It was possible to somehow restrain everything, to hold from the eyes of those people who do not need to see this.

Kharkov school in M17

- And the girls who have matured now have no revelations that men behaved badly with them in youth? Or were everyone completely happy in this bohemian continuum?

- I have not heard such stories. In the context of the artistic practice of Malevannaya and Roma Pyatkovka with all the girls, they were friends, they had a good relationship with all. Malevannaya still remembers the name of each model that he shot.

-The Shilo group: tell us about these people, who, firstly, are mocking the bright image of Yulia Tymoshenko, putting her head to men's torso. And they are wildly stylish characters that process photographs so that human images become otherworldly.

- The Shilo group began with four people - Sergey Lebedinsky, Vadim Trikoz, Vladislav Krasnoshchek and Vasilisa Nebobar. Now there are two - Lebedinsky and Krasnoshchek. Krasnoshchek-the maxillofacial surgeon, worked in the Kharkiv insanity. This is one of the worst places in Kharkov, patients with severe injuries are brought there. Now he is no longer working there, but continues to work as a surgeon dentist. He has a “hospital” project, which he shot in his department. And the Pompidu went two series “Shilo”: “Tymoshenko’s escape” and “Completed dissertation”.

- “Tymoshenko’s escape” we can describe as a mocking series, a person with Tymoshenko's fictitious head ...

-In Mask, Tymoshenko travels and is engaged in some household things, washes in the bathroom, walks, plays the guitar, climbs out the window.

- And the "finished dissertation"?

- "Unfinished dissertation" is one of the most popular works by Boris Mikhailov, which the guys at some point decided to finish and finish. And this is the real book of Mikhailov, which is modified by the next generation of the Kharkov school. There are many chronicles from Kharkov life, from home exhibitions, home gatherings, apartment exhibitions. There is, for example, a photo where Boris Mikhailov, and next to him, artist Nikolai Ridny. And some ordinary Kharkov landscapes.

Photo of the Kharkov school

“ But they are completely otherworldly.” In this manner, in this approach, the eyes of artists, which are occupied by metaphysics and existence, are striking in this approach. Two types of cards are a presented naked life, it is naked in the literal and figurative sense, and the manner of talking about reality, which is parsing reality on corpuscles. Trembling images that refer us to the old chronicle, to the focused film, to the old cinema.

- A feature of the photos of the Shilo group - they are timeless. Due to processing, due to the plot it is difficult to understand when it is done. Tymoshenko symbolizes some point in the history of Ukraine, but very long, the use of her figure, as a hero of photographs, still does not give certainty when it was done.

-I want to ask again about the context, socio-political. She recently spoke with a friend, he is a historian, and he said that Ukraine was perhaps the most Soviet of all republics. I understand that this is a paradoxical statement. Can this be understood at the Kharkov school?

- I never heard such a statement.

- They also said that “when the nails are cut in Moscow, fingers are chopped in Kiev.” We are talking about the rigidity of the KGB system, about repressions, about a state that behaves very unfriendly towards citizens.

- If you look at the Kharkov school of photography and at Odessa conceptualists, then this refutes the mentioned judgment. None of them fell into serious situations related to the state, with censorship. There were some kind of censorship situations, but they did not cause terrible fear and did not force people to stop their classes.

- It is possible that the Kharkov school, that Odessa conceptualists did not particularly want to perform in Soviet space. It is clear how this aesthetics differed from socialist realism.

- Of course, she was antagonistic to her, she was repelled from her - to do the opposite.

Sovietness here was not so Soviet

If these people in Soviet times did so much, performed so many works, ideas, continued them, and they did not do it in the basements, did not hide what they were doing, did not hide, did not have a double life, it was quite open, as much as it could be done at that time, it means that Sovietness was not so Soviet.

Stas Volyazlovsky at the exhibition in M17

- Another wonderful figure is Stas Volyazlovsky.

- Stas Volyazlovsky came more than once to Kharkov, but in general he is from Kherson, and he lived in Kherson for most of his life. His whole practice is imbued with Kherson, his work is about Kherson. Of course, about Ukraine as a whole, and about the post-Soviet space, but from Kherson he took a lot, to some extent, Kherson formed his ironicism, sarcasticity, rigidity, caricativity. Stas more than once in his texts and interviews said that Kherson is his soil for creativity. He was a thin, kind, smart person who did not tolerate the hypocrisy, stiffness and ignorance, but all his works about it, he grew up in this, lived in this, he was a child of Kherson. Unfortunately, he died a couple of years ago. And now we and Sasha Solovyov and Lena Afanasyeva are preparing the exhibition of Stas Volyazlovsky, in September she will be in Kharkov, in the "Ermilov Center".

- Let's talk about the Odessa school .

- In addition to single authors, two large directions were in Pompidu: this is the Kharkov school of photography and Odessa. At the exhibition, we paid great attention to Odessa non -conformism. Oleg Sokolov’s work left for Pompidu. Beautiful, rare photographs, documentation of the shares of Vladimir Naumets, Leonid Voitskhov left. Unique artifacts. The shares at that time were not so widespread in Ukraine as a form of art, Odessa citizens were one of the first to actively make them in public spaces. Most often, the Odessa residents made absurd actions, which, on the one hand, was safe: they did not pronounce loud political slogans. On the other hand, they could choose metaphors and absurd the metaphor to present, lay political messages. They understood those who wanted to understand. They wash the asphalt with mitten, write "Moscow - Odessa", at that time the Odessaites collaborated a lot with Moscow artists ...

Picture of Alexander Roitburd

- South Russian and Ukrainian conceptualism is a huge part of Russian conceptualism. Without the figure of Alexander Roitburd and the rest of the heroes of the Odessa world, without Yuri Leiderman there would be no Moscow conceptualism in its fullness.

- Odessaites went to Pompidu as Ukrainian artists, which they are. We are faced with the situation that many artists, most of the Odessa conceptualism, were previously presented to Pompidu and are served by Russia as Russian artists.

-Perhaps this is due to decades to a military conflict between countries, when, through Moscow art instruments, administrative, including these artists, advanced west. So the post -Persian situation was arranged.

- In Kharkov, this situation looked clear, it was in plain sight that if you wanted to advance and popularize yourself and your art, you went to Moscow, not to Kyiv. But the question is different: if you work in a country and use its tools, your art does not automatically become belonging to this country.

- We recently discussed with Diana Klochko, the author of the book about 65 masterpieces of Ukrainian art, as this position is determined - a Ukrainian artist, Polish or Russian. Diana said that, probably, the space in which the greatest amount of work remains, or the theme that these works cover. In this sense, this, of course, is Ukrainian art, because the reality of Ukrainian cities and people of Ukraine is described here in a sufficient fullness.

- Of course, Odessa artists are formed by the local context of Odessa. I would say that the artists went to Moscow to engage in their advancement, but their practice, their method formed in their native Ukrainian cities. Odessa, Kharkov - they were formed by this context, this community, they came to Moscow as the prevailing artists, who had their own method, their vision.

Odessa, Kharkov - they were formed by this context

It’s just that then there was more tools for promoting in Moscow and the ways to bring into the public plane of art. All artists were “adults”, brought their formed art.

- And here I would not talk about ethnicity, not about the national in the sense of ethnic, but about the national post -industrial type. This is excellently visible in both schools, this is the gaze of a citizen, the look of a person who grew up in a certain multi -ethnic culture, and forced to be in the Soviet frame, which demonstrates himself in the slogans and in the monuments. And you have an excellent video of Arsen Savadov and his colleagues, George Senchenko ... at the exhibition ...

- You mean the coats of arms.

- This is a huge decorative work, which, as in general, Savadov, an artist with gigantoman manners, deconstructs the presence of Soviet symbols. This is one of the most powerful deconstruction works that I had to see at all.

- Despite the fact that it is quite straightforward, it is impressive, it is very strong and speaks of a certain position of the recently former citizen of the Union. This is a collective work, in it the positions of all the artists who crossed the post -Soviet line, and all that they had worried before, what they had to do, create in their apartments, all their antagonism, rejection, all that poured into their work, all this was shown by Arsen Savadov in one short, straightforward, laconic video.

Arsen Savadov. From the series "Donbass Chocolate"

- If we talk about Lviv stars, then this is also a small wall of Alexander Aksinin , who has an early schedule, which has a completely amazing individual style. If we talk about the late publication of Soviet graphics, he is an unconditional star of this space. I can not help but ask you about Jeanne Kadyrova . This is perhaps the only woman who is presented at the exhibition as an author with a capital letter.

- She is the only woman who was on the Pompido list. What Jeanne does, how she works with a form, with the material, it seems to me that there are few analogues of such practice in Ukraine. And her experiments, and the work of the “second-hand”, which left for Pompidu, and the work that is presented with us, these are objects from the “Makest” series.

- There is also a red sculpture called "Diamant".

- A robbed diamond. Difficult with gender balance, yes. I don’t know if the curatorial group thought about this. They watched the series and approaches what work organically fit into their collection. The work went into a permanent collection, which means that they will participate in group exhibitions Pompidu. They will be studied by curators and researchers Pompidu, will be used for the expositions of the Pompido Center. Therefore, they had to immediately imagine how they would show them, how to use them. These are materials for future projects, and it is necessary that this is correlated with what is already in the collection.

Installation of Jeanne Kadyrova

- The curators Pompidu enter these Ukrainian works into the context of modern European art. You also presented a video of Alexander Roidburg, black and white.

-It is not even black and white, but with a bluish tint. This video for Ukraine is significant, it was in 2001 on the Venetian Biennale, then it was a curator Harold Zeeman , and it was not a Ukrainian pavilion, but the main program. Бьеннале знаковая для Украины, тогда Украина в первый раз стала её участником, у нас появился собственный павильон. Поэтому работа для украинского контекста, украинского искусства – это такой исторический отсчет. Название длинное: "Психоделическое вторжение броненосца “Потемкин” в тавтологический галлюциноз Сергея Эйзенштейна"

– Эта работа была показана в Музее и выставочном центре " Гараж" в Москве несколько лет назад, она входила в концепцию восточноевропейского перформанса кураторов музея в Любляне. У них самая большая коллекция восточноевропейского перформанса, они представляли огромную выставку, Украина была представлена этой работой Ройтбурда. Действительно, знаменитая и очень красивая работа.

– Да, очень красивая, смешная, показательная для Одессы. Там на видео есть одесские кураторы, художники, и вот это длинное, странное, смешное название тоже показательно для Одессы. Если пройтись по выставке, названия работ одесситов бросаются в глаза: это какие-то странные, нелогичные, запутанные фразы, которые сложно переводятся на другой язык. Сразу понятно, что это одесситы. Олег Соколов был мастером слова. И когда мы пытались перевести эти фразы на украинский для экспликаций, это оказалось сложным заданием: теряется шарм авторского почерка Соколова. Это то, что нельзя переводить.

Работы Олега Соколова на выставке в М17

– Его работы – это сочетание хлесткой фразы и графики. Можно сказать, что это каллиграфия своего рода.

– У него есть работы, где только слова, одна из таких работ уехала в Помпиду – "Всплеск одной ладони". И там больше ничего нет. Она очень лаконичная, очень точная, и вот в одной этой работе уже весь Соколов.
В центральном зале – Олег Тистол, Голосий. Панич, прекрасная работа, очень сильная. В середине зала – Одесса, она центрообразующая, вокруг нее все строится. Вокруг Одессы – художники, чье профессиональное становление пришлось на 90-е, и кто экспериментировал с живописью. В 90-е у нас был такой поворот к новым медиа, к экспериментам с видео, как у Савадова, например.

– Савадов представлен и своей знаменитой серией "Донбасс – шоколад", где фотокарточки шахтеров в балетных пачках.

- Yes. Были эксперименты с фотографией, с видео, с чем-то новым, что тогда стало доступно. А с другой стороны, художники, которые экспериментировали с живописью. И это, безусловно, масштабное направление в украинском искусстве.

Работа Олега Тистола

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