Brush in the throat

"New" spoke with the street artist Philippenzo - "instigator of personal resistance"

The artist from Volgograd Philip Kozlov is known not only in Russia, but also in the world art community under the pseudonym Philippenzo. The author of the scandalous works “Our Qing!”, “Pouring”, who fell into the Guinness Book of Records, gathered the most flattering reviews of famous people from the world of art-Marat Gelman (the Ministry of Justice considers it a foreign agent), Vladimir Abikha, Anastasia Vladychkina (leader of the Yavav art group) and many others.

We meet with Philippenzo after leaving the special receiver. The ideal order reigns in his studio. On the table is nothing superfluous, not a single drop of paint, all materials and tools are neatly laid out. More than two hundred cans of paints are numbered with him and are in strict sequence. Friends help Philip hang the paintings that were again brought to the studio after the artist spent 28 days in the Lyubertsy special receiver.

The first 15 days, I recall, he received upon returning from Georgia - for refusing to unlock the phone and give access to equipment (this was regarded as disobedience to police officers). The second protocol was already drawn up in the special receiver - for the resisting allegedly rendered.

And so friends took away paintings from the studio immediately after the detention of Philip, fearing searches and already becoming traditional for the security forces of the “carousel” - a series of arrests to initiate a new business. A week after the release, August 31, fears were confirmed.

Part of the work, including new ones made in a special reception, were seized two days after our meeting. The security forces were waiting for Philip at his rented apartment from 8 in the morning, completed the search already in the artist’s studio at 5 am the next day. Philip is charged with “vandalism” (214.2. Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) based on political hatred.

PHILIPPENZO no longer appeared in the appointed interrogation. And I still had this story - about how the conductors of freedom grow out of artists.

The first in Russia

Philip draws from childhood. The first manifestation of the penchant was the pencil drawings of the Olympic sports. A sensitive mother, noticing the boy’s craving for drawing, wrote him first into a children's artistic studio, and then transferred from an ordinary school to a profile class of architectural and artistic gymnasium. In high school, Philip became interested in the exact sciences and decided to enter the engineer.

It is thanks to the symbiosis of the creative and engineering type of thinking that Philip has formed a non -standard approach to work - he experiments with materials and techniques, often using technical education. The first few training courses at a technical university Philip almost did not engage in creativity. The first work, for which he took up to earn a scooter, is a train conductor. I could not linger for a long time - I felt squeamishness because everyone tried to give the conductor “on the paw”. A couple of years later, he went to the USA under the Work and Travel program, worked as a loader, then he got a bike rirk-he drove tourists in New York.

In the third year of the university, Philip saw on the Internet the works of artists who create 3D images on asphalt. The craving for experiments and engineering skills allowed him to quickly figure out how such visual illusions are created. When the artist began to make collections and collect materials, he realized that all works were created exclusively by foreign artists. So - he can be the first in Russia.

Philip was inspired by the work of the founder of this direction Kurt Venner, British artist Julian Biver, the Germans Manfred Stader and Edgar Müller, American Treishi Lee Stam. I subsequently met most of them personally, already as colleagues they participated in festivals together. With Tracy, he saw in America and Tunisia, with Kurt - in America and Dubai, with Manfred Stader together they made a commercial project in Kazakhstan and painted in Moscow. Philip realized that he became the first in Russia, began to actively draw, and the media began to write about him more and more often. Only a year later followers appeared.

And in 2014, the master Kurt Wenner invited Philippenzo to participate in the creation of a joint work-giant megalodon, which fell into the Guinness Book of Records.

Then, on the recommendation, Artemy Lebedev Philippenzo entered the Higher British School of Design, to the direction of Modern Art. Acquaintance with Lebedev took place because Philip is sure that in order to achieve something, you need to use any opportunity. He actively commented on LJ Lebedev, participated and won the competitions, and after some time he personally demonstrated to him the Lebedev yacht Esmeraldusik on the asphalt on Volgograd embankment.

We signal - this is a problem point

Today it is difficult to imagine that Philip once could do joint projects with the state. In 2012, he created experimental work on the central embankment of Volgograd. The author depicted a voluminous lying policeman on the asphalt, who seemed a real obstacle. Philip completed the work at the request of the local traffic police.

Gradually, Philip’s works were increasingly filled not only with artistic meaning, but also began to reflect the political agenda and the changes in the country (or vice versa). Each street art work Philippenzo became a loud statement and caused a public resonance.

Philip says that he became interested in the political and social life of the country long before the creation of the first high -profile works.

One of the manifestations of political activity was the organization of May Day monsters - half -carnival processions with absurd slogans.

Philip inspired the theme of carnival protest, invented and implemented by the chief ideologist of the monstrium Artem Loskutov, who greatly influenced the artist’s work. In 2016, Philippenzo organized a monstration in his native Volgograd. The first slogan in Volgograd was: "No matter how to blind from this beauty." 2016, a beggar city. Montstrans - an annoying factor, in suits and masks, with pioneer mountains, shouting slogans.

In 2018, Philip was an observer in the elections in Chechnya. I consciously chose the most difficult region: “In our areas there was a sharp subsidence on the turnout and results. This showed that all these years the turnout and the level of support were drawn. According to the results of the trip for the courage, we were nicknamed the "Wild Division."

In his works, Philip often uses a reception for the study of fears borrowed from art therapy. In 2019, he recreated the street version of his work “Kiss”, which beats the camouflage pattern and stripes on the form of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and later used the riot police as a lamp on Halloween, as part of the Winzavod project. He believes that objects of fear, turned into peaceful, household items, cease to be terrified.

Nerve of time

Over time, Philippenzo begins to grow. In 2020, Philip created in Moscow Street art “Twenty”, which was dedicated to the 20th anniversary of Putin's reign. She, like everything that Philip does, is a reflection of the events that took place then: adopting amendments to the Constitution and the abrasion of the presidential terms.

The latest works of Philippenzo, performed after the beginning of it, caused a very wide public outcry.

The idea to make the work “Marshmallow”, depicting a dialogue between children and a caricature military commissar: “Is there a marshmallo? -There is a march of the left! ”, Appeared with the artist back in 2019.

Philip realized his prophetic idea by the Children's Day on June 1, 2023. The work was painted over in less than a day, but Philip restored it just as quickly: “They so outrageously quickly and poorly painted it over that I just had to circle it again.” In his social networks, Philippenzo commented on the work as follows: “Protect children!”

"They have nothing to take away from them"

Before the beginning, every artist engaged in street art risked being involved under Article 214 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Vandalism”. However, after the beginning of their artists and corporators, they began to be held accountable not only under this article, but also under the article on the discrediting of the Russian army. From March 2022 to June 2023, the Russian police detained and fined at least 653 authors of stickers, graffiti and street art of work.

Galerist Marat Gelman considers the persecution of artists and corrugated workers by a natural process - first the media, actors, politicians, now - artists, the search for enemies inside continues and will continue. He says: “Now is the time when no collective form of protest is impossible. It is impossible to imagine a rally today even for 1000 people. But an individual protest is quite possible - 1000 small shares. Artists today are instigators and initiators of personal resistance, people see that the artist is doing something, they ask themselves: "Can I something?"

“The main power of Philip is that he does not need money, organization, no cultural institution. He takes and does. Philip makes not only a gesture, but also an act. Those who continue to create work abroad are a protest, what Philip does is resistance, ”Gelman says about the phenomenon of the resonance of protest works of street artists. They are strong in that they have nothing to take away from them, there is nowhere to dismiss and have nothing to intimidate.

Gelman notes that the pursuit of Philippenzo is a warning for other artists.

The state finds bright representatives in each area in order to intimidate the rest in the conditions of information autocracy. So in the theater environment was the absurd business Berkovich and Petriychuk.

Philip left Russia shortly after the search and the appointed interrogation. Work, including those created in a special detention center, was seized. In the studio, a mess reigns now, empty fasteners for canvases are hanging on the walls that do not interest the security forces of work are scattered, the table is littered with tools and paper.

"My work is not in order to kick or lay your homeland"

We met in the Philippenzo studio, where the security forces will come in two days with a search. He ordered his mother flowers, he could not congratulate her on her birthday from a special detention center. On the day of his liberation, he thanked her (she came from Volgograd to meet her son) and friends for support and said: "Homeland is primarily mom, friends and close people."

- In your works, you often use not only artistic skills, but also apply your technical education, is it a craving for experiments?

- Natural curiosity is one of the manifestations of life. I am always interested-what if you do wrong, but differently? To find new ways and boundaries. So I came up with my author's techniques - high driving and conceptual puddles. I felt for the boundaries when an alternative opportunity to create a visual appears. And if you add any concept, then this is generally an additional degree of freedom.

“ Did you say that a trip to the USA has become fateful for you, how did it affect you?”

- My life was divided into “before” and “after”. "Growing up on steroids." The horizons expanded very much, I saw another world. When I talked about the trip to friends - I met a misunderstanding, my stories were perceived as attacks on my homeland.

-You worked with the stars of world street art, which create 3D-illusion, tell us about this experience.

- Kurt Venner came up with a sketch for the image of a megalodon on an abandoned runway in the United States. He collected the whole color of artists working in this technique to create giant work. For me, this is the same as learning from a brilliant musician, and then play together on the same stage.

- You collaborated with the traffic police when creating a voluminous lying policeman for the good of his native Volgograd, now it seems impossible ...

- I have no desire to harm the city or country. The sharp works that I do or my colleagues are not in order to kick or lay out the homeland.

This is done for the good, we react to pain, we highlight it. With our artistic statements, we signal: this is a problem point. For me, justice is always at the forefront. To steal is bad, and when the country lives in poverty - this cannot leave indifferent.

- The most common question that is asked in the comments to your posts lately, - Why did you return from Georgia?

- Leaving my term in the special receiver, I read a collection of stories by A.I. Solzhenitsyna. And he has a good storyteller “Bonfire and ants”, which tells about how ants, despite the mortal danger, strive to return back to a burning log-to their home, to their homeland.

- The second most popular question: what is the next work and whether to wait for new provocations?

- I came not to bring a rustle, I want to carry out the plan, to complete the work on the canvases. A lot of unfinished works, you need to close gestalt. I always have a lot of creative plans, plots, ideas, there are not enough hands on everything. I want to finish the work, and in the future there are plans to conquer the Western art world.

- You and other artists, despite the risks, continue to speak out. Why is it important?

- We - document what is happening. Our works are real documents of the era in which the descendants will study the present time.

Thought is a spark, it is difficult to light a haystack with one spark, but if you do this methodically, another spark will be able to light a flame. You cannot cancel progress, youth cannot be canceled, life cannot be canceled.

-One of the most high-profile street works since the beginning of his, because of which you already had problems with the law, the work “Our Qing!” Became. Tell me about her.

- It was very scary for me to do this work, but I felt my duty to society and the universe. I understood that everything that was happening was too important, too global, I could not say nothing. I went out at night and went to draw. Most of all I was worried that something would go wrong, and I would not be able to complete it. At that time, they had already begun to start high -profile affairs for fakes and discrediting, for freedom also feared.

-They often talk about you as a street art to an artist, although in the author’s technique of high driving on the canvases you have many works. Tell us about this technique.

- I came up with my high driving technique during practical picturesque experiments in a British. Its essence lies in the fact that the image is created contactlessly - I drip paint on the canvas from a height using an ordinary pipette. Falling drops of paint form blots that look like abstract painting close, and from afar develop into recognizable figurative images.

In high driving, it is important that you take the element in allies - I do not fully control how a drop flies, how it lies on the canvas, there is an element of chance.

Many say that the artist is harmful to work in several techniques, it is believed that he should choose one recognizable style. I work at once in several directions and techniques, which sometimes echoes and mix with each other. In general, all my life I not only violate the established rules of the game, but I come up with my own and play them already. This allows you to go beyond, invent a new one and achieve unexpected results.

- What is the most important work in this technique?

- To date, my most important picture in this style is Metacon "Mammician".

This is a story that is once traditional for Christian iconography, depicting the Virgin, feeding the baby Jesus with her chest. I decided to portray it with bottles of milk intended for people. The idea is that the gods are we. I realized a similar plot on the asphalt. I portrayed a hand that holds a mirror ball with a reflection of God, and signed "Jesus inside us." Divine potential is present in each of us. God in you - in love for life and for the world. We can be happy, we can achieve all the goals that we set for ourselves. It all depends on how we use the resources.

-The artists with whom they managed to communicate note your great contribution to the association of the art community.

- I am very pleased to hear that this is noted. I take the first steps, comment, support, lay out on social networks a selection in which I talk about the work of my colleagues. These are living classics - watch, subscribe, get work. This is involvement, the ability to touch. I make an interest in art as a whole. I want the Russian art-world and art market to develop, strengthen and form in a strong community. Synergy gives a greater exhaust. It took several years to convey it. The artists became friends with the new social role much earlier than that it was necessary to unite and popularize art together.

- Are you an ambitious person?

- Certainly! It makes no sense to take on something and not set yourself high goals. I want to achieve the level of Warhol, Hurst, Pollock. I am an ambitious person because I feel responsible for the gift that the Universe endowed me with. And I am obliged to reveal it on maximum shoes. I can feel, see and excite the minds of other people. I am the very first and most important viewer of the art that I do. If it works on me, it will work on others. And if I see that it works for many, then this confirms that I am doing the right things.

— Чем ты зарабатываешь на жизнь и важна ли финансовая составляющая для художника?

— Я продаю свои произведения коллекционерам напрямую и иногда участвую в онлайн-аукционах, в том числе провожу собственные в телеграме. Помимо этого, появились возможности для производства собственного мерча — футболки, стикеры, открытки.

Финансовый успех и материальная составляющая — необходимый ресурс, который позволяет творить дальше, закрывать базовые потребности. Художник совершенно точно не должен был голодным. Да вообще никто не должен быть голодным!

( Смеется. ) У меня сюжетов на несколько лет работы вперед, но когда у тебя голова занята тем, где достать финансы на еду, квартиру, студию, — тебе не до покупки дорогостоящих холстов и красок, не до вложений в производство.

— Твои друзья говорят, что тебя практически невозможно отговорить, если ты что-то решил. В том числе они про возвращение в Россию. Is that so?

— Многие и правда думают, что бесполезно давать мне советы, все равно сделаю по-своему. Однако я часто спрашиваю мнение со стороны, выслушиваю аргументы, принимаю их во внимание, и уже затем все взвешиваю и принимаю решение. Для меня чужое мнение ценно тем, что это возможность посмотреть на вопрос со стороны. Что касается решения вернуться в Россию, то я не ожидал ареста, ведь прошло достаточно времени. Уже и марш Пригожина случился, и я думал, что у ментов есть дела поважнее. ( Laughs. )

— Последние свои работы ты сделал прямо в спецприемнике…

— На 3‒4-й день пребывания в спецприемнике я понял, что что-то надо сделать. Один из сокамерников произнес фразу: «Начифирённый зэк преодолевает трехметровый забор в один прыжок». Я восхитился образностью. Среди ночи меня осеняет, что надо сделать эту работу и продать ее прямо из спецприемника. Я подумал, что это похоже на прием из айкидо — когда ты энергию противника используешь в свою пользу. Решил, что буду использовать простыню в качестве основы. Попросил друзей принести краски, кисти, малярный скотч. Пятилитровую бутылку прорвал об острый угол, сделал себе ведро для разведения краски, заварил кипятка. Простынь замачивал, отжимал, сушил, докрашивал. Сделал трафарет, чтобы аккуратно нанести на ткань текст.

— Как отреагировали полицейские?

— Когда принесли краски, они были в шоке. Напряглась — еще и красный цвет. Очень удивились, что человек сидит по политической статье и продолжает что-то делать внутри камеры, расспрашивали сокамерников. Унесли показать начальству, вернули через 15 минут. Все, что есть вокруг, можно трансформировать в искусство, даже в спецприемнике. ( Работу изымут уже во время обыска. — Ред. )

— Ты понимаешь, по чьей инициативе ты оказался в спецприемнике?

— Судья сказала при продлении ареста на 15 суток: «Непростой вы человек, Филипп Николаевич». ( Смеется. ) Полицейские отводили в сторону со словами: «Сам понимаешь, ничего личного».

Анастасия Федько