Decorator

Anatoly Brusilovsky in the late 60s arranged the first Russian art club in the workshop

Anatoly Brusilovsky is a successful book schedule, which from the 50s illustrated only “cool” foreigners like Slinger or Vargas Llos. Mosfilma artist and the author of the first clip of Alla Pugacheva. The grandson of the Odessa manufacturer, the son of a successful writer and nephew of the laureate of the Stalin Prize poet Semyon Kirsanov. The capital's secular lion, who met the stars of pop and cinema, as well as Western diplomats and journalists who worked in Moscow.

It is possible and differently. Anatoly Brusilovsky is a non -conformist who did not participate in any official Soviet exhibition. The author of the strange collages connecting surrealism with pop art (however, the head of the department of the latest currents of the Russian Museum, Alexander Borovsky, calls them “lower social art”), and compositions from household objects and garbage of assemblies, one of which is hanging in Tretyakovyk today. Invalid invention Tatel Body Art: In 1969, for the “Russian” photo report to the Italian magazine L'Espresso, he painted the beautiful man-maker with flowers and butterflies. The illustrator of the poems by Henry Sapgira in the scandalously famous samizdat literary almanac "Metropol". Friend of Kabakov, Yankilevsky and other today's classics. A person who created “total installation” from his own workshop (as the same Kabakov would put it) in an antique spirit and arranged endless performances in it under the guise of friendly parties (in essence, this was the first Russian art club).

You can and so.

Anatoly Brusilovsky is a novice writer, in 1999, at his own peril and risk, which issued a collection of literary portraits of his colleagues “The Time of Artists” and in 2001, already by order of the St. Petersburg-Moscow Summer Garden, which processed it in a luxuriously published book Studio.

In the “studio”, the lyrical chapters of the “Personals” dedicated to Yolo, Yuri Sobolev, Anatoly Zverev, Ilya Kabakov and other legendary arts, are supplemented by the chapters that first seem to be boring and heterogeneous.

These are some extracts from the guest book in charge of the Brusilovsky, which recorded all visitors to the studio workshop, who left its autographs, drawings, poems and messages to the owner. This is the "Chukokkala" of our time. And Brusilovsky worships all this graphic trash on the reader indiscriminately. For example, “Eric Bulatov painted and wrote nearby:“ ... The drawing is bad, but from the heart! ”, Then the Finnish hockey players:“ The Finnish National Hockey Team Thy Very Much for the Exallent Hospitality ... (Finnish hockey team thanks you for the estimated hospitality-"results"), and then in Finnish. "

But the fact is that the “Book of Honored Guests”, connecting Bulatov under the same cover with Finnish hockey players, but Kabakova with Pugacheva, is not only a document of the era, but also the work-concept of the artist Brusilovsky. The same as his workshop. No wonder this handwritten folio is estimated today at forty thousand dollars. (So, however, Anatoly Rafailovich himself believes, and what he says needs to be divided into two. However, twenty thousand are also considerable money.) Both the workshop and the “book” are also evidence that Soviet times were not so hopelessly gloomy. One of the chapters of the essay of Brusilovsky is quite rightly called "This is a wonderful, stagnant time!" Many were allowed to be allowed. How and why a conversation with the artist and writer Anatoly Brusilovsky, a colorful and strange character.

-Still from the book. It is difficult to call her memoirs. What is it at all?

- In my book, as you may have noticed, culinary recipes are given special importance. After all, hedonism is a certain philosophy of life, rooted in ancient Greece. Therefore, the "studio" can be described in gastronomic terms. She is like a good barbecue. Old converted pieces -“personalities” from “time of artists”, that is, pickled meat, interspersed with new, light group sketches, that is, onions, tomatoes and so on. And all this is worn on the "skewer". My guest book. But this is really the least memoirs: “Shampoo” is a studio, the life of a studio as a living creature. This is a novel about the studio, not an artist. However, the artist is me, but I remain invisible and present only indirectly - intonation, a subjective vision of events.

- And what is the uniqueness of these of your workshops and the guest book, if a whole work is built around them?

- The idea to start a guest book was a kind of insight. I came up with her as soon as I received the first studio, even before visitors, and immediately Bot is so fat. This book is a product of stagnant time, an outlet in it. It was possible to fall out of it into the atmosphere of my workshop, which I turned into a cave of Aladdin, an oasis. I am not a collector, not a bourgeois. I made a decor in which people thawed a terrible Soviet time. All that you see around is the scenery of my life. I easily part with things, I always ate with my friends from collectible porcelain, which often fought. I have a whole urn with broken Venetian sides Lami and Gardner porcelain.

- Where did everything come from?

- Despite the fact that the house of my grandfather was before the revolution and after was very rich, there are no family things in the workshop. I arrived in Moscow with a fiber suitcase with a change in linen. Creating a studio decor, I followed children's memories: all these items in the style of “Ar Deco” and “Ar Nuvo” were a real environment of the grandfather’s house. I still found this atmosphere, but some proletarians have already been hooked in a huge eight room apartment. Parents and grandfather remained in two large rooms, scored by remarkable things, which were not yet antiques, but were something super-modified. And then I began to look like in Moscow.

Can your interiors call the work of the artist Brusilovsky?

- Certainly. Everyone who came to the studio gasped, and it was me like a sweet syrup. Not because I warmed my pride, but because it “worked”. The studio "worked". I arranged costumed balls - ancient, gypsy. It was pure cheppening, designed to forget that behind the walls of the house is a dirty gloomy Moscow with dull lanterns, with a KGB, with black "Volga" and the VERTUHAI. This can be called escapism, but it was not a flight into a small sink, but a conscious performance.

- By the way, why is there no workshop in the book?

- I wanted to achieve the disappearance of my "I". In addition, I did not want to show my wonderful real studio. Let the reader recreate it as a kind of paradise, condemn it and dopantizing.

- How did Alla Pugacheva and Ilya Kabakov get along in the workshop?

- They did not get along. I had different circles of communication, and I did not pushed them, but carefully piled them. For many years, I, as an artist-winner, collaborated with Mosfilm, because I got into the world of pop-pop and cinema. The director, with whom I made a bunch of films, at one time was the husband of Pugacheva, he introduced me to her. There was also a journalistic circle, mainly Germans and Americans. They loved to shoot television portions about the “other” Russia in my workshop, unfinished by the Bolsheviks. For them, I drew a semi -screwdrown audience. If the foreigners did not want a scandal, he invited the more “clean”, like Ahmaduli Noah or Messerer. There was also a circle of my nearest colleagues-artists like Steinberg, Kabakov, Yankilevsky.

- And how did the authorities react to the life of the studio?

In general, it all started with the fact that I arranged a reception for foreigners. Cars with flags and dipnomers came to the courtyard. Five minutes later - a knock on the door. There are three policemen: "What is happening here?" I immediately go on the attack: “We have an event, comrade major. Keep in mind if you are gone even to a screw to be answered. Set out the outfits there. And keep in mind: we will have a long time, several hours. What, by the way, is your last name? " He was completely stunned. Probably went somewhere to call. While the court and the case, everyone went.

In general, it was easy to get out. For example, they call me “from there” and ask: “You are invited to the American embassy today - what are you going to do?” I naively answer: "It would be impolite not to go, right?" Silence. “For a minute, do you forbid me? Forbid officially - I will show Americans paper. " They are furious, but they cannot answer. I did not call for the rebellion, did not report over -secret data, had no tolerances for information, I did not work in the civil service for a day in my whole life. It was impossible to call me either in a place or in the trade union committee, to have nowhere to fire.

- And your art could not be interpreted as an anti -Soviet?

- The authorities, preparing repressive actions, were counting on the fright, confusion, and the non -information of “Soviet people”. We and my friends of artists several times after large exhibitions abroad were called to the Ministry of Culture "for conversation." We prepared, distributed roles. I was “in the press” because I played languages ​​and, through the acquaintances of the diplomats, received clippings from newspapers about us. Here is a genuine conversation in the ministry, which happened after our exhibition in Italy in 1965. The minister immediately began: “How do your work get to these exhibitions? What kind of anti -Soviet actions do you allow yourself? " I say: “We are artists, we have workshops for which we pay. These workshops are open. I can’t check the passports from everyone coming to me: I don’t know who this person is an American or Estonian. ” Minister: "You were used by Western intelligence, articles that undermine the interests of the Soviet Union wrote about you." Me: “What are the articles?! Name. " And I have a briefcase with newspapers and their translations into Russian in my legs, I get translations and start reading. “They praise us, it’s all for the glory of Soviet art,” I say. “Show,” the minister says. Here I am already: “For a minute, comrade minister. You probably have all this. Why am I, a private person, should I inform you, the Minister of the Great Country? " And then he speaks: "No, we do not have the opportunity to view the entire Western press." And then - this is a historical fact! “They say to me:“ Comrade Brusilovsky, and could you later supply us with Western printed products about Soviet artists and translate it? ” Then one of the “Gray Cardinals” sitting at a separate table rises, and said in a hard tone: “You said that you have an open workshop. Does that mean you and me to accept me? " I answer: “Of course, I work for the people. I really want competent people to see my work. If they are not anti -Soviet, I am ready to show them publicly. I want an exhibition in Moscow, not in Italy. ” Complete confusion: "Goodbye, thank you." Naturally, no one came to the workshop. I was a demagogue, acting exactly according to their scheme.