After leaving the quarantine in the Tretyakov gallery hosts one of the most anticipated exhibitions of the year – “NEVSEGDA. 1968-1985”. A large-scale project was a continuation of a trilogy about postwar life of the USSR: the first part was dedicated to the thaw (2017), the current – epoch of stagnation, the next one will be on the restructuring. The show is positioned as a study, the purpose of which is to perform individual and mass consciousness this time. However, the project was not just about last season, but became an allusion to the current.
the Exhibition opens hall of officialdom – “Ritual and power”. Red carpet on the floor, the green “office” walls, portraits of Brezhnev: oil – painted by Tahir Salahov, and in the mosaic – Nadia Leger, wife of the famous French cubist. Some of the aluminum reliefs known muralist Michael Baburin: Soviet women with stacks of wheat with the correct, almost Greek features and stateness Roman statues. Classic examples of socialist realism, the official art of the time. It is a superstructure, as Marx wrote; about the basis of your tongues. Dig directed by, under the top layer of the official historical ideology. In fact, it is the main part of the exhibition.
In the eight halls are mixed in a strange nostalgic cocktail of meanings and bessmyslennoe works of different genres and the degree of publicity. From officialdom – to fiction in the style of the Strugatsky: paintings with photographic clarity, are phantasmagoric scenes explore other planets or launch nuclear missiles, amid jubilant masquerade in Venice. The photorealism of the official criticism treated with caution (and was why), but still accepted as a way of modernizing traditional painting.
an Absolute contrast to the socialist realism became Sots art is a parody of official art. The founding fathers ironic metaphysics with politics – Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid invented this trend, ironically, in the pioneer camp, where he painted the official posters. Joked. Then another and another, and successfully and sharply, and eventually went to the West in the 1970-ies, where he successfully continued his artistic career. Next to the profiles of Komar and Melamid in the style of Marx and Lenin – and other examples of art that could not be exhibited on any official platform, but they lived in the kitchens and in apartments. For example, broken “Graph history” of the legendary group “the Nest” – game model that shows the regularity in the holding of congresses of the CPSU. By the way, was that the line of activity of party meetings coincided with data on solar flares, and this is not a joke, although work, of course, is an absurdist gesture. Moscow conceptualism, full and��onii and allusive, is the largest and most valuable part in the history of art of the era of stagnation. However, the exhibition is not so much the place, but the main characters in place. This group of “Collective action”, carrying out absurd actions in suburban forests and fields (where else?). And Yuri albert, who, in particular, suggested an artist to help in all household matters – from buying food to replace the bulb. Free. And Dmitry Prigov – it jars – with death, nature and struggle of opposites, well, vodka. And Leonid Sokov with a series of Golden hands, feet and names (first name – Ilya, the names are different – Kabakov, Glazunov, Repin).
this ironic context, jumping to mystical realism. Moving from room to room, it seems that travel to different parallel worlds, sometimes to the point of absurdity the opposite of their aesthetic forms and imagery. For this, I think many will criticize this project because, together, on a single “table” that looks like a salad that eating bacon mixed with ice cream. However, this is it. – all these very different artists lived and worked at one time and in one socio-political environment. Everyone was looking for a way out of the decaying dreams of a bright future. Each had his own inner space, existing in parallel with the public reality. Mystical realism is one of those Windows to the outside, which, perhaps, the current government can rouse some feelings. In the chronicle of events got photo of the Minister of culture Olga Lyubimova, who came to the opening of the exhibition: from the thunderstruck expression on his face she looks at the work of Anna Dobrovensky “Chronicle of a people’s soul” – ceramic object in the form of a battered Tome with the image of a faceless mother and baby. In this section, however, really is something to think about. Footage from the movie “Perforazione” (1967) like conceptual art, is filled with many references and experiments with color and form. No wonder postmodernista imagery, which tells the story of the Bolsheviks who went on the development of the next virgin, not passed censorship and the film lay on the shelf until 2009.
the Next leap in the space era of stagnation – straight to the village. One of the main themes of the Soviet art, which, according to the ideological order must be submitted as a positive story about the workers-the workers, appears here in a different way. Rustic painting betrays the theme of total loneliness and detachment. Pages Igor ALROSA “Bright day” reminds us of the current routine insulation – flowers in the window looking outside. “You outside” seems to be and beckons with its light, but inhibits its inaccessibility. Here, as in the previous section, blended master of the “severe” style Viktor Popkov: the usual subjects and witnesses, in the spirit of the time, and the painting is angular, gloomy.
Even the sections “Childhood” and “Community” – with this shadow of estrangement and deepening in itself. “Hedgehog in the fog” probably could only be born at the time, and at no other. As the picture of Tatiana Nazarenko – the border between official and unofficial art, depicting people who seem together, but with a sense of self-absorption. Although fotokhronika “Bulldozer exhibition” different degrees of cohesion and community. It is symbolic that around the corner from the history of the “Bulldozer exhibition” hanging picture “goodbye, Michael!” Luchishkin depicts the famous episode of the Olympics-80: Bear flies over cheering stadium, decorated with rainbows. Who would have thought in the era of stagnation, today this theme can be interpreted ambiguously and cause the issues above?
step by Step, exploring the Universe of stagnation, with all its “possible” and “impossible”, we come to the final point called “the vanishing”, where the focus is the work of Ilya Kabakov. The Creator of the total installations, which are able to immerse the viewer entirely in the absurdity and the beauty of Soviet reality, is represented by several works. The main of them “Skapocalypse Primakov”: the illustrated story of the hero who came through the wardrobe in a separate personal space.
the Era of stagnation ambivalent towards the thought of driving their research, the authors of the exhibition, curators Cyril Fireflies, Yulia Vorotyntseva and Anastasia Kurlyandtsev. In an era when political, civil and social life was on pause, had its pros and cons, and its movement. Split into public and private, formal and informal – has become a marker of the era. The yield was determined – “Changes require our hearts”. Excerpt from the film “AssA” with the imperishable song Tsoi completed the journey in the era of stagnation. The screen hanging over the passage, curtained by heavy curtains. If they open, glance down the official portrait of Brezhnev… Such is the expected final stepping stone for the new project. It forever was not forever. Let this truth is going over a lesson and a consolation greetings from the beautiful nostalgic past.
