Moscow artists in London. Nelly Klimova, Vyacheslav Duchinsky, Alla Seryogina, and etc. 1989

Now with the restructuring drive apace much has changed in this country. These changes occur in our Moscow branch of the Artists’ Guild as well, with the exhibitions of a different kind growing in number and quality. People now see what was banned not long ago. One of new forms of our work is direct contacts with artists abroad on an exchange of arts exhibitions, and this has been running smoothly.

We highly appreciate the initiative of Great Britain’s R.A.G. artists who introduced their works in Moscow last autumn, we are grateful for the invitation to make a response display of Moscow artists and their works here in London.

We do sincerely hope that this exhibition of painting, sculpture and graphic art by Moscow artists belonging to different generations and stylistic trends will encounter some interest and contribute to a further expansion of contacts between artists living in Moscow and London as well as to cooperation in culture between our two countries.

Oleg Savostiuk, 
Chairman, Board of the Moscow branch of the Artists’ Guild of the Russian Federal Republic

The Moscow branch is an immense association numbering some 3,000 artists in easel (painting, sculpture and graphic arts) sections alone. Democracy is the basic principle according to which we selected the works for this exhibition. We tried to show the whole variety of stylistic trends and generations; at the same time we tried to escape from searching direct analogues with contemporary Western art but wanted to show Moscow’s original artistic culture.

The criterion here is the artist’s recognition in this country resulting in the acquisition of his works by the major Soviet museums including the Tretyakov Art Gallery, or the Russian Museum, as well as big hits at international exhibitions and contests and, finally, the acquisition of the artist’s works by museums and art galleries abroad.

The restructuring drive now changes and activates artistic processes in this country in such a way that even the youngest artists have the opportunity to display their works. Their names become known soon, the works are awarded prizes, they are bought by museums. We should note another important phenomenon, that is the return of our cultural heritage which turns out to be consonant to the tune of today, though the artists’ names have long been considered as ’never existed’, and only now they are bestowed a second life. Just one example, features that are typical for the avantgarde art of the ’80’s, the soc-art, have been anticipated by such ’old-timers’ as Moses Feigin, Yuri Zlotnikov, or Yekaterina Grigorieva.

Exhibited here are also several works done in the traditional ’Moscow school’ of painting.

So, a variety of artistic personalities is introduced here, also offers reciprocal contacts between artists of various trends and generations, for in art nothing valuable can be lost without a trace and is often reborn in its hypostasis but in a different environment.

Mikhail Ivanov,
Chairman,
The Exhibition Committee,
Board of the Moscow branch of the Artists’ Guild of the Russian Federal Republic

The new times have come at last. We agonizingly seek the sources of the new reality. Today we want to present you with our dreams. It is very important for us because our dreams are our souls, and you have the real opportunity to touch with your fingers’ tips the innermost part of our hopes.

You will see a chaos of desires, fears and emotions. In spite of the fact that art is a personal matter it becomes clear and evident that we all are linked with one another by means of invisible power lines and magnetic fields, of which we’d like to create a new universe.

We invite you to join us in this invisible structure. We want you to know that we are seeking our place in this immense world. We want to be understood. We want our hands and hearts to meet.

Alexander Burganov,
Chairman, International Committee, Board of the Moscow branch of the Artists’ Guild of the Russian Federal Republic.

Yuri Zlotnikov

Born 1930 in Moscow. He graduated from the Moscow High School of Arts and worked on probation in the famous Bolshoi Theatre. For eighteen years he led the children’s art studio in Moscow and was a permanent jury member at the International Children’s Drawing contests “The World As I See It“. Besides he went in for industrial design. He has taken part in Moscow, republican and nationwide arts exhibitions; his works were also displayed in Poland, France, West Germany and Iraq. The artist’s works can be seen in the most fabulous Soviet museums including the Tretyakov Art Gallery and the Pushkin State Museum of Arts in Moscow, as well as in a West German private collection.

“In the fifties I felt an impulse towards the semantic analysis of painting. This led me to the so-called ’signal painting’, to the consideration of colour and plastic components’ influence on the viewer’s motorics. Later I arrived at considering the act of painting as something unrepeatable and opposite to any schematism. In painting you always move forward to a generalisation of some formulated notion of the world’s unity, of a vigorous flesh which is striking in the archaic art.“

Zlotnikov’s works are never exclusively decorative even when they tend to become original fairy scenes in colour sometimes. But the colours aren’t the coloration but an impressionist sharp-sighted analysis of their interrelations enabling to perfectly reconstruct various spatial, luminous and atmospheric effects. In a violent fluency of manner and spring-like strokes of brush the world’s dynamism is revealed together with that spiritual tension experienced by the painter while creating a work of art. In spite of its modern forms of expression, art still keeps the faith in the harmonious accord between the man and the world.