Yuri Zlotnikov. Irina Vazhinskaya. 2008

Irina Karasik

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Yuri Zlotnikov  

In the “wild 90s” many thought that real art would arise instantly and the old would soon be dead and buried... Nonconformist triumphal march began and ended in 1991 with the “Other Art” exhibition. The so-called  shestidesyatniki were confidently relegated to the archives, their former achievements deemed dubious — mere echoes of the “great Western style” and a metaphysically obscure rehashing of the Russian avant-garde. Nor were their new works seen to be relevant to contemporary issues. Little by little, however, it became clear that there was more art than the notorious “mainstream” and that attempts to banish the “founding fathers” to the history books, to confine them to the past, had failed. Their names turned out to be the supporting construction upon which contemporary Russian art rests; nothing equal to them has appeared to this day, and their art and ideas continue to set the standard against which others are measured. Successful recent exhibitions in our current millennial “00s” decade bear witness to this fact. These showings have included the works of Eduard Steinberg, Vladimir Yankilevsky, Erik Bulatov, Francisco Infante, Oleg Vasiliev, Vladimir Weisberg, Mikhail Roginsky, Eduard Gorokhovsky, Boris Turetsky and Yuri Zlotnikov.
      Yuri Savelievich Zlotnikov occupies a privileged position even amongst this splendid company. Not because he’s the best-known or the most recognized. On the contrary, he’s perhaps less understood and acknowledged ​​​​​​than the others. There’s a reason he often speaks of his creative loneliness of the “eternal avantgardist” and “eternal outsider” and refers to himself ironically as a “Latin teacher’. Not a single monograph about Zlotnikov yet exists, and his list of exhibitions is not very long. He’s not very welll known abroad and doesn’t rank among the leaders of the art market. In spite of this, however, Zlotnikov's presence in the art world is felt perhaps more than anyone else's. Even more keenly felt is the need for that presence: a true living classic, he bolsters the significance of the “institution of painting” itself and embodies the idea of “the importance and boundlessness of culture”, of the necessity in art for “imperious breadth and a feeling for the continuum of achievements in Culture which came before you". On the other hand, it's Zlotnikov who, in Ekaterina Degot's precise observation, “alone upholds all the ‘Westernness’ of Russian art, all its European, Mediterranean purity and grace”.
      His thoughts are sweeping, his judgments all-embracing: he's not embarrassed by elevated topics, speaking his mind about the destinies of civilisations and cultures, the problems of ecology and consequences of globalisation, God and the universe, the Internet, cloning and terrorism — all as if these were his own burning personal concerns. What's more, he reacts in some unfathomable way to all of this in the coloured “squiggles” and “curlicues” of his abstract art.
      Among the older generation of artists, Zlotnikov is involved more than anyone else in the living and ever-changing world of art. He’s interested in everything and jumps into the thick of all controversies, tirelessly conversing, arguing, explaining and proving his point. Not only does Yuri Savelievich keenly follow everything going on in today's art world, he’s a constant participant in its development and exerts considerable influence  in his curatorial role. While other “past masters” tend not to pay much attention to the middle and younger generation of artists, Yuri Savelievich eagerly enters into contact with them, responds fearlessly to their challenges and provocations, and often invites them to take part in his exhibition projects. Young artists, in turn (who would seem to recognize no authorities), seek his society, value his opinions, heed his words, and find polemicising with him useful.
      Yuri Savelievich's current pace of activity is astounding; he’s never idle
for a moment, it seems, constantly expanding the bounds of experimentation and recording the visual forms which come into his head in studies numbering in the hundreds and even thousands. Especially surprising are the growing process-orientedness and element of risk-taking in his creative process, the freedom, daring, freshness and purity of his artistic innovations — all this at an age when the artist's experience and standing would seem to call for repose and finality. But Yuri Savelievich continues to be drawn to the unknown and the untested: new forms, media and technologies. Recently his painting made a successful showing in an architectural environment; it’s now clear that our art has lost a great deal from Zlotnikov not being given walls to decorate, as Matisse and Chagall were. Then the artist discovered another very modern, if not to say fashionable, medium. He became interested in printing on canvas, creating expressive posters, which unite analysis and synthesis, the fragment and the whole and