The attitude of the Soviet government towards contemporary art was not always negative. Suffice it to remember that in the first years after the revolution, avant-garde art was almost a state officialdom. Its representatives, such as the artist Malevich or the architect Melnikov, became famous throughout the world and at the same time were welcomed at home. However, soon in the country of victorious socialism, advanced art ceased to fit into the party ideology. The famous “bulldozer exhibition” of 1974 became a symbol of the confrontation between the authorities and artists in the USSR.

Nonconformists from the underground

Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, visiting an exhibition of avant-garde artists in the Manege in 1962, not only criticized their work, but also demanded to “stop this disgrace,” calling the paintings “daub” and other, even more indecent words.

After the defeat by Khrushchev, unofficial art emerged from official art, which is also non-conformist, alternative, underground. The Iron Curtain did not prevent artists from making their presence known abroad, and their paintings were bought by foreign collectors and gallery owners. But at home, organizing even a modest exhibition in some cultural center or institute was not easy.

When Moscow artist Oscar Rabin and his friend, poet and collector Alexander Glezer opened an exhibition of 12 artists at the Druzhba club on Entuziastov Highway in Moscow, it was closed two hours later by KGB officers and party workers. Rabin and Glazer were fired from their jobs. A couple of years later, the Moscow City Party Committee sent instructions to the capital’s cultural centers prohibiting the independent organization of art exhibitions.

Under these conditions, Rabin came up with the idea of ​​exhibiting his paintings on the street. The authorities could not give a formal ban - the free space, and even somewhere in a vacant lot, did not belong to anyone, and the artists could not break the law. However, they also did not want to quietly show their work to each other - they needed the attention of the public and journalists. Therefore, in addition to typewritten invitations to friends and acquaintances, the organizers of the “First Autumn Open Air Paintings Viewing” warned the Moscow City Council about the action.

Exhibition against subbotnik

On September 15, 1974, not only the 13 declared artists came to a vacant lot in the Belyaevo area (in those years, actually the outskirts of Moscow). The exhibition was awaited by the foreign journalists and diplomats they had convened, as well as the expected policemen, bulldozers, firefighters and a large team of workers. The authorities decided to prevent the exhibition by organizing a cleanup day on that day in order to improve the territory.

Naturally, no showing of the paintings took place. Some who came did not even have time to unpack them. Heavy equipment and people with shovels, pitchforks and rakes began to drive the artists from the field. Some resisted: when a participant in an organized cleanup pierced Valentin Vorobyov’s canvas with a shovel, the artist hit him on the nose, after which a fight ensued. A correspondent for The New York Times had his tooth knocked out in a scuffle with his own camera.

Bad weather made matters worse. Due to the rain that had fallen at night, the wasteland was full of mud, in which the brought paintings were trampled. Rabin and two other artists tried to rush at the bulldozer, but were unable to stop it. Soon, most of the exhibition participants were taken to the police station, and Vorobyov, for example, took refuge in the car of a German friend.

The very next day, the scandalous popularity began to acquire mythology. Other works began to be passed off as “bulldozers,” as the paintings from the “bulldozer exhibition” began to be called, and foreigners were willing to pay a considerable amount for them. Rumors spread that not 13 people, but 24 participated in the exhibition. Sometimes the number of artists in such conversations rose to three hundred!

"Prague Spring" for art

It is difficult to assess the artistic value of the exhibition - in fact, it lasted no more than a minute. But its social and political significance exceeded the value of the destroyed paintings. Coverage of the event in the Western press and collective letters from artists confronted the Soviet authorities with a fact: art would exist without their permission.

Within two weeks, an officially sanctioned street exhibition was held in Izmailovsky Park in Moscow. In subsequent years, nonconformist art gradually seeped into the “Beekeeping” pavilion at VDNKh, into the “salon” on Malaya Gruzinskaya and other venues. The retreat of power was forced and extremely limited. Bulldozers have become as much a symbol of suppression and repression as tanks in Prague during the Prague Spring. Most of the exhibition participants had to emigrate within a few years.

They eventually received their recognition: for example, Evgeny Rukhin’s painting “Passats” was sold at Sotheby’s auction, Vladimir Nemukhin’s works ended up in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid became the world’s most famous representatives of social -art - a movement that parodies Soviet officialdom.

Reproductions of some of the works of “bulldozer” artists are presented below. Perhaps some of them could have ended up on the Belyaevsky wasteland on a September morning in 1974.

NONCONFORMISM

50-60s "thaw". On March 1, 1953, Stalin dies. Many intellectuals of that time were very happy and decided that everything would finally be different. The country began to return to normal life after the cultural failure that occurred during the time of Stalin. Art was distinguished by monstrous conservatism. Socialist realism (based on late Peredvizhniki painting, neoclassical and 20th century sculpture as interpreted by Maillol and Bourdelle) received support. This was an effective anti-modernist strategy. For a living artistic process, this is a monstrous failure. Suppression of dissent. The heirs of everything that was most backward came to the helm of the national government. Closed period. Artists abandoned their ideas and developments. Socialist realism is completely heterogeneous, but still there was unification for the whole country. Picasso ironically said that Soviet artists must have special paint for their uniforms and boots. The individuality of the artists is not visible. In Soviet times, there was no figure of a free artist (freelancer) at all. Everything was strictly organized. Picturesque plant (like a factory). Applications for compositions were received there. A monumental plant, a sculpture plant... An order could be carried out by an artist alone, or a group could work. The artist was provided with work and the income was good. There was a complex mechanism for giving and receiving work: both outstanding figures of the plant and some invited people evaluated it. There was no proper inspiration and passion. There were a lot of tasks, so there was no time to handle all the work responsibly. There was a bank of blanks of various body parts and other things (it was possible to assemble Lenin piece by piece). In Russia, something great was always expected from an artist, but the Soviet artist was most often a conscientious hack. The art of the last years of Stalin's reign and the first works of the Thaw period do not coincide with the pathos of previous years. (fatigue from Stalinist art: the painting “Deuce Again” by Fyodor Reshetnikov is an anecdotal work). The right to privacy is restored.

Thaw: the older generation with accumulated fatigue (the conservative art of Reshetnikov) and the younger generation, which realized the intolerability of oppression (coinciding with the beginning of a more open policy).

In the 50s, a number of exhibitions took place (Festival of Youth and Students). Abstract expressionism is amazing. There weren’t even Vrubel and Serov in the museums. A specific picture of world art was created. And so the latest art of the West falls on such an unprepared Soviet. There is nothing to compare such revelations with. The collapse of the worldview paradigm.

The creative initiative of our artists to overcome such stagnation:

ROUGH STYLE

Divided into right (commitment to the 19th century, the Wanderers) and left (Andronov, Nikonov, turning to the heritage of the pre-avant-garde and avant-garde, OST "a) directions.

Nikolai Andronov “Rafters”, 1960-1961.

Represents the declaration of a new time, a new man. Predilection for Russian impressionism. It was unthinkable for an artist of the Stalin period to abandon the completeness of a painting. People of difficult fate are depicted. Emphatically monumentalized. The form is simpler, tougher, more monumental. Emphasizes the silhouettes of the heroes. Neo-OST pictorial strategy. This is a sermon. Moral guide. (“you should be such simple builders of our future”). The atypical positioning of the figure with its back is a bold pictorial statement.

Art accessible to the masses. Hard style artists will become mainstream. The weakening of ideological oppression and general cultural openness brought to life many artists unconnected with the general art scene and with art education. Artists emerged from the newly formed bohemia (Oscar Rabin, Ilya Kabakov).

Art is divided into unrelated layers.

Vladimir Yakovlev "Cat and Bird", 1981

Reminds me of Picasso. Secondary complex. Constant of the Soviet artist. You can see how the artists are trying to bridge the gap that has arisen. Lots of quotes. Many artists remained in history as interpreters without their own individuality. And many nonconformists are wounded by this secondary nature.

The figure of a messianic figure of the sixties, a prophetic role.

A powerful cultural boost, but not everything is so good. At first, the authorities took them lightly, as oddities. But by the 60s. they can no longer be ignored. 1962 - exhibition “New Reality” (Yankilevsky, Unknown, etc.). A Western European correspondent accidentally visited this exhibition and wrote a short note, which was a shock for Khrushchev (in Europe everyone knows about this, but here we don’t?!). This is the wrong art being exhibited in the right environment. An exhibition dedicated to the thirtieth anniversary of the Moscow Union of Artists is being organized in Manege, where Deineka, Falk and others are shown. “New Reality” is also being put there. Our management has never visited an exhibition in such numbers. "Hemorrhage in the Moscow Union of Artists". Khrushchev faces Cézannism and other new experiments. They were nicknamed the "factory of freaks."

The next day they wrote about this exhibition on the front page of the Pravda newspaper.

Ernst Neizvestny

Sculpture “Centaur with Raised Hand”, 1962.

Had a long correspondence with Henry Moore. The main character of the creative world of the Unknown is a centaur. Part animal, part man, and part machine. There are similarities with machine tools. Particularly expressive. There are no calm, static poses. His plastic art is influenced by Rodin, Moore and others. The idea of ​​the artist's civic duty.

"Hand of Hell" 1971

An abundance of holes in the composition.

Like a wounded human body.

he brought the forced form out of the war.

"Tree of Life"

Initially I wanted a structure of many sculptures, inside of which there would be a building. The sculptures were supposed to show the history of mankind since the beginning of time. It was mounted in a chamber version.

“Khrushchev’s Tombstone” The most significant tombstone. Used color as a means of expression.

A number of monuments to victims of repression.

“Mask of Sorrow” near Magadan.

Vadim Sidur

Graduate of Stroganovka. He went through the war and was seriously wounded.

“Self-replicating machine” late 50s. The sculptural equivalent of a mechanism. Delight in front of cars gives way to horror.

“Disabled” The central part looks like a meat grinder.

GrobArt is an ironic variation of pop art.

“Man from the Coffin” (“Dead Man”) Compiled from things found in a landfill.

"Prophets" Water fittings and inflated gloves.

He works a lot as a monumental sculptor.

“Monument to those killed by bombs,” 1965

A sculptor of tragic proportions.

"Monument to those who died of love"

"Sorrow" 1972

“Monument to those killed by violence”, 1965

“Caller” Accuracy of the formal solution. The head is replaced by a powerful gesture of open palms.

Eliy Belyutin

He wrote a book about the history of furniture and was generally a successful interior designer. He set up communal creative hostels and organized exhibitions in the forest.

"Lenin's Funeral", 1962

A narrative canvas with the achievements of abstract painting. The breadth of the pictorial gesture, the fantastic scope. The length of the canvas is 4 meters. Portrait recognition of Lenin. A fantastic paradox, something that cannot exist. It was easily realized on a wave of creative enthusiasm. One of the most daring and innovative opuses of the 60s in painting.

“Woman and Child” Reminds me of the late Picasso. Large format. Bold application of colors.

Art is dependent on Western art. Domestic art is always catching up. Surrealism was completely absent. Later, interest arose in him as a missed phenomenon. Although at that time it was not new at all, but in general already history.

Hulo Sooster

The closest to his art is Max Ernst. Fixed on an egg motif.

"Red Egg", 1964. rough texture and smudges.

Vladimir Yankilevsky

“Space of Experiences” 1961. “someone caught up with Miro!”

Lianozovskaya art commune. Around the Kropivnitsky family (Evgeny Rukhin, Oscar Rabin, Nemukhin, a galaxy of poets...).

Oscar Rabin

Previous artists were within the framework of the system, but he in no way corresponds with reality. In the position of an outcast.

It carries the culture of the Russian avant-garde of the Jack of Diamonds group. Failed to complete his art education. In the paintings there is “chernukha, gloomy, everyday life.”

“Passport” is the most famous and scandalous work. Reminds me of Jasper Johns (Flag). Gravitates towards the equation of the passport and the plane. It was for this work that he was expelled from the country.

In his apartment in Lianozovo, the entire unofficial artistic component of Moscow gathered. Organized the unofficial artistic life of Moscow. All artists combined legal life with subversive artistic activity.

Anatoly Zverev

I studied for one year at Pyatak. Received the main prize at youth and student exhibitions. A brilliant improviser. In fact, he was homeless. He did not create his own artistic system. He was famous for his creative exhibitionism.

Vladimir Nemukhin

“Still Life with Cards” 1989.

In general, cards are a constant motif in his works. The picture is indicative of a post-avant-garde phenomenon, an attempt to overcome the avant-garde. Borderline state between picture and object. The card is one of the plastic modules. Conventionally suprematist, a borderline state of a real object and a geometric composition. The painting is an object, simultaneously a cardboard table and a plane. Further moves are outlined in chalk.

"Unfinished Solitaire" 1966.

Homage to Tachisme (gesture painting).

"Poker on the Beach" 1974. At first glance, abstract illusory divisions are emphasized.

Eduard Steinberg

creative artist unknown belyutin

He doesn’t have a complex about his dependence on the art of the 20s. He feels like an innovator, although he only reacts to what has already been invented. But he is not trying to literally resurrect Suprematism. There is no sharp red, black, white, rich color nuances.

Composition from 1972. A square is taken as a reference point, but it becomes small, so it introduces a sharp shadow. Refined development of Suprematism. A distorted vision of Malevich's work.

“Composition with circular sections” The planes rotate, intersect, a variant of conceiving a geometric abstraction.

“Composition 1983” Rotations, circles. Metaphysical supernatural reality is active at this time.

Dmitry Plavinsky

Type of soil artist. Focuses on the problems of Russian life. Addresses the forgotten world of the Russian village. Fragments of huts, logs (metaphor for the destruction of indigenous Russian life).

"Big Butt" 1978.

The artist is a philosopher. Solid metaphors in the images of rotting huts.

Nikolai Kharitonov

Primitively idyllic images. Conservative-soilism in Moscow metaphysical painting. Most of the canvases are dedicated to old Russian churches. Something similar to Kustodiev’s art. Consonance with neo-impressionism. Compared to the backdrop of world art, it looks very provincial. The image of a romantic outcast.

"Holiday"

There were different ways of coming to terms with reality. Some artists plunged deeper into the ugly Soviet reality. Soviet communal cohabitation is becoming one of the key themes of Moscow unofficial art.

Mikhail Roginsky

He depicted various kinds of teapots, primus stoves, matches... Parallel to pop art, but we have a completely different way of life. However, Rabin's gloominess is alien to him; he does not denigrate reality.

"Teapot" 1963.

Emphatically bold, thick painting. Displays the plastic quality of nature. Peering at the environment, I selected the appropriate pictorial embodiment for it. Demonstrative anti-aestheticism.

“In the meat department” 1981-1982.

The pictorial technique and the psychological situation are important.

“Sniper Pavlyuchenko” 1966 The image of an everyday object is enlarged. The box outgrows the size of the painting. The closest parallel to pop art.

Oleg Tselkov

Actively worked in the 60-70s. The artist is an individualist and eschews general movements. Theme of anthropomorphic creatures (muzzles, images). Strange anthropomorphic creatures painted in bright colors. Strange mask. A typical person of a totalitarian regime, a faceless hero of the system. It ties everyone together.

"Acrobats and Dragonfly" 1974. A pile of colored flesh.

"Obituary" 1971. A terrifying, picturesque requiem. Looming red face.

“The sixties geniuses” are a special individualism. The desire to create your own style. Then it began to irritate them themselves. The generation after the second avant-garde is radically different from them.

Moscow romantic conceptualism

(the term was introduced by Boris Groys)

Representatives: Ilya Kabakov, Erik Bulatov, Viktor Pivovarov, Oleg Vasiliev, Andrey Monastyrsky.

Well integrated into the system. We illustrated children's books (a lucrative segment of government contracts). Children's literature offers many opportunities for self-expression and search for new forms. The ethics of Kabakov's circle is to make conscientious hack work.

60-70s - conceptualism.

MOSCOW CONCEPTUALISM

Joseph Kosuth raises the question of the idea as the main thing in art. The presence of an idea determines the value of works.

Fauvism, cubism - a new interpretation of the subject.

The Russian artist yearns for something outside the artistic world. Kandinsky and Malevich banish the subject from the artist's area of ​​interest. For a Russian artist, the subject is not so important (with the exception of the works of Monastyrsky). A conflict of languages, not a showdown with the subject. Everything is fiction and fantasy.

In Soviet art there are conflicts between languages ​​of description (the language of household advertisements). Obscene vocabulary is very important in conceptualism. The people of the sixties expressed themselves in one language - each in their own.

“Conceptualism is not the painting, but the viewer” (I. Kabakov)

For a conceptualist, the viewer is an accomplice. A conceptualist is a conscientious Soviet citizen. Accomplished people, not marginalized. Other types of behavior in Russian art that even those who are “in the know” cannot understand.

Expressiveness of the content (Russian art is always about something, the artist is trying to tell something). They resort to the speaking person. This is not the speech of an artist, but of a fictional character.

Ilya Kabakov

“Whose fly is this?” 1960s

Looks like a Soviet bulletin board. There is a fly in the center, at the top there is some dialogue about the fly. A sad tale about communal life. The text is fully involved. The font is like a wall newspaper.

A total installation is a kind of total space for the use of several types of art.

Total installation is an installation built on the inclusion of the viewer inside himself, designed for his reaction inside a closed, windowless space, often consisting of several rooms. The main, decisive importance in this case is its atmosphere, the aura that arises due to the painting of the walls, lighting, configuration of rooms, etc., while numerous, “ordinary” participants in the installation - objects, drawings, paintings, texts - become ordinary components of the whole. I. Kabakov. About total installation. Kanz, 1994.

"Communal kitchen"

Willingly addresses the topic of the museum.

“Explanation board for 3 explanations of 6 paintings” The text of the instructions occupied a very important place. There are instructions, but no pictures, pictures are not important, but instructions are immortal. Artistic quality is leveled.

He is interested in the average person, not geniuses.

Illustration for the children's book “The Tale of Terro Ferro”

All contemporary Russian art is a result of creativity.

One of the first installation masters.

"The Man Who Flew Out of His Own Room" 1986

The idea of ​​escaping, of overcoming boundaries, is a frequent theme. It brings the situation to the point of absurdity. A certain Soviet resident carefully planned his escape. There is a huge hole in the ceiling. Shoes on the floor are all that remains of this man. The room is small, there is a folding bed, a chair, something like a table, all the walls are covered with posters. Micromuseum of Soviet mass culture. An installation about a person's escape from the socialist present. Avoids text; the lost narrative must be restored in detail. Maximum detached attitude of the author.

“The Man Who Flew into His Own Picture” A hint of some absurd situation. Overcoming the border between reality and illusion. Chair - absence and presence of a person.

Active appeal to painting from the cycle

"Vacations" or "Holidays", 1987.

Randomly collaged images. Scenes of happy Soviet life. Cut out flowers on top.

A difficult cycle to understand.

“Russian painting is a constant change of simulacra, a collection of fakes”

In painting, he is interested in the average pictorial manner, the average, no pictorial language.

Demonstrative disregard for the integrity of the image. The dominant part of the composition is filled with everyday scenes. Comparison of scenes of tea drinking and swimming, happy everyday life of Soviet citizens.

The average painting style is often used by Kabakov.

Charles Rosenthal is a fictional character, an average forgotten artist. Malevich's lost student. A grotesque character who combines different directions. Valuable as an average failed artist. The history of art is the history of geniuses, and he is not interested in them, he is interested in the norm. He has his own “alternative art history.” He invents “normal” artists who also had their own creative path, their own development. Not an established artistic destiny, but an exemplary type.

“Red Car” Reference installation

Soviet history is being compressed into one. Soviet reality. The sketch is more clear than the installation itself. Divides the work into three parts. Conditional construction: super complex scaffolding with stepladders. The viewer can enter there. Expressing an idea is an upward movement. Metaphor of unbridled optimism. The construction is pointless - they only built a red carriage. Mismatch between ambitions and results. The carriage is like a closed, frightening space. The last part of the installation is the landfill. The result of all efforts. This is where Soviet history leads. An attempt to figuratively embody Soviet history.

In a short time he became the most famous Russian artist abroad. Formed the image of a typical Russian artist. It exactly falls into the cliché of how Russian art is perceived abroad.

Eric Bulatov Picture-text.

They were found among various artists; in Russian fine art they were used in the avant-garde and constructivism.

“Glory to the CPSU” Internal conflict with the traditional image, the reality of the text projected onto reality. Extremely cold work done.

Shishkin style. Close to Bulatov’s circle, for example Oleg Vasiliev.

Images of leaders, slogans, views of VDNKh - behind all this there is no incriminating information. He simply sees and finds an accurate way to represent what he saw.

"Russian XX century"

Oleg Vasiliev

"Rotation"

The motif of light is often given, as in this work. Executed in grisaille. Draws inspiration from 19th century artists.

"Road"

Only road markings indicate a modern character. Traditional landscape.

Victor Pivovarov

Uses ready-made forms.

“Message board”, a receptacle for compositions on the operation of fire extinguishers, fire prevention, etc. A strange discrepancy between language and content.

“Maria Maksimovna, your kettle is boiling” Ridicules Russian empathy for literature. Reveals to the viewer what he wants to see there. Loves paradoxes.

"No, you don't remember me" 1975

Close to Dadaist and surreal landscapes.

Conceptualists have moments of surreality.

Works with absurd forms.

He works a lot with understanding the artistic issues themselves.

Konstantin Zvezdochetov

“Two heroes” 2005

The language is more lamentable. Simplified silhouettes. The image is interpreted in the Pivovarov style.

“Viola on the table”

Refusal from the image of a great master, from the museum quality of the painting.

Konstantin Zvezdochetov, Sven Gundlach, Mironenko brothers.

Pronounced playful character. Free hooligan treatment, and not any specific outstanding works of art. Inverting conceptualist practices. Bold, shocking young energy. The actions were fun, bold and dangerous. One day they buried one of the group members in the forest and searched for him for two hours until they realized that they really didn’t know where he was. Aggressive hard contact with the audience. Parodies of collective action. They used provocation; pointedly rejected the seriousness of the conceptualists. Clear reduction in plastic requirements. Demonstrative use of children's drawings. Homemade pop art.

“Long Ruble” Ineptitude and exaggerated gaiety.

Predecessors of Moscow auctionism.

They recorded the “Golden Album,” a collage of humorous poems and pop parodies. Made as a joke, for friends. But unexpected success befalls.

Recently, an exhibition dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the INAKI group of artists, which includes Viktor Bogorad, Sergei Kovalsky and Boris Mitavsky, opened at the Pushkinskaya-10 art center. Their works over the years are presented. What can you see here? The good old works have probably already sold out, so for every ten new ones (created after 1991), there is only one old one (before 1991). Hence the problem.

There is a 1973 manifesto in which artists insisted that their work should not be classified as abstraction or surrealism. Unfortunately, this cannot be avoided, at least in relation to new works. To be precise, we are dealing with salon surrealism, easy to understand.

In cinema, there is a term “exploitation cinema”, when a film exploits a certain banal theme in order to maximize earnings with minimal investment. We can see something similar in the example of current nonconformism, which is often engaged in the exploitation of itself, of those images that were invented back in the USSR. Of course, it happens that some topics do not lose relevance for a long time. But there are actually not so many of them as artists imagine.

One of the problems of that generation of artists was the oppression of official art by the competent authorities under the USSR. For this reason, being at the peak of creative activity, they could not find suitable conditions for development. As a result, art was created for internal consumption, fed only by its environment, and this continued for quite a long time. It was difficult not to get used to this. To this day, the game of nonconformism continues, which ends with the production of Sotsart plots that are similar to each other. There is one more problem that I don’t want to talk about, but you can’t ignore it. Alcohol. He ruined many artists...

Artist Sergei “Africa” Bugaev identifies another problem, a more global one. The isolation of the Russian, and above all the St. Petersburg, artistic community, the obsession with itself. It is no wonder that artists find themselves cut off from everything that is happening in world art.

“There is no circulation within artistic activity. There is a moment of stagnation, says Bugaev. “At the same time, we still have a division into official and unofficial art.” In this sense, the boundaries can now be completely erased, because the former nonconformism could have long ago become official glamor.

“Africa” also says that at the moment there is no good exhibition and museum infrastructure that gives artists the opportunity to show their work in other cities. Art objects stagnate. But indeed, the exhibition’s lifespan is less than a month. What then? Then the paintings will return back to the studios...

As for the issue of internal consumption of art, this is, in essence, a manifestation of snobbery towards those who “do not understand”. It turns out that owning objects of art is the prerogative of those who “understand” (but not everyone has the money for this “understanding”).

Folk art in modern society is often treated as something shameful and unreal. Despite the fact that the Russian Museum is filled with works of folk art.

But in Germany, for example, the purchase by an average person of a painting by a young, interesting, relevant artist, who in his works demonstrates opposition to the system, is considered a normal phenomenon.

Rector of the Academy of Arts. I.E. Repin Semyon Mikhailovsky calls not to reflect on Pushkinskaya-10, since neither it as such nor everything connected with it has existed for a long time. Of course, the artists of the old generation are worth remembering, but it’s time to stop perceiving their work as contemporary art. The concepts of nonconformist art are outdated, and if we somehow position ourselves in the context of a museum, then accordingly. It makes no sense to artificially marginalize ourselves, otherwise it will only be an attempt to create a contrived conflict. For the most part, such exhibitions are really done for oneself, and the art market is not interested in the authors themselves. Those people for whom Pushkinskaya-10 is a foreign phenomenon are simply not interested in such topics.

Do you want to act as a true nonconformist these days, to do something contrary to official ideology and unofficial art? Hang at home a painting in the genre of socialist realism, made in a classical manner, which depicts students raising virgin soil. Beautiful and against the system.

Days of free visits to the museum

Every Wednesday, admission to the permanent exhibition “Art of the 20th Century” and temporary exhibitions in (Krymsky Val, 10) is free for visitors without a tour (except for the exhibition “Ilya Repin” and the project “Avant-garde in three dimensions: Goncharova and Malevich”).

The right to free access to exhibitions in the main building on Lavrushinsky Lane, the Engineering Building, the New Tretyakov Gallery, the house-museum of V.M. Vasnetsov, museum-apartment of A.M. Vasnetsov is provided on the following days for certain categories of citizens:

First and second Sunday of every month:

for students of higher educational institutions of the Russian Federation, regardless of the form of study (including foreign citizens-students of Russian universities, graduate students, adjuncts, residents, assistant trainees) upon presentation of a student card (does not apply to persons presenting student cards “student-trainee” );

for students of secondary and secondary specialized educational institutions (from 18 years old) (citizens of Russia and CIS countries). Students holding ISIC cards on the first and second Sunday of each month have the right to free admission to the “Art of the 20th Century” exhibition at the New Tretyakov Gallery.

every Saturday - for members of large families (citizens of Russia and CIS countries).

Please note that conditions for free admission to temporary exhibitions may vary. Check the exhibition pages for more information.

Attention! At the Gallery's box office, entrance tickets are provided at a nominal value of “free” (upon presentation of the appropriate documents - for the above-mentioned visitors). In this case, all services of the Gallery, including excursion services, are paid in accordance with the established procedure.

Visiting the museum on holidays

Dear visitors!

Please pay attention to the opening hours of the Tretyakov Gallery on holidays. There is a fee to visit.

Please note that entry with electronic tickets is on a first-come, first-served basis. You can familiarize yourself with the rules for returning electronic tickets at.

Congratulations on the upcoming holiday and we are waiting for you in the halls of the Tretyakov Gallery!

The right to preferential visits The Gallery, except in cases provided for by a separate order of the Gallery management, is provided upon presentation of documents confirming the right to preferential visits to:

• pensioners (citizens of Russia and CIS countries),
• full holders of the Order of Glory,
• students of secondary and secondary specialized educational institutions (from 18 years old),
• students of higher educational institutions of Russia, as well as foreign students studying at Russian universities (except for intern students),
• members of large families (citizens of Russia and CIS countries).

Visitors to the above categories of citizens purchase a discounted ticket.

Free visit right The main and temporary exhibitions of the Gallery, except in cases provided for by a separate order of the Gallery’s management, are provided to the following categories of citizens upon presentation of documents confirming the right of free admission:

• persons under 18 years of age;
• students of faculties specializing in the field of fine arts at secondary specialized and higher educational institutions in Russia, regardless of the form of study (as well as foreign students studying at Russian universities). The clause does not apply to persons presenting student cards of “trainee students” (if there is no information about the faculty on the student card, a certificate from the educational institution must be presented with the obligatory indication of the faculty);
• veterans and disabled people of the Great Patriotic War, combatants, former minor prisoners of concentration camps, ghettos and other places of forced detention created by the Nazis and their allies during the Second World War, illegally repressed and rehabilitated citizens (citizens of Russia and the CIS countries);
• conscripts of the Russian Federation;
• Heroes of the Soviet Union, Heroes of the Russian Federation, Full Knights of the Order of Glory (citizens of Russia and CIS countries);
• disabled people of groups I and II, participants in the liquidation of the consequences of the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (citizens of Russia and CIS countries);
• one accompanying disabled person of group I (citizens of Russia and CIS countries);
• one accompanying disabled child (citizens of Russia and CIS countries);
• artists, architects, designers - members of the relevant creative Unions of Russia and its constituent entities, art critics - members of the Association of Art Critics of Russia and its constituent entities, members and employees of the Russian Academy of Arts;
• members of the International Council of Museums (ICOM);
• employees of museums of the system of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the relevant Departments of Culture, employees of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and ministries of culture of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation;
• museum volunteers - entrance to the exhibition “Art of the 20th Century” (Krymsky Val, 10) and to the Museum-Apartment of A.M. Vasnetsova (citizens of Russia);
• guides-translators who have an accreditation card of the Association of Guides-Translators and Tour Managers of Russia, including those accompanying a group of foreign tourists;
• one teacher of an educational institution and one accompanying a group of students from secondary and secondary specialized educational institutions (with an excursion voucher or subscription); one teacher of an educational institution that has state accreditation of educational activities when conducting an agreed training session and has a special badge (citizens of Russia and CIS countries);
• one accompanying a group of students or a group of conscripts (if they have an excursion voucher, a subscription and during a training session) (Russian citizens).

Visitors to the above categories of citizens receive a “Free” entrance ticket.

Please note that the conditions for discounted admission to temporary exhibitions may vary. Check the exhibition pages for more information.

Nonconformism. Under this name it is customary to unite representatives of various artistic movements in the fine arts of the Soviet Union in the 1950s-1980s, who did not fit into the framework of socialist realism - the only officially permitted direction in art.

Nonconformist artists were actually forced out of the country's public artistic life: the state pretended that they simply did not exist. The Union of Artists did not recognize their art, they were deprived of the opportunity to show their works in exhibition halls, critics did not write about them, museum workers did not visit their workshops.

1. Dmitry Plavinsky “Shell”, 1978

“The creation of human thought and hands is sooner or later absorbed by the eternal elements of nature: Atlantis - by the ocean, the temples of Egypt - by the sand of the desert, the Knossos palace and labyrinth - by volcanic lava, the Aztec pyramids - by the vines of the jungle. For me, the greatest interest is not the flowering of this or that civilization, and its death and the moment of birth of the next..."

Dmitry Plavinsky, artist

2. Oscar Rabin "Still Life with Fish and the Pravda Newspaper", 1968

“The further, the more acutely I felt that I could not do without painting, for me there was nothing more beautiful than the fate of an artist. However, looking at the paintings of official Soviet artists, I completely unconsciously felt that I would never be able to paint like that. And not at all because that I didn’t like them - I admired the craftsmanship, sometimes openly envied them - but on the whole they didn’t touch me, they left me indifferent. Something important was missing from them.”

“I didn’t experience any influences on myself, I didn’t change my style, my creative credo also remained unchanged. I could convey the diversity of Russian life through a symbol - a herring on the Pravda newspaper, a bottle of vodka, a passport - this is clear to everyone. Or I painted the Lianozovsky cemetery and called painting “Cemetery named after Leonardo da Vinci.” In my opinion, nothing new, newfangled, artificial has appeared in my art. I have remained the same, as the song says. my creativity. I wouldn’t want to be a domestic rabbit. I prefer to be a free hare.”

Oscar Rabin, artist

3. Lev Kropivnitsky "Woman and Beetles" 1966

“Abstract painting makes it possible to get as close as possible to reality, to penetrate into the essence of things, to comprehend everything important that is not perceived by our five senses. I felt modernity as a combination of dramatic achievements, psychological tensions, intellectual oversaturation. I tried and am trying, based on my experience and felt, to create a pictorial form that corresponds to the spirit of the time and the psychology of the century."

Lev Kropivnitsky, artist.

4. Dmitry Krasnopevtsev “Pipes”, 1963

“A painting is also an autograph, only more complex, spatial, multi-layered. And if from the autograph, from the handwriting they determine (and not unsuccessfully) the character, condition and almost illnesses of the writer, if even criminologists do not neglect this decoding, then the painting provides incomparably more material for guesses and conclusions about the personality of the author. It has long been noted that a portrait painted by an artist is at the same time his self-portrait - this extends further - to any compositions, landscapes, still lifes, to any genres, as well as to non-objective abstract art - to whatever the artist depicts. And no matter how objective, dispassionate he is, if he wants to get away from himself, to become impersonal, he will not be able to hide, his creation, his handwriting will betray his soul, his mind, his heart, his face.”

Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, artist.

5. Vladimir Nemukhin “Unfinished Solitaire”, 1966

“The inventory of elements of figurative language consists primarily of objects. They existed before - trees, banks, boxes, newspapers, i.e., simple, recognizable objects. At the end of the 50s, all this turned into abstraction, and soon this very abstract form began to tire me. This is the state that renews interest in the subject, and he, in turn, reciprocates. I believe that the subject is very important for vision, because through it the vision itself is visible."

"In 1958, I started making my first abstract works. What is abstract art? It made it possible to break immediately with all this Soviet reality. You became a different person. Abstraction is, on the one hand, like the art of the subconscious, and on the other - a new vision. Art must be a vision, not a reasoning."

Vladimir Nemukhin, artist.

6. Nikolai Vechtomov “Road”, 1983

“My life is the creation of my own artistic space, which I always sought to enrich and tried a lot for this. I realized that each of us is always alone with the cataclysms of the twentieth century.”

“We live in darkness and have already become accustomed to it, we can fully distinguish objects. And yet we draw light from there, from the radiance of the sunset Cosmos, it is this that gives us the energy of vision. Therefore, for me, it is not objects that are important, but their reflections, because in they contain the breath of an alien element."

Nikolay Vechtomov, artist.

7. Anatoly Zverev Portrait of a woman. 1966

"Anatoly Zverev is one of the most outstanding Russian portrait painters born on this earth, who managed to express the reverent dynamism of the moment and the mystical inner energy of the people whose portraits he painted. Zverev is one of the most expressive and spontaneous artists of our time. His style is so individual, that in each of his paintings one can immediately recognize the handwriting of the author. With a few strokes he achieves enormous dramatic effect, spontaneity and instantaneity. The artist manages to convey a feeling of direct connection between him and his model. ."

Vladimir Dlugi, artist.

"Zverev is the first Russian expressionist of the 20th century and a mediator between the early and late avant-garde in Russian art. I consider this wonderful artist one of the most talented in Soviet Russia."

Gregory Costakis, collector.

8. Vladimir Yankilevsky “Prophet”, 1970s

“Nonconformism” is a constitutive feature of real art, as it resists the banality and stamp of conformism, providing new information and creating a new vision of the world. The fate of a true artist is often tragic, regardless of the society in which he lives. This is normal, since the fate of an artist is the fate of his insight, his statement about the world, which breaks the established stereotypes of perception and thinking created by “mass culture” and intellectual snobbery. To be a creator and to be “in due time” a canonized “hero” of society, a superstar, is an almost insurmountable paradox. Attempts to overcome it are the path to a career as a conformist."

Vladimir Yankilevsky, artist.

9. Lydia Masterkova "Composition", 1967

“All the time, with undiminished power in her abstract compositions, magical colors either burn, or sparkle, or flicker with a dying fire. It seems that she always approaches the magical surface of the canvas from different sides. Sometimes the cheerful brightness of flaming sounds, writhing and rushing upward strange shapes makes remember Bach's organ chords, and sometimes the greenish-gray, intertwined planes associated with biological forms are associated with Milhaud's "Creation of the World." Masterkov's drawing says a lot. He organizes the spots on the plane and the nature of the colorful accents.

Lev Kropivnitsky, artist.

10. Vladimir Yakovlev “Cat and Bird”, 1981

"Art is a means of overcoming death."

Vladimir Yakovlev, artist.

"Vladimir Yakovlev's paintings are like a night sky full of stars. There is no light in the night, light is a star. This is especially visible when Yakovlev depicts flowers. His flower is always a star. Hence some special sadness of joy when we contemplate it paintings".

Ilya Kabakov, artist.

11. Ernst Neizvestny "Heart of Christ", 1973-1975

“I divide artistic activity (writing, music, and visual arts) into two types: the desire for a masterpiece and the desire for flow. The desire for a masterpiece is when the artist faces a certain concept of beauty, which he wants to embody, create a complete, capacious masterpiece. The desire for flow is an existential need for creativity, when it becomes analogous to breathing, the beating of the heart, the work of the whole personality. For artists of flow, art is a materialized existence, moving, arising and dying at every second And when I want to build my “Tree.” life," I am fully aware of the almost clinical, pathological impossibility of this plan. But I need it in order to work. And multiplicity does not scare me, because it is held together by mathematical unity, it is self-closed. All this is an attempt to combine several principles, an attempt to combine the eternal foundations of art and its temporary content. The base, pitiful, insignificant are united constantly and eternally in faith in order to become noble, majestic, meaningful."

Ernst Neizvestny, artist.

12. Eduard Steinberg "Composition with fish", 1967

“I can’t say that I’m on any right path. But what is truth? This is a word, an image. Camus has a wonderful “Myth of Sisyphus”, when the artist drags a stone up a mountain, and then it falls down, he again lifts it, drags it again - this is approximately the pendulum of my life."

“I discovered practically nothing new, I just gave the Russian avant-garde a different perspective. Which one? More likely religious. I base my spatial geometric structures on the old catacomb murals and, of course, on icon painting.”

Eduard Steinberg, artist.

13. Mikhail Roginsky "Red Door". 1965

"I forced myself to recreate reality based on my idea of ​​it. I still do this."

Mikhail Roginsky, artist.

"The Red Door" is an outstanding work that played a turning role in the history of Russian art of the twentieth century. Together with the subsequent cycle of fragments and interior details (walls with sockets, switches, photographs, chests of drawers, tiled floors), this work marked the beginning of a new object-based realism. “Documentaryism” (as Roginsky preferred to call his direction) predetermined the emergence of not only pop art, but also a new avant-garde in general in Soviet “underground” art, focused on the world artistic process. "The Red Door" sobered up and brought back to earth many of the Soviet artists, carried away by utopian and metaphysical quests surrounded by communal life. This work pushed artists to carefully analyze and describe the aesthetic aspects of everyday Soviet life. This is the limit of pictorial illusion, the bridge from the picture to the object.

Andrey Erofeev, curator, art critic

14. Oleg Tselkov "Calvary" 1977

“I have absolutely no need to exhibit now. In half a century, it will be extremely interesting for me to show my works. Today I am surrounded by fools like myself. They understand no more than me. People write to understand something. The artist’s hand is not driven by desire to exhibit, but the desire to tell about the experience. Once the picture is painted, I no longer have control over it. It can remain alive or die. My paintings are my letter in a bottle thrown into the sea, and maybe no one will ever catch it. she will be dashed against a rock."

Oleg Tselkov, artist.

15. Hulot Sooster "Red Egg", 1964

"In his view of nature there is no spontaneity, no surprise, no admiration. It is rather the view of a scientist striving to penetrate the mystery of things. The artist seems to be looking for some ideal formula of nature, its centricity, a formula as complete and as complex as the form eggs".