Painters From Russia

"Колумбы Росские, презрев угрюмый рок, Меж льдами новый путь отворят на восток, И наша досягнет в Америку держава."

"Near the Egyptian Sphinxes’s steps on the Neva River banks, you feel presence of the mankind thousand-year history, which these creatures brought with them. The space of the city was filled with new meaning and life, new myths and legends. Artists found new images, began to learn speaking and expressing themselves in a new way through the classical city. The city of huge squares, wide streets. dark backstreets and well courtyards; black shadows fantasy; white nights that distort reality. When I realized it all, I began creating my Mythology of the city. And I hope that it will be a worldwide language for all those who love and appreciate the city of St. Petersburg."

"An avant-garde artist of Leningrad, Mendagaliev’s style is naïve. Vibrant colors and thick, heavy strokes form simple scenes that feel more symbolic than real.In each painting, there are repeated motifs: a table, a chimera, women, a bird, a fish. There appears to be a story begging to be told about the city he has lived in for so long, and, perhaps, a painful one. In the paintings, faces of people look in different directions, they pull from each other, guiding the viewer’s eyes into a chaos as the sphinx overlooks it all with a sense of doom. Then, there are portraits of chimeras and demons stalking individuals on the metro, women tormented next to a table or underwater beneath a fish in flight. They have a sinister tone to them. Fantastical, but simple, Mendagaliev’s works linger in the mind and resurface in the memory of St. Petersburg as a city."

"The plasticity idea «form draws form», expressed by Vladimir Sterligov in the late 60s of the last century, is being honed in lithographs. This is an attempt to find inseparable plastic penetrations of depicted forms. An attempt to ensure that one detail of a drawing becomes part of another. Flowing into each other, they should make a strong visual composition. The main task is to create a single graphic organism, when a drawn object gives life to another one. In this case, there is an interpenetration of silhouettes, where the foreground, middle ground, and background become a single whole. Light, transparent drawing, on the one hand, and a found plastic construction, on the other hand, the way I see it, complement each other, making a graphic sheet both airy and convincing."

"Сity is a fertile theme for any artist. And the city I live in is especially good. Here you can find plots to suit any taste: if you want you can paint and draw its grand views of beautiful architecture, rivers, canals, bridges ... Or well courtyards, firewalls, which I have not seen in other cities and towns. And a variety of subjects — on the streets, in cafes, bars. In the title of my graphic sheet I used a quote from an interview with a famous poet, friend of Joseph Brodsky, former Leningrader Yevgeny Rein: “What is a glass of vodka? It liberates the soul ...."

"The music I play is not really the music I would like to play”, my favorite saxophonist Art Pepper once said. The lithograph, which I began to do for the "City" project, was completely different in my idea, but for technical reasons beyond my control, I had to make a compromise, leaving the original scheme, having decorated it with a rainbow of night city advertisements giving hope that everything will be mighty fine in the future, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night will be Saturday night. In "Edichka" Limonov wrote literally the following (I am quoting from memory): The money that old dotards like Dali, Shagal, Miro have from selling their pictures is not enough, to make even more money they put their lithograph masterpieces on sale in thousands of copies. Bearing in mind the financial aspect, I would object to Kharkiv native. You might clench eggs between your legs failing to fry them on a hot stone. Lithography is not just a multiplying technique; the final product has a flavor that can not be achieved with a conventional frying pan. I demonstrated this together with the printer, although I deviated from the original conception."

"A white sheet of time, on which the sunlit city appears as a relief imprint. Thick golden air with poplar fluff. Time has stood still. House number 29a. Yellow square of the wall. Small square of the window, which is cramped. You are flying away beyond the fence of the Childhood House on the wings of a memory bird. Grass-blade days are woven into a tangle of years that rolls along the road of memory. A unique, vivid image of the home town from the distant childhood, the Home from which you flew away forever. The town of my childhood."

"I’m entering the hall staircase, going up the stairs. Graffiti on the walls, windows with remnants of Art Nouveau stained-glass. The elevator cab door slammed and a shadow of a man standing on the landing dashed upstairs. He is wearing a trench coat with his collar turned up and a hat drawn over his eyes to hide his facial features. Spying, obviously an agent. I’m going to the poet Viktor K., I’ve brought him a banned book published abroad. Viktor has long been under suspicion of the "authorities" for underground press. I see: the door of a communal apartment is swinging open half a flight above and two dwellers, who have grappled in a fight, are tumbling out of it screaming and swearing. The agent is not reacting to what is happening, he’s got a different task. He is standing motionless, one hand in his pocket, with a bright yellow glove on the other one. These impressions from fifty years ago gave an impetus to create a lithograph. For half a century, the interior of the hall staircase and the stairs have not changed, but now the surveillance over the house and its inhabitants is carried out by video cameras instead of agents. Warning, video surveillance, the signs on the house walls say obligingly."

"Order and randomness arise under the influence of the creative act in the context of a certain approach to forming and are the fundamental principles of creation that have an ontological basis in art. The metaphor of letter — Littera, architectural integration and synergy of metaphors — columns of a chaotic set of a ghost city, a carrier of randomness information code. Typographic metropolis — Babylonian Chaos of letters spontaneous arrangement like a thesis and antithesis of harmony and order of newspaper columns in the form of eternal city. Randomness is divine, because it is not made by hands, it is not subject to man, unlike order. There is something mystical about the randomness code. The idea of the involvement of ontological “order” and “randomness” in forming is a universal approach to creative act. Thus, the "effect of randomness" is created in the process of creative experiment with printed form and printing. The categories of "order" and "randomness", being the basis of the beautiful, manifest themselves as aesthetic paradigms of the unique author's printing and visual art."

"Kawarga-Skete. To anyone climbing inside the tower, the ascent is symbolic. Working one's way through the monstrous structure of a factory… rising up through a column of industrial scrap and waste… then standing aloft in the cupola space between sky and earth — free of the intrusions of materialism. Sounds from the composer Kryptogen Rundfunk reign from within this biomorphic cell — focusing the journeyman on the scattered fragments of the self — washing him down with nature's own elements."

"Artist in big city / City is a huge anthill, in which the artist, overcoming obstacles and dangers, resists temptations and rushes towards his success against time. My subjective city is a punk quest in the format of a classic board game. Having thrown the dice, you can try your fate: reach the finish line or get stuck in the labyrinth of the octopus city forever."

"Another important direction in contemporary Russian artists’ books, with many precedents set by the Futurists, is the fusion of poetic and artistic talent of artist-authors blessed with Doppelbegabung. The intimate relationships between text and image is enhanced when author and artist are one and the same person and engage in an inter-art discourse that leads to creations that are truly unified works of art. An artist who achieved equal mastery in more than one medium and made different arts merge in his personality was no doubt Alexey Parygin. His poetic collections <...> represent an attempt to synthesize text and plastic figurative form in books where literary and visual languages are calculated to have a simultaneous effect on the reader/viewer. The work of Alexey Parygin have common features that are not accidental as the books were created at more or less the same time."

"A big city is always partially a Babylon, sometimes an eclectic mixture, juxtaposing contrasts, dialogue and conflict all at once. It is a Unity achieved thanks to our differences. It contains both old and new things. A city without development is dull. A city deprived of its historical context is uninteresting. Moreover, a city without clear urban planning ideas is a toneless backwater."

"His works show high culture, erudition and taste, it is hard to favor any particular piece. Moreover, the artist prefers options on a particular plastic theme, as he himself puts it. He uses various in techniques, and revisits it in different periods of creativity. He believes his plastic theme conveys the plastic state. The state arises and manifests in very different ways, yet retaining its basic sign. Perhaps this art form blends both the sign and its notion."

"The works create new poetry, which involuntarily rivals with habitual esthetic stereotypes. For instance, we accept as a common notion to worship joyously the classic beauty of St. Petersburg, its harmony and stately grandeur. This exposition does have variations of that sort. But observe “Night Nevsky” by Parygin. Rough to the touch texture, dark abyss. In the darkness urgent lights explode. They bring forth immediate spiritual angst. One does not regard the regal magnificence of the urban landscape-it is neither cast aside, nor left behind the curtains, as dramatism of modern perception takes over. One regards not a city museum for curious crowds, but one beholds the habitat of our days where we seek, love, fight, suffer. That art defines perception."

"Megalopolises. Plans. Building plans. Yellow. Street lineature. Labyrinths of yards. Pigeon flocks. Green. The geometry of squares. Dead zones. Subway burrows. Red. Meaning signs. Dim light. Noise. Voids. Black. The work transformed itself in the process of manifestation. The pictograms appeared almost by accident — naturally. Text: Parking / Diner / Bird / Airport / Disabled / Attention / Parking / Motel / Bar / Attention / Cat / Bird / Diner ... Recoded, literally: art, like all modern culture, lost its clear value criteria, meaning and purpose of movement long ago. City. One of the main problems of modern society is the almost complete loss of the ability to self-cognition and self-identification. City. Civilization is degrading. The agony still continues, maintaining the illusion of life, but it does not change the merits of the question. City."

"...from my point of view, a very serious, worthy and professional exhibition. It's nice that there is a solid culture of color, ...there is a persistent desire to express their feelings of life, their artistic vision."

"My father was accustomed to say that disorders of the mind are simply a heightened form of egoism. And it was certainly in this form that my mother's psychological anomalies presented themselves. She who had once been always ready to give of herself totally, without any thought of self, now fell prey to a single morbid preoccupation: what other people were saying about her. What would they say about her in the future? Might they one day, after her death, treat her as a Xantippe? And she had some grounds for such fears, since she was surrounded by people who pitied her husband for all she made him endure."

"Tanya strove to reconcile her parents. She was very fond of her mother, but she sympathized with her father's views and she pleaded with her mother to make some concessions."

"We also loved a certain story papa used to tell us. It was called 'the Seven Cucumbers' … 'A little boy went into a garden. He saw a cucumber. A cucumber as big as this (holding up his two forefingers to demonstrate the length). He picked it, hup!, and ate it. (The voice quite matter of fact so far, and pitched fairly high.) The little boy continued on his way and saw a second cucumber, a cucumber as big as this. Hup! He ate it. (The voice now slightly louder and deeper.) He went on, he saw a third cucumber, a cucumber as big as this (the forefingers indicating a length of about eighteen inches), and hup ! He ate it. … And so it went on until the seventh cucumber, with papa's voice getting louder and louder, deeper and deeper … When papa showed how the little boy ate the seventh cucumber his mouth with its missing teeth opened so wide it was frightening to see."

"Calm had come to her during her final years. Her husband's dream for her had in part come true, that transformation for which he would have sacrificed all his fame. My father's ideas had become less alien to her. She had become a vegetarian. She was kind to those around her. But she had retained one weakness: she was still afraid of what people would say and write about her when she had gone, she feared for her reputation. As a result she never let slip the slightest opportunity of justifying her words and actions."

"I was fortunate enough to grow up surrounded by people who loved one another and who loved me. I assumed then that such loving relationships were only natural, an inherent characteristic of human nature. And despite a long existence during which I have since encountered cruelty and hatred between men, that is still my belief. I am truly convinced to this day that such behaviour is no more normal than illness is. And that, like illness, it is produced by transgressing the fundamental laws of life."

"One of my friends, Vasilii Maklakov, a learned and sharp-witted person, used to talk of Tolstoy's followers: "The one who understands Tolstoy does not become his follower. Whereas the one who becomes a follower does not understand him." I was often convinced of the truth of these words. There were many so called "Tolstoyans" amongst the numerous visitors who came from all over the world to meet father. More often than not they strove to resemble their teacher in their outward appearance without comprehending the real essence of his ideas. Those who understood Tolstoy could not follow in his footsteps. After all, Tolstoy felt that each person was free to live according to his own beliefs. And so, for those who understood Tolstoy the external appearances did not mean much. I once noticed an unknown young man amongst father's visitors. He was dressed in a Russian shirt, his trousers tucked into enormous boots. "Who is it?" I asked my father. Papa bent towards me and shielding his mouth with his hand whispered into my ear: "This young man belongs to an alien and totally beyond my understanding, sect—the Tolstoyan sect.""

"Do you know why my father is buried under a little mound in the shade of some old oak trees, there in wood? It is because that spot conjured up for him a childhood memory particularly dear to his heart. The oldest of the Tolstoy children, Nicolai, who had a great influence on all his brothers, and particularly on my father, had told him that just there, in that particular part of the wood, he had secretly buried a little green stick on which he had carved a magic spell. Whoever found that wand would become its master, and would have the power to make everyone in the world happy. Hatred, war, disease, grief, and misfortunes would disappear from the face of the earth, all men would know happiness and become 'Muravei Brothers', or in other words 'Ant Brothers.' 'That phrase appealed to me particularly,' my father remarked later, 'because it made me think of all the members of an anthill living together in perfect harmony.'"

"Opponents of the New Art fall back on this calculation, rejecting its self-sufficient meaning and, having declared it 'Transitional,' being unable even to understand properly the conception of this Art, lumping together Cubism, Futurism, and other phenomena of artistic life, not ascertaining for themselves either their essential differences or the shared tenets that link them."

"Only the absence of honesty and of a true love of art provides some artists with the affrontery to live on stale cans of artistic economics stocked up for years, and, year in year out, until they are fifty, to mutter about what they had first started to talk about when they were twenty."

"Principles heretofore unknown, signifying the emergence of a new era in creative work - an era of purely artistic achievements. An era of the final emancipation of the Great Art of Painting from Literary, Social, and crudely everyday attributes uncharacteristic of it at its core. The elaboration of this valuable world outlook is the service of our times, irrespective of idle speculation about how quickly the individual trends created by it will flash by."

""Closely examining Rozanova's Suprematist period, we see that Rozanova's Suprematism is contrary to that of Kazimir Malevich, who constructs his works from a composition of quadrate forms, while Rozanova constructs hers from color. For Malevich, color exists solely to distinguish one plane from another; for Rozanova, the composition serves to reveal all the possibilities of color on a plane. In Suprematism, she offered a Suprematism of painting, not of the square [referring to Malevich]."

"Rozanova was well aware of Italian Futurism, although unlike Exter, she did not travel in Italy.. .In her careful application of the Italian Futurist evocation of mechanical speed, explosivity, and mobility, Rozanova followed the same path as Malevich (as in his 'Knife-Grinder', 1912;) and Kliun (as in his 'Ozonator', 1913—14), and her concurrent writings suggest, she regarded Futurism to be a key phase in the artistic evolution toward Suprematism. Rozanova expressed this impulse not only in her vivid, dynamic paintings, but also in what Yurii Annenkov described as the 'black plumes of her drawing'."

"The era that humanity has entered is an era of industrial development and therefore the organisation of artistic elements must be applied to the design of the material elements of everyday life, i.e. to industry or to so-called production. The new industrial production, in which artistic creativity must participate, will differ radically from the traditional aesthetic approach to the object, in that primarily attention will be focused not on the artistic decoration of the object (applied art), but on the artistic organisation of the object in accordance with the principles of creating the most utilitarian object.. ..If any of the different types of fine art (i.e., easel painting, drawing, engraving, sculpture, etc.) can still retain some purpose, they will do so only * 1. while they remain as the laboratory phase in our search for essential new forms * 2. insofar as they serve as supportive projects and schemes for constructions and utilitarian and industrially manufactured objects that have yet to be realised"

"..one should not depict an isolated building or a tree which may be very beautiful but which will be.. ..painting, will be aesthetics."

"A cotton print is as much a product of artistic culture as a painting, and there is no basis for drawing a dividing line between them. Moreover.. ..the conviction is growing that painting is dying, that it is inseparably linked with the forms of the capitalist system and its cultural ideology, and that textile design has become the focus of creative concern – that the textile print and work on the textile print is the height of artistic work."

"The Constructivists recklessly spoke of replacing art with life and wanted to make the object of production the object of art. Tatlin built a stove in his room to keep from freezing, sewed a specially tailored coat to keep from shivering in the wind, and cut himself a comfortable work suit. Playing with the industrial production of an object was not the last motivation of the design solutions of the Moscow Constructivists."

"[Tatlin and his 'Letatlin'] an amazing character, but absolutely no artist."

"I reduced painting to its logical conclusion and exhibited three canvases: red, blue and yellow. I affirmed: it's all over. Basic colors. Every plane is a plane and there is to be no representation."

"Although she had not joined the Working Group of Constructivists, she had exhibited with Rodchenko and Stepanova in September 1921 at the 5 x 5 = 25 exhibition. In this show she exhibited paintings that she called 'spatial force constructions' and wrote in the catalogue that the paintings exhibited 'are to be regarded only as series of preparatory experiments towards concrete material constructions.'"

"[Tatlin, in a lecture] expressed his dissatisfaction with authorities who did not really support his endeavors to work in industrial concerns."

"I am familiar with Tatlin's theatrical designs in which there is a charming and original quality of color and an unusual balancing [ekvilibristika] of line-{illeg.}. Perhaps this is only trickery, but even trickery is already an art, and for this talent is required."

"Tatlin does not transcend the confines of Cubism."

"'Letatlin' (1929-32) is a flying bird, Tatlin's bicycle, on which one can 'sail' through the air. In artistic circles reactions varied yet all struck basically the same chord: he's flown out of art, - a move into technology.."

"['Letatlin' is] not so much.. ..an invention as.. ..a sui-generis work of art"

"In her diary, Popova recorded Tatlin's story about how, right before his departure from Paris for Moscow [in 1913], he visited 'Pavel' Picasso himself.. ..(see A. Strigalev, O poezdke Tatlina v Berlin i Parizh, in 'Iskusstvo 2' (1989), pp. 39-43).. .After seeing Picasso's Cubist constructions, Tatlin said, he began to work according to other principles [than Cubism ]."

"[my goal is] to photograph not a factory but the work itself from the most effective point of view.. ..in order to show the grandness of a machine, one should photograph not all of it but give a series of snapshots."

"One has to take several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round rather than looked through the same key-hole again and again."

"Our new aim is the organisation of the material environment, i.e. of contemporary industrial production, and all active artistic creativity must be directed towards this."

"The role of the 'representational arts' - painting, sculpture, and even architecture.. ..has ended, as it is no longer necessary for the consciousness of our age, and everything art has to offer can simply be classified as a throwback."

"If the idea of the monument [ Tatlin's Tower ] is truly new and valuable, then it will never die. Prophets have not always been stoned and imposters have not always succeeded."

"The engineers made hard forms. Evil. With angles. They are easily broken. The world is round and soft.."

"The Bases of the New Creation and the Reasons Why It Is Misunderstood."

"The dream [of flying] is as old as Icarus.. .I too want to give back to man the feeling of flight [with his 'Letatlin'-air-bike, 1929-1932]. This we have been robbed of by the mechanical flight of the aeroplane. We cannot feel the movement of our body in the air."