Bulatov word resound

[SergeiSK]

«Contemporary art is difficult to understand, but just do»
(E. Bulatov)

Interview with artist Mary Moskvicheva

- When you look at your work, it seems that they're alive, that the clouds are floating, the image moves. You create only paintings. Why deny experiments in other genres, such as in the video?
- I do not deny, just me so far satisfied with the picture. If there is a need for something else, I will implement it. You said yourself that the clouds move. In the picture you just understand that this is unreal, and yet there is some kind of transformation. This transformation is a miracle. For me, this time decisive.
- In your work, three dominant colors: red, the color of the party and ban, the blue, the color of freedom, and white, the color of hope. This tricolor - the colors of the Russian flag ...
- And the French too. I do not associate these colors with any flag. All the words written in red, warning of the danger. Main prohibiting signs - attracts attention, pausing sign.
- You have been working 30 years working in children's illustration. What books came out from under your hands?
- Yes, we, along with Oleg Vasiliev did illustrations for children's books. We were engaged for six months with books, half a year - creativity. It was not easy, it was necessary to have time for six months to earn money to live following. Sure, you come across these books - "Cinderella," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Sleeping Beauty", "Puss in Boots", "Wild Swans" ... For thirty years we have more than a hundred books. Now, by the way, these books are reissued. And in October, should get five books. As was my retrospective at the Tretyakov Gallery, there was a room with these illustrations. To me, people approach, mostly elderly, said they had read in childhood, watching pictures, they were loved.
- Many of the artists of your generation have made a name for itself due to the fact that exhibited in the west, such as the European stage. Ilya Glazunov, though he works in a different genre, redrew hundreds of senior foreign Ilya Kabakov is known in the world more than at home, Oscar Rabin, works just like you, in France.

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- I do not believe that Glazunov was famous at first there, then here. I remember well the way of his glory. Rabin was known just in Russia, before departure, and when he left him a long time there was nothing. Only now returned to him fame, but again from Russia. Kabakov - yes, he is like me. While Kabakov still was known in Moscow. Usually the opposite happens - a famous artist in Russia, comes to the west, and there is nothing. And they live in the glory that were here before his departure. There are many.
- your work come to Europe in the 70's, and in the late 80's you left. How was your picture started buying foreign?
- Some interest in what is being done in Russia has been continuously. I'm not even talking about the diplomats and journalists who went to the workshops and watched. I showed everyone who is interested. Not hiding ever. My works were published in the European and American magazines. And gradually I started to come to people who are interested in what I do want to buy. I pulled all the time, I was afraid that I was thrown out of the studio. And I wrote the great works of 2 * 2 meters or more. If I stay without a studio, they have nowhere to do. anyone here, these paintings are not needed. Absolutely none! They cost pennies. I was ready to give them away for free, if only they left. Ministry of Culture is stamped on my works' artistic value is not ", ie no need to pay. So, there were no customs charges. And for foreigners to bring the USSR something unusual for five cents, it was interesting. Since almost all of my pictures were there. And the fact that the show was made in a Swiss museum - is a miracle. After the picture went to different people, and bring them together was great difficulty and risk.
- This was just before the collapse of the Soviet Union?
- Yes, in 1988. And when the exhibition traveled throughout Europe, I already knew. But the material I have received nothing, this event has brought me a name. And the next picture, which I did have a good price.
- Now your work at international auctions are hundreds of thousands of dollars. Collectors are more interested in your Soviet period or modern works?
- This Russian collectors interested in my Soviet work. The Europeans are interested in even more advanced work. And by the way, foreigners understand the essence of my speech is much faster than the Russian. we see the word and catch the first of its semantic meaning. And the Europeans, not knowing what is written, understand the confrontation of flowers, the relationship of space ...
- is often confronted with the fact that the viewer does not understand modern art. Starting from the abstract art began, the gap between the addressee and the addressee.
- The issue is complex. The relationship between the viewer and the art has changed here in any sense: before the audience understood what is represented, but I understood that because he can not draw. This art has been difficult to do, but not difficult to understand. Now the situation is reverse. Art is very difficult to understand, but do not be too difficult. Under what circumstances is something simply made an art is not clear. But especially difficult for Russian art, which is always needed in the viewer as an accomplice in the artistic process. When the audience was alienated from art, it hung in the air. It is not clear what to do. Such a moment of crisis. Previously, rigorous selection of artists did some art critics and curators. Selecting two or three artists they impose their choice. But now they have lost their credibility. And it was another kind of art show, more understandable. As for me personally, I do not think that the viewer of me torn away.
- Do you have a workshop in Moscow, you work there?
- Sometimes the work. I wrote a lot of work for the Tretyakov Gallery.
- How much time do you spend in Russia?
- Very little. Month, probably in the year.
- Why?
- A lot of purely domestic difficulties. It is convenient and easy in Paris. And I do not feel the need to change their habits. I do not care what city and country to work, if only light in the studio was good. You are not surprised that Gogol wrote Dead Souls in Italy, Alexander Ivanov, too, wrote in Italy. The man works well, where he is well.
- The current issues of your creativity?
- It's existential problems. All the time trying to understand our lives, our destiny that awaits us. This, in general, the eternal problem.

Maria Moskvicheva
(Moskovsky Komsomolets ")

[ранжер]

I showed this interview with one artist, running into the answer.