Their work was born out of protest against social rules. Representatives of non-art does not want to draw what "should", and worked as wanted. Incidentally, in the current, 2010, marks 50 years of Ukrainian underground. In 1960 in Kiev, organized the first club of creative young people who thought 'not Soviet, "there was also the first" suction "exhibition in Odessa. Artists who are not allowed to participate in the official exhibition, exhibited his work at the margins of the opera house. Held and the first "apartment" exhibition in Kyiv. They visited the artist's friends and acquaintances of acquaintances ... One of the centers of free thought, for example, had an apartment of Sergei Paradjanov. All the dissenters were persecuted as shook the foundations of the state system.

- What are typical subjects for artists of the underground?

- They are unusually interpreted reality. Here is an example. Nicholas Tregub friends with archaeologists and often went with them to the excavation. He was a man drinking, and somehow in the same village, his grandparents gave him a bottle of brew in exchange for a promise to write their family portrait. And he wrote ... two graves with crosses. So he saw this family couple.
"I myself once found in a landfill is very expensive antique furniture"

- Where, except the galleries, you can find works by artists of the underground?

- They are the collectors, the descendants of the artists, those who received them as gifts - the doctors, artists. Sometimes, hanging in the house of a picture and people can not even imagine how much it might cost. There were instances when the owner of the reported price and it made him feel ill. Ingested validol, Corvalol, lamenting: "I did this picture just did not throw!"

- And it happened that threw out?

- How much you want them! Get tired of painting - and it turns up in landfills. Some people throw away, others to pick up bins. I myself once found in a landfill is very expensive antique furniture. Usually, the search takes small dealers, then bring to us. They scour the trash carefully. And sometimes things are worth several thousand dollars.

- Pictures of what artists are sold in Ukraine, the most expensive?

- You know, the price and value of work - are completely different things. The value of the underground works of artists today is much higher than their price. We have sales continued to lead the master of social realism - Nicholas Glushchenko and Sergey Shishkov. Their works are sold at Kiev auctions for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In Russia, an official of the classics of art underground artists on prices has already overtaken.

- Sometimes the value of the paintings is low, and get her mad money?

- Yes, more than once observed before the crisis, both imported from the European salon painting a rather poor quality in some gallery offers ten times more expensive than it was purchased overseas.

- And now?

- Today, such inadequacies are much smaller. Market has become healthier, price - adequate. Before they grew wildly, as it was willing to buy a huge amount. The people, intoxicated by success, easily spending money. Today, more people who want to sell. Many loans are stuck ... On the art market began to appear unique things. Collectors also who have the intention to complete your collection, have become more demanding.

- Kyiv gallery owners told me that sales have fallen, but profits from the auctions is not lower than before the crisis. How do you explain this?

- You know, the auction - is in some sense, theatrical action, where time plays a big role attitudes. I have often noticed that at the auctions to buy what the gallery would not bought at half price would be. And then ask myself why I did it?

- You are a well-known in Ukraine, an expert in antiquities. What are your predictions: prices will rise or fall?

- I think it will not fall. But the wildly growing will not. Dynamics of prices of art objects is comparable to the dynamics of property prices.
"One collector bought the picture, paying an expensive car"

- And it happened to a picture of me at the house and an apartment?

- I know a case where the picture was changed to house and art collection at the two-room apartment in Kiev.

- Probably the collection cost more this accommodation ..

- Maybe, but quickly sell the collection very difficult. It may take years. I also know a case where a collector paid for a painting of expensive cars.

- You said that underground artists were challenging fate. Many were drinking, someone commit suicide. Certainly the work of these people have a negative energy ...

- I do not know when picture destructive impact on the lives of its owner. But have long noticed: if a person was interested in art, it gets better. Therefore, visit our gallery can be completely free to everyone.
 
August 12, 2010> Man and society http://www.facts.kiev.ua/archive/201...605/index.html