And - the loss of last year: Mikhail Alexandrovich died (July 5, 2004). in a Paris hospice. Fortunately, he had to wait for the first time awards, but was unable to come for her in his native Moscow. Put forward for State Award-2003, he never received it, but the community of art critics awarded him an independent prize "Master". And until the mid-90's work Roginsky was practically wiped off Russia's art map: in 1978, the author of the famous "Red Door" (it is often called among the most important works of Russian art of the twentieth century and put on a par with "Black Square" by Malevich) long ago fell under the prohibition of censorship, went into exile. Shock to many who remembered Roginskii and did not knew him, was "Pedestrian Zone" - a personal exhibition of the artist. In 2002, the Tretyakov held her in the loop "Classics unofficial Russian art," later a retrospective Mikhail Roginsky: Past and Present "was arranged by the Russian Museum. Today, master on par with the classics of Western contemporary art was among the protagonists of the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art: previously unknown in Russia of Mikhail Roginsky, written in Paris, the exhibition "His other shows National Center for Contemporary Art.
Several times the name Roginsky encountered in my life.
Only the name and surname, not his paintings and not his face. And the first time in 1969.
In the midst of running a garden of old Moscow psychiatric hospital, where I took refuge from Soviet life, one has long been the lost girl, perhaps even an artist who first said to me - Roginsky.
I took her post rather carelessly, or even arrogant and did not ask her to introduce me to him. No wonder, by the time I had long been familiar with Schwartzman, Sooster, Weisberg, Kabakov, rubles, Steinberg and some of them even made friends, some adored. And my friends seemed more important than her friend, whom I had not even heard.
None of those great never called the name Roginsky. Perhaps none of them did not consider his art sufficiently urgent or radical, avant-garde and the transcendental.
And he did that at the time, which should not have to leave me and the other cold. By the time I've seen a lot, including that "America" with Rauschenberg, which looked and Roginsky. And although later all the stoves, matches, and tile outlet called Russian "pop-art"-th, and today I see any of them, and a broad, sloppy technique his theatrical roots, his school, "fifth year", he Severodvinsk, Lysva , Pskov 50-ies.
Vicinity of one of my hospitals in Khrushchev's apartment and studio worked Oleg Tselkov - too theatrical. In the summer of 1967, I met him in the wine department of a grocery and began to run the hospital in its work and sublime peace. Then one day, talking about random buy his paintings by Arthur Miller, Tselkov bitterly said that no artist (informal) never told "her" to foreigners about it - rubles. Only about his friends. A Tselkov was alone, without company. Maybe on Roginsky not tell me the future nonconformists because he was a stranger, in any case - not his. And Schwarzman was lonely. Not really, and not all nonconformists supported each other. The foreigners did not have enough on others.
And so on VDNH, at the exhibition, gathered all (almost all) the informal artists. It was a great holiday with the sun, children and friends. He stayed with me on the slides. However, that massive exhibition, which was exhibited and Mikhail Roginsky, was second. Before it was an exhibition in the pavilion "Beekeeping". There were only the "generals" from Krasnopevtsev of modernity which I heard in the summer of 1954 from Tsarevo. There were Rabin, Nemukhin, Yakovlev, Zverev, Steinberg and others. There was also Tselkov. But Roginsky there did not participate. The second exhibition was a great democratic and diverse.
It the first time I saw three little tram Roginsky. Later, many art historians, and he himself Mikhail Aleksandrovich, said that the period when these works were written - is a period of decline, even breaking up, when he changed the "match", "Primus" and "tile". Maybe so. They, and especially him - know better. But to me, these small, dull, hazy cartons with silver-pink tram, climb the cobblestone mountain, made an unforgettable impression. The cars were filled with sad passengers. In the background could be seen the same sad houses. These pictures hypnotized me. Surfaced childhood, when I was with my three fingers of his right hand was under the wheels of the tram. It is nestrashnym May evening. It seemed that this portrait of my tram number 31, with barely crawling from the Borodino bridge and continue past the flies on the second Rostov lane. I still envy the owners of painting Roginsky that time. The work they reminded me of Peter de Hoch. When I saw a Dutchman in Amsterdam or London, I always remembered those three pictures with regret that I can not see them yet. Then Roginsky and became my hero.
At the exhibition was the famous coat Odnoralova with a bottle of kefir in the pocket, which equates the owner of it, at least, to Dzerzhinsky, if not for Lenin himself or to him. And then it was thought that the author of this most socially dangerous, in the context of time, work was Lev Bruni. But recently my Krasnovidovo Mikhail said with a grin that it was he, Roginsky, right in the room suggested that Leo put something completely random coat as odnoralskoe. Thus, it turns out, Mikhail Alexandrovich was the author of the most nostalgic paintings, and the most radical work on the famous show.
When Roginsky gone, I am interested in asking about his Paris fate of those who could tell anything, I have been there.
I think in the early 80's Jura Vashchenko started going to Paris. As a close friend Kuperman, Yuri talked a lot about him. But he was shocked by the life and art Roginsky, who visited the studio. The painting, which drew enthusiastic Vashchenko, was beautiful. Roginskii seemed stronger than life, money, capitalism, like socialism. He lived in his studio, according to Vashchenko, poor, very poor, as in Moscow. He ate almost at the newspaper. He wrote a very, very much, but not on canvas and oil on corrugated board and not from the tubes, and jars of business. That he fixed the corrugated stapler directly to the wall.
Vashchenko, and after him, and I were fascinated by the ability of the artist did not respond to the main difference between the West from socialism - the possibility to live normally. Roginskii went to work and worked. Yuri told me, of course, and the subjects, and picturesque manner.
When I was at the end of 2003, already having seen all the recent exhibition, Roginsky questioned about how he lives in Paris, held every day as he was doing, he drew me a perfect and accurate picture of the artist's life. I - he said - I get up very early (and I have a summer cottage, he stood up at six o'clock, and none of us woke up, easy drinking, eating, seeing a huge copy made by my son from the Hermitage "players" and pochityvaya French texts Matisse ). Further, according to the story, Roginsky strolling through Paris with the dogs, ate breakfast and went into the studio, where he worked until dark, come home, walk the dog, watching soccer, boxing and going to bed. And I so wish, and anyone can dream of such a life.
Another Yuri talked about some concerns and Cooper's advice, how to write, draw, and, most importantly, selling art, trying to tell Roginsky mystery how you can become famous and secured in the West, that is, how to live properly. But Roginskii understood nothing and learned nothing. One thing he was sure - his art to anyone in Paris is not necessary. He worried that in Russia it is almost no interest. In recent years Roginskii already written on the canvas, but no stretchers, and turning these canvases in the rolls, went to Moscow from Paris by bus to bring anything like work at home!
Later, in the 90's, I happened to be in the House of the artist and came to the exhibition with a strange, in my opinion, entitled "The predecessors of Russian pop-art." Here I saw some of his Paris works on cardboard. I realized how right was Vashchenko, admiring the way of life, work and, most importantly, pictures Roginsky in Paris. Where are those jobs? I hope that in a safe place. They're quite different than those we saw later in the Tretyakov Gallery. I remember quite popartovskie work. I remember not gray French house, indoor trees, with a dark roof and a wooden fence. All this was on the cardboard the huge size, and how much Roginsky neither liked Bonnard, and yet that the fence was in the French side and even with a touch of theatricality. I enthusiastically "chased" works Schwartzman, these casual and artistic cartoons appeared, and not a museum, and it is not commercial.
I could not even imagine then, that a very short time it will work Roginsky first and so far my only art acquisition. "My" work very small. It quick, confident strokes depicts a Soviet court in the winter, even part of the yard. It seems provincial, so it is really small and not today. We see two houses, three bare vertical shaft without the slightest trace of even the branches, two straight miserable track, bench, snow piled to one side - a table, apparently for dominoes, too, with snow drifts and a small gray figure of a man walking across the yard to the left gray house. Right same house more visible, the floors above it, and most importantly, he seemed to plaster, color, color faded Siena or ocher. And since this red house with a yard can not be, is the home of Stalin, I think, is the courtyard of one of the streets of Minsk or Gorky, not Moscow. Even more, these houses and the yard like life in Severouralsk town - the former concentration camp. I just can not remember the details of the day, when I've been there, in my Krasnoturinsk whether or Lysva and Severodvinsk Roginsky. I can look at the picture for a long time to think about our lives. For me it is a sad story, where the landscape does not play any role, but he is, and moreover, there is only one.
And finally, on a generous acquaintance with his friends, Sasha Yulikov already in the XXI century, introduced me to Mikhail Alexandrovich, as well as too generous Velikanov acquainted with the real artists Schwartzman, Kabakov Sooster and others.
Misha Roginsky was low, but sturdy peasant with a small beard and a tall forehead, rolling in his bald head, very hard, straight and look confident and as strong speech and views on life and art. He was completely without complexes open and behaved like a man who knows the truth. He would speak on equal terms and with Picasso, and Mamardashvili, and Suslov, and Tsereteli.
He was very strict views on art and, like Schwarzman, some criticized my enthusiastic omnivorous.
Seriously painting Roginsky starts with 1962 - 1964 period. Just when again nothing was impossible to know and do. After Poquelin party members on other artists in Manege.
But by that time we had something that had to look. And Russian twenties, and another in 1957 - Picasso. Already spread in a multitude of tiny Hazan for three rubles a notebook - a series of FAA. Who we are staring at? There were Klee, and Modigliani, and Dufy and Miro, and Chirico and Morandi, and Mondrian. We knew, and even more dangerous for the academics and the State of Dali. Journals could see Pollock, and Dyubuffe, and Burri. This rapid diversity revealed against the background of the restrictions of Soviet art, with its dull, stilted, everyday realism.
And while many are not best students and outsiders ran in different directions. What right? What is close to the artist himself? And abstract, symbolic and decorative features of Art and Surrealism, and metaphysics. Absurd, supremacism, even critical social sezannizm Rabin. Soon began even conceptualism Kabakov.
Many of these artists were men, and in life, and even in their works. Such artists strangled, were not, they drew up lists. Artists of the creative efforts of the KGB and the union were in the position of anti-Soviets, although most of them, believing that life - ever, were only for the freedom of creativity.
Before each future nonconformist question arose - where to go? What?
Returning from a provincial theatrical references Roginskii also had to address this issue.
Real life was so jammed, a poor and hopeless, that the majority went to the fictional worlds of fantasy, the ideal, the beyond. In short, just not in the image of our life. It must have been for the money, although honestly, to make official artists, too, want to break into something special, not widespread.
Roginskii that time had seen a poor provincial Russia and a poor theater. He returned to Moscow, and slowly began to unfold and hopeless.
On what foundation could and wanted to build a beginner to do their art Roginskii? What do these first three or four dozen works in the early sixties published a monograph directory? Things, objects to his paintings as their ideas, according to Plato. Simple, poor, proud and socialist subjects such as the characters of Andrei Platonov. Subconsciously Roginskii could remember and still lifes David Shterenberg, so stylish and beautifully leave us all our lives twenties. Or Mikhail Larionov with his sloppy sketch paintings, simplicity and expressiveness, with its inscriptions.
Yet it Roginsky, things, landscapes, people at that time were completely independent, painfully miserable. They were combat reconnaissance and difficult conquest springboard to their future art.
Playing the simplest objects and landscapes of a poor life without flying social agitation, he had himself made it, what is even Mishin father, and not only Sapgir learned closeness fathers of pop art. Yet it was not what the link was probably only superficial. Pop art, it seems, too, arose from the happenings. And Roginsky began with artistic performances - work in provincial theaters. Hence the deification of the object, thing. Love Roginsky to the simple life, poor people were not consonant with the objectives of Belinsky or social realism and Italian neo-realism and French New Wave in cinema, that our reason is not concealed.
All that time did Roginsky, very different from the practices and objectives of the official Soviet art.
First - trams and suburban homes, then ordinary passengers metro and trams. Then the famous desk with lamp, not priced at the same time physicists and modernists. Here are three works from the train window. When recently Misha went to my cottage on the same Riga railway, he, he said, recalling those days and those pictures. Then clean, simple still life with a single red carrots, bottles, pots, and cabbage. Against the background of the picture, where the cabbage, - blue kitchen tile wall. This is the beginning of an entire theme cycle tiled walls and simple tiles. Roginsky recalled that Boris Turkish at the same time showed him Mondrian. But Roginsky - this is not an abstraction, but downright anthems of our kitchens. Already in the 65 - 66-ies were written in boxes of matches, burning with red flames, matches, burning blue flame famous stoves. These themes emerged from the impressions after seeing fire posters. Misha, as he himself recalled, worried about the danger.
These themes were not chosen as a result of the concept, or, more simply, the ideas put forward by them in advance. It just had random things, food, the environment of poor people. This was not typical or widespread and popular objects and phenomena. Kerosene stoves have already disappeared. Irons and kettles were not major in our lives.
But the red door and red wall electrical outlet and then could become an event in modern Western art. This, and there did.
However, Nishina work is not appreciated, did not show Western messengers - new scouts, and earnings for the simple life was not. Roginsky did not want to waste your time on the applied arts, and perhaps could not do anything for the money side, as already ate a provincial theater. He was given entire pure art.
Roginsky was in Paris. As he lived there - ought to ask Lian, his widow. But in a remarkable interview with him Nikita Alexeev in the directory you can find out first hand.
And in 1993, Roginsky again in Moscow. Since then he has many times come here. Often, he lives in the heart, in the workshop Sasha Yulikova. Moscow has changed, and Roginskii - no. He remains close to being simple. And again in his paintings - our life. Our Soviet life. She again recalls Andrei Platonov. But now many people and many streets, houses, cars. One hundred portraits dvuhspolovinoymetrovoy painting - family, Leaderboard. These are the people in general. Most of them - men, men. They stand in queues in an endless waiting for something - transport, food, the meeting, cloakroom, a free telephone booth, third, to drink. Much, entire rows, rows of people sitting at the meetings. There are even waiting for Godot. But there is a party, feast, dance, volleyball.
This ordinary Soviet people some obscure period. Whether the post-war, or today. These people with a fixed gaze, such as if the catastrophe has already occurred. Just do not think that this is anything like a cartoon, or even more mockery. Heroes are concentrated, they are humble and engaged in their own affairs as something mechanical, mechanically. Nobody portrayed us so hard and so lyrical. This is not a condemnation. It is true about us. Both the author and the audience sad and bitter. Roginsky never been politicized in their work and in life. And it seemed all the latest lyrical work. However, when I said this very Misha, he answered quite emphatically - no, it's social.
Painting these pictures easily, quickly, even hasty, as the speech of a man who wants to say something very important, the most important and urgent. Predominant silver-gray, cold gray, sometimes a little warm, very rarely brownish and bluish color, but - dirty.
But there were not included in the monograph small gray bouquets, three-liter glass jars, broom, which we will soon be completely forgotten if not for these pictures.
Mikhail Roginsky gone from us. And once again we have been orphaned, and not appreciating his work, his art. However, before his death in Moscow critics and journalists awarded him the prize "Master", but he always knew, and we also know that he is a master. The most courageous wizard.
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