Edik introduced me to Sergei Grazhdankin. He lived with his mother, he had his own room, where people were gathering. Lubnin once took me to the cottage to Natasha Grigoryeva, holodina was terrible. Here we are, coming down for firewood, protopili, was comfortable. On the whitewashed stove pencil bylm scratched verses with signature - Mikhail Grobman, remember the name. Ed turned the receiver, found Luxembourg, the militants. Natasha arrived, they gave Edicom great boogie-woogie, asked to teach, but then I have very little happened.
Ed brought a big stack of library watercolors and gouaches, said that leads them to view the artist understands - E. Kurochkin. We went to the Textile Institute, where he called a nice guy in the dense dark-blue jacket. Kurochkin watched the work on each made a comment, rather business. Work Lubnina were mostly surreal, some dancing kirikovskom leeches on the ground, and were eager colorful abstraction of water stains, not in vain Pollock copied. With Ed we became friends, despite the fact that about his work, I immediately suggested unflattering.
In disputes Ed reduced the conversation to jazz, well, there was nothing to catch me. The names of the Art Blakey and Charles Mingus to me then anything not mentioned. I loved Bill Haley, different "shotambugi" and "happy baby".
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Lubnin led me to Vadim Stollyaru. In a small room at Metrostroy Street have also hung a lot Yakovlev, buckwheat "Turtle" Plavinsky, good canvas Pyatnickogo. Hung it right above - a nosy creature on short legs, and in depth picture of two figures. Ed proudly announced that one of the figures - he. Well, of course, of course, one of them was wearing a green jacket, without which Lubnina hard to imagine, he wore it as a skin. At first all I did not like, seemed poor, very timidly all somehow. Watch speckled butter Yakovleva after James Brooks is difficult lisht the third or fourth visit, I got used to his style, found in his works unique values, like steel and its flowers. On a chair by Vadim lay a pile of watercolors Voroshilov, near the window at the bottom left hanging green Steinberg. I became acquainted there with Edicom Kurochkin, Volodya Pyatnitsky. Vadim good improvising on Fono, met the people. Once he brought me to Vadim their work schedule, he was in the mood, wanted to buy something. I gave him four drawings for davdtsatnik, big money for me. A few days later I went to him with Algis, show that the work of Yakovlev. Vadim opened, evil as hell. Requires money back. I, of course, when a witness is doubly embarrassing. Vadim completely broke, break off, said drawings, I have it - tear it, I'll draw more, well, he broke. He was older than I was cool, so that I could do nothing. Just go to him no longer, ten years have not seen. Small it is not bad, sometimes just cool to move.
Lubnin introduced me to Volodya Schifrin, jazz pianist, in jazz, then everything has gone crazy. Shifrin liked to show his collection, mostly he was Yakovlev. Its like me, interested in the reaction of visitors at different levels. He brought some regularity. Thus, in his opinion, even malointelligentnye women can choose objectively the best abstract work of ten to fifteen - works intuition. The men, even with doctoral degrees, were not capable, rational thinking is often hindered.
Boris Mukhametshin and Sasha Barshch took me to a discussion of the exhibition "Still Life" in the Institute of Architecture. Well, what is there only was not, on Morandi to Jacques Vyuyona. In the center of Moscow, almost officially on the walls of state institutions were hung some formalistic "tricks". Portfolio weak - it does not matter, most importantly, they are many and they are different. Works of the Architectural Institute of students were much more interesting work bilyutinskoy "group". The next time Boris invited me with Valerii Safonovjm to the artist of the twenties, I, unfortunately, can not remember his name. Since it was something to talk and argue. He talked about his contemporaries, replied to many of my questions. I, for its part, shared information on the latest trends in western constructivism, he was indifferent to them.
I sketch his compositions by Max Bill, background Lohse, Karp Gerstner - he claimed to have seen all like before. I did not take his skeptical attitude toward innovation geometricheskosmu fifties and sixties, but I tried not to escalate the conversation. A man from the world of ten to twenty, knew the problems of formalism, not from the albums of reproductions, and I proedpochel listen, not talk.
From Valeri Safonov, the most interesting to my opponent, knowing good modern paintings, I met in the same foreigner. He translated from the German "On the Spiritual in Art" Kandinsky, malosvyaznuyu all this nonsense, and which in Russian is impossible to read. Scribble Kandinsky and Malevich, with rare exceptions - the direct opposite of their creativity, in fact, be otherwise could not, they are not "leading light of all the sciences, but we would like - Russian imperial thinking.
Safonov one of the first learned about the opening of the beer bars in the hotel "Ukraine", we have often come across one. Room was spacious, on one wall hung a huge painting. Pioneers there were in single file for some valleys and the hills, well, just Shishkin, Rama also заебись - solid gold.
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With Yakovlev Costacis we were at the beginning of the sixty-second, he lived above the House of footwear. He received us well, the collection is very impressive. Period "Murnau" Kandinsky, wall color graphics of early Chagall, fresh, just out of Paris, gouaches Serge Polyakov in the hallway - Fiction. They began to talk, my competence, he said ten minutes later, pulled out a canvas that I say, I think of him, Malevich it. He said that in my opinion, yes, it is subsequently confirmed. I saw him two works of Rabin, many Krasnopevtsev. He pulled out a large folder Zvereva, that I did not like at all, a lot of tricks with a weak formal training. Such premature artistry, I noted later in the graphic works Nemukhin.
Yakovlev began to demand money for their work. Kostaki off with the ten and then, after Vladimir threatened to take work. Parted and we saw again fifteen years later, my work, he never saw.
A few words about Nussberge. Leo always look good, careful parting, shirt and tie. In the library he had several years appeared in the same gray suit, appeared to him and the other was not. Worked with the literature and periodicals, he seriously did vypiski.Lev first was arrogant, but after they went on with Dorokhov Bronnaya see the work, began to treat me with interest. "Geomatrii in Moscow there was almost no, I do not take it, of course, in the calculation of the Levins sixes. Works of members of his group differ astonishing monotony - all this Nussberg and nothing more. I believe that if Leo had not included his people in their published catalogs, hardly anyone had heard about them. The exception, of course, thank Koleychuk, the "talent". Infante let doubt, Baltic vkusovschina, and based on the same lion. He, like I Lubnin, stuck on the French show and sixty-one almost every day, spent hours in the music hall, listening to Darius Milhaud and O. Messiaen. Yes, and all smoking Inostrannaia moved to the second floor of humanitarian pavilion.
I remember on the second day after the opening Lubnin, podzadorenny my good catch, appeared in the book room with a bulky briefcase, filled all the way various Modigliani and Delvaux. He slowed almost Circadian BP rhythm - was taken to the opera-point, took all the books. I went with him and saw a pile of confiscated album, he is not the first. Cops are not stupid, all these Kaniga could then see in secondhand on Herzen. Prices were then murderous. No third-fourth day of the French were alarmed - Moscow fans carried almost everything. We had them spread on the new all "Skiri", but along the spine of each book were vkrucheny three nickel-plated bolt, horseradish take, and cops are no longer grazed hiding under the vigilantes. But, despite this, by the end of the exhibition were only horns and legs - it was impossible to stop the fans.
We went to Nussbergu with Roginsky. Lev showed a lot of work, something I was interested, in Moscow, this was not enough. Coltrane, a student Frenchwoman, tempera, à la Max Bill and Newman - all this made an impression on me. Roginsky on the street, said that all this is very bad, it was not interested in such things, I did not agree with him, Nussberg a no was still a formalist, he was on the third level, while the majority of Moscow artists more accessible to them floundering in the figurative , symbolism and surrealism.
Leo introduced me to Oleg Tripoli, his works have been weak, repetitive, at that moment he was fascinated by Magnelli, saw he still had some metallofakturu. Interested in the work of his wife - Rima Zanevsky, some of her songs mid-sixties, is very similar to fashion now, Peter Halley.
Leo gave me the address Yankylevsky, went to him. He then lived in the Metro Prospekt Vernadskogo. In a small room hung a bright blue, docked a few fragments of work in the spirit of Miro, his first large-scale repairs and improvements, he has worked on a second. He showed me a lot of graphics, canvas with a sort of triangular "scientists". In Nussberga he immediately jumped in absentia. He supposedly stole from him some sort of "horizontal line", only a minute later I realized what it was about. Nussbergu not have to take "her" from Yankylevsky, he revised the books and manuals on constructivism and "geometry" in the tens if not hundreds of times more than happened to poor Yankel. Subsequently, I was always amazed by such recriminations in Moscow, people borzeli not the case in Western periodicals were Bonanza, the horseradish to rob a neighbor. Yankilevsky I did not like, too snongo "bad" Klee and Miro and the lack of a sense of proportion in his work.
I remember the first sunset of Lipkovu, where he saw some good work Slepian. Igor told me a lot about him, it was the first Moscow-educated abstractionist. A pity that did not meet him, he is still in the eighth pyatidesyat went through Poland to France.
Igor Lipko was friends with Oleg Prokofiev, was familiar with Camilla Gray, wife of Oleg. At the time she was finishing work on the "Great Experiment", the galleys were already at Khardzhiev. Lipko knew Yuri Zlotnikov, but I met with Yura only two or three years later.
Vladimir Shifrin, a lover and collector, somehow got a reproduction of a "simple" works, Nicolas de Stael. Immediately rushed to the store at Petrovka bought many tubes, primed canvas and palette knife. Work went on full swing, the room looked like a Parisian atele.Zapala it lasted for two or three days, had to give all the remaining Volodya Yakovlev, he successfully works in any technique.
Yakovlev began very early, some of his "copy" (with very little in common with reproductions) Kandinsky, Klee, rarely are the fifty-eighth-p \ yatdesyat ninth year. These "copies" are very interesting - looseness and defect of vision enabled him to do unexpected things. Volodya successfully combined the "primitive" with abstract art. Yakovlev fans were Stollyar, Volkonsky Grobman, but the best work of Yakovlev, I saw in the collection of genes Aigi. Kostaki, strangely enough, few realized that in painting, he skillfully used other people's opinions and for this reason alone got Volodin works. He always knew how to keep his nose to the wind. Admittedly, Costacis did important work on the preservation of the Russian avant-garde of the century. His collection had, he claimed, equal in the world among private collections, but I think his true tastes never aodnimalis above Krasnopevtsev or Shvartsman.
Met in the same sixty-second year, I and Gena Aigi. He then organized an exhibition at the Museum of Mayakovsky twenties (there were reservists, and some that gave collectors). I loved this museum-library, its atmosphere, posters twenties. Books betrayed Beauty Galya Manevich. At the exhibition I helped in the weighing, reverently in his hands the pages of the telephone book Malevich's watercolor sketches. The day before the opening we Gena went to the printing of invitation cards. They were the size of a detailed book, with portraits of Malevich and Tatlin - an incredible thing in pozdnehruschevskoe time. Those photos were quiet, respectable, so I think illiterate censors simply prochuyali who they are. And the show is called seriously "Mayakovsky (and these kinds of officials have not forgotten the Stalinist assessment of the poet) and his orkuzhenie. At the opening gathered the cream of Moscow, artists, collectors, Volodya Pyatnitskii zatorchal of pictures than from drunk port.
Exhibition was a wonderful, colorful: Exter, Guro, Matyushin - it was for me the opening (exhibited his watercolor landscapes with huts and rainbows).
Works by Malevich that time I already knew well, had seen reproductions of Western publications, the originals in the reserves and the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow collectors.
My work at that time had accumulated a lot and nine-tenths had to be destroyed - every store was nowhere. With the permission of Misha Roginsky Sveza me something to him in his apartment empty room of his brother. Six months ago he showed me early expressionistic works, among which was a successful one - the collision of two trucks, it is their famously deformed. One of them was a red "ZIL-130". I was prompted to suggest to make a few plane trucks thirties-forties, ie without smooth form of the ZIL. I decided to call his show "Red Truck".
Shortly before the exhibition, we went with Misha late in the evening to wander through the area it Horoshevki. I am armed with pliers and a chisel - I liked his idea posshibat 'railway posters. Ashamed I did not - move all that you can: zhekovskie shields edged ads in elevators, the Leaderboard and other Soviet poeben. It's great it all came to the exhibition. Under these glazed frame from a rough baguette I did work - no cost (since then I have repeatedly in the night "robbers" in the vicinity of my street Halabyan with a reservation we had moved).
Notes:
In Adim Stollyar or Vadim Zabusov - musician, one of the first Moscow collectors informal painting. Said that he - an illegitimate son of Shostakovich (his mother was at one time, it seems, the Secretary-DD). Indeed, his resemblance to Shostakovich was amazing.
When I met him, his paintings are almost not there, he arranged at his home, near Nikitskie gate passages of improvisation on the piano ...
Igor Lipko - a wonderful man, a translator from English, French, Spanish, and some more languages, has a universal culture (I am indebted to him svoy love of Borges, which he translated to us with Misha "with leaf) friend Slepian, Turkish, well and Roginsky, who gave him a picture of the 64-year, "Railway Platform". After the death of Igor bought this picture of another friend of ours, Nikolai Reshetnyak, and took her to New York.
Oleg Prokofiev - son, SS, art historian (he read the art of the Far East), an artist, a great esthete.
Camilla Gray - English art critic, she wrote one of the first books about the Russian Avant-garde 10-20-ies. "Grand experiment". She married Oleg Prokofiev. Then they went to Central Asia, where she contracted encephalitis and died, she was quite young. Prokofiev went to England to bury her and never returned.
I forgot to specify, it turns out that there Markina work Chernysheva, here's the address: http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache... & gl = fr