Vagrich Bahchanyan. Evening memory. NCCA

[Vladimir]

January 22, the NCCA was evening in memory Vagricha Bahchanyana. November 12, he was gone, January 22 - was to be 40 days. Well, almost.

By those who knew him. We watched the outline of the future movie about Vagriche ( "Fingerprint Vagricha?", Directed by Andrew Zagdansky?), Frames the few television interviews, friends remembered his jokes, tricks - Bahchanyanu would have liked.
Evening led Vitali Patsukov. He remembered 1960. Vagrich arrived in Moscow, was virtually homeless for a while lived in Patsyukova in the apartment.

What is love? He loved Chekhov. Loved Dadaists. Max Ernst, Magritte. I loved the art of Armenia. He especially liked American abstract expressionist Armenian Arshila Hills. With his wife Irene loved to stroll through Central Park in New York and pick berries, which later made jam. He loved to work. Daily did the picture and "a day without a line" (it was his performance of such a text, where the Work is a diary in the cat every day it was written "This line is written in such a day ..." and so 365 times.)

Preserved his recording sessions "unconscious drawing" - corporate reception Vagricha. Essence - in the course of a telephone conversation with an interesting conversationalist (and such talk did not last five minutes), the artist also drew on some small format (in the film - a brush on something like a newspaper). Concentration - in conversation, and is responsible for drawing the unconscious. That's the end of the conversation remained on the paper chart unconscious thoughts.

To be continued ... Vladimir Bogdanov

On photo - Vitali Patsukov, Michael Odnoralov, Igor Makarov, Gregory (Grisha) Bruskin, Alla Silaeva.

[Vladimir]

Vagricha stories reminisced about his first impressions, podtoknuvshih to the arts - is it indecent images of war, Germans and Romanians, in 1946 in Kharkov - the first acquaintance with uncensored creativity.
Igor Makarov ( "Literary," the legendary "16 bar") recalls and other stories Vagricha of youth. Before the army and Vagrchicha accumulated trunk of his work. Coming in part, what to do - is unclear. And the artist has decided the problem is artistic. The night broke all in small pieces and threw it out the window. In the morning it turned out that the yard covered with a carpet of white fragments. Soon came an angry one-eyed janitor Ilya - oh, so-Rastak. Vagrich tried to deny it, but the caretaker has provided evidence - on a tiny scrap unfortunately remained a self-portrait Vagricha.
In his youth Bahchanyan, it turns out, a lot of interacting with the famous avant-garde Basil Yermilov. Saw many of his works. And then he could just as if not an expert, the expert to determine the authenticity of works Yermilov.

Reminisce collages and puns Vagricha. The most famous - "we are born to make Kafka come true", "beat thumbs - save Russia." All this punning heritage is primarily in his lifetime the book "a lot of the Flies" (суперская book, a pleasure to learn ingenious puzzles). From what has not heard - an appeal to his daughter Patsyukova, who lived in Germany. Instead of "my daughter" - "my Deutsch. Another Makarov thought: instead of "to lead in the chest and a thirst for revenge" - "with the wine of the chest and a thirst together."

The artist went to the U.S. in 1974. Grigory Bruskin said jokingly typically bahchanyanovskuyu, that is absolutely not politically correct as many jokes Vagricha. Our emigrants in New York like to alter the word in its own way. So Manhattan becomes a "Shaggy", and turkey (turkey - «tureyka", flow) in the "Turks". One of the major American holidays - Thanksgiving, happy saving the first colonists, in whose honor at the table agreed to file a turkey, "the Turk". Well ethnic Armenian Vagrich deduced that Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. - this is a great Armenian feast. Because in this day Americans cut Turk.

Presented at the photo, graphics - the work of the project Vitaly Patsyukova Summa Summarum (now taking place in the NCCA on Zoological).

Shl, in the Stella Art exhibition opens soon graphics Vagricha Bahchanyana, in the fund is a representative collection of his works.

[яков]

Сообщение от Vladimir

As a teenager Bahchanyan, it turns out, a lot of interacting with the famous avant-garde Basil Yermilov. Saw many of his works. And then he could just as if not an expert, the expert to determine the authenticity of works Yermilov.

Here's an interesting text from the book of E. Limonov, "" Young scoundrel''.
BACH - Bahchanyan
ED - Limonov.
Voice without censorship.

   <p> - You know, Ed, I was there one man from Kiev. Thus he argues that now is the time to buy Russian avant-garde of the twenties. Like, a few years these things will cost big money. He is me and said that the biggest artist of the twenties, the survivor, lives in Kharkov. You know, said such Ermilova? If you can break through to him, Tsvetkov, he said to me, to make good money in a few years. In the spring, he said, the wife of Konstantin Simonov came to Ermilov and bought him five works. </P>
   <p> Tsvetkov calls himself a businessman. Spiv also call themselves businessmen, but unlike them, the former boxer is not running for foreigners buying them "crap jeans" (the expression itself Tsvetkova). Tsvetkov engaged in buying and selling of old art - furniture, clocks, silver and gold in any form, and gradually migrate farther and farther into the country of old engravings and paintings. Gena argues that Tsvetkov earn very good money. Tsvetkov I started with the fact that he bought from the heirs of the deceased neighbor all the contents of her room for 250 rubles. And passed immediately inherited his inheritance in the pawnshop, rescued 1,300 rubles in one fell swoop. Having made this accidental operation, Tsvetkov sat down and thought and decided that such operations - and have his life's vocation. (As we all know, Ed ran into his livelihood - has to sew trousers - is also quite by chance.) Tsvetkov highly values its friendship with Genkov and familiarity with Goncharenko, Sergei Sergeyevich, for two hundred and fifty rubles to buy old lady's inheritance then took it to an indigent Tsvetkov Senior Goncharenko, satisfied with the explanation Tsvetkov purpose of the loan. Activities Tsvetkov, in contrast to the activities of speculators, fully legal, the state has not yet had time to digest the new methods of making money by individuals, not yet invented, how it can bring to your right, cesarean share my grandmother's inheritance. </P>
  

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<p> - You can familiarize Tsvetkova with Ermilova? - Make a move, Gena turned to his friend. </P>
   <p> - I'll try ... Bach would have done it in no time ... I honestly do not even remember exactly where he lives. Outside Sverdlov, under the roof. </P>
   <p> - Remember, Ed! It is very important. You'll get a commission. </P>
   <p> - Why the hell me your commission - suddenly angry Ed. - And so introduce, if I can. - All of them businessmen, are identical, and those black-marketeers and those who do not. The commission, he would give me! For some reason he did not want to see pictures Ermilova got to Tsvetkov. "I will not introduce rogue with the old man" - he gives his word. </P>
   <subtitle> * * * </subtitle>
   Ermilov <p> old man received them politely, but reacted to the submitted Bach "poet" without much enthusiasm. Could understand the old man. First, the elderly generally relate to young men without enthusiasm. Plus, Khlebnikov was as close to his friend, as Ed - one by Bach. Khlebnikov lived in Yermilov. Ermilov illustrated poems by Khlebnikov, and that he Ermilov, forged the signature of the Kharkov Commissioner for the press, he wrote in red pencil "permit" to the request to publish in a lithographic shop Kharkov railway Khlebnikov's poem "Ladomir. There may therefore make Ermilov, when only the genius of Russian poetry of the twentieth century, read to him in the days of his youth had just written poem! Mouse squeak must seem to him after the marvelous singing Klebnikov line of contemporary Soviet ignoramus. Inflexible Bach, not paying attention to elbow thrusts and grimaces, insisted that the youth read Ermilov poems. Sweating even in places that do not sweat ever, deploying a notebook, the poet opened his mouth: </p>
   <poem>
    <stanza>
     This incredible day <v> </v>
     <v> was covered with rain </v>
     <v> Bricks gardens soaked </v>
     <v> Krasnostennyh homes </v>
     <v> Surrounded by trees lived in houses </v>
     <v> People young and old, children: </v>
     <v> in the corner all day looking Katia </v>
     <v> Hike ran screaming </v>
     <v> hair all disheveled - Olya </v>
     <v> read Book of Secrets </v>
     <v> the attic looking furtively grim - Fedor </v>
     <v> Marvelous loved </v>
     <v> Something new in nature - Anna ... </v>
    </stanza>
   </poem>
   <p> old artist visibly perked up. </p>
   <p> - Read more - he said, zaskripev wooden chair - what are you staying? - The young man, the sweat dries up, read a few poems. </P>
   <p> - So what? - Bach triumphantly watched Yermilov. - I see - you liked it. </P>
   <p> - D-yes, but ... - Ermilov slowly picking up words. - It's interesting. I, you know, was firmly convinced that since my youth, young people in our country have forgotten how to feel and write. But the fact that I read your friend, H. Vagrich ... - painstakingly and carefully pronounced the name and patronymic Baja old artist, for some reason, turning only to Bach - reminds me of my youth and the poetry of people around me ... I'm, you know, friends not only with a Velimir. I knew and Bozidar, and illustrated poems of Elena Guro. By the way, I'll show you one book Guro with my illustrations. - The old man reached into his chest, standing like a table in the middle of the attic, and asking Vagricha hold the lid began to dig deep in the chest. </P>
   <p> Our poet watched this operation with mixed feelings of respect and sadness. And the latest is always at beholding the old people who failed to succeed in life, or were pressed back in history and fails under the circumstances, or eclipsed by the success of a bold and talented peers and our youth will attend sadness. The old man in a sweater, a gray-haired, with folded lips with pride (there is such a, you know, are particularly proud of the manner to fold her lips), extracted from the depths of the trunk of a large cot-book format, similar to modern children's books - the large letters of the text interwoven with cubistic forms. When you're twenty-one year and you show a piece of art made before the birth of your father, you can respond very enthusiastically, critical faculty refuses to work. Perhaps if our hero was about thirty years or more (at this age, a man usually already angry and more self-confident), he would have jumped for their first impression of the similarity in folding beds for children's books, and developed it with, when you come to the recognition of a certain coarseness and domosdelannosti book. But then he hung over the provisions to cover the trunk with the holy book of trepidation in his heart. He trembled more historically, as will be later than the tremble in the Egyptian rooms of museums in the world, bending over many thousands of exhibits. </P>
   Just <p> posharkivaya feet in strong Cubist shoes on the floor of the attic, the old man went into the far corner and pulled out of the wall plane with the plane resting on an electric hot plate. About fifty years ago, a young professor at the Academy of Fine Arts with a bang to his eyebrows got to use the attic and rebuilt it according to his Cubist taste. In those times, even when, according to his friend, Velimir, "a strange break-up of the worlds beautiful /It was a harbinger of freedom /liberation from the chains. A long time ago left the Novgorod land Velimir, and after him at the tender age died of Russian freedom, but there are still a plane, conceived Ermilova before marriage because he claims Bahchanyan, and one of the planes of the proud old man boils for young tea. Santa boils grandchildren. Fathers have died or are not present. Fathers as a deviation, a nasty curve branch, the deviation from a healthy tree history. Fathers ignored (though they themselves are to blame, fascinated by avocation, has played in the police and the thieves), and this is a strong cup of brewed tea pass from the hands of the grandfather of cooling in the hot hands grandchildren. </P>
   <p> Old men always end up with tea. Within a few years, another old man - Eugene Kropiwnicki, also escaped by chance in brawl muzhlanov-fathers, near Moscow, in the village Dolgoprudnaya our youth will drink strong tea. Aged by the end of life learn to brew a wonderful purple, with a deep taste of tea, and join the eastern freshness and sobriety in the veins of alcohol and lack of will weary young Soviet commoners. After Kropivnitskogo our youth will drink more tea, two old men of a different sort: Lilya Brik and Basil Katanyan. So the old man to the old man will move our hero for life. </P>
   <p> - And why would you, Vasily Yakovlevich, do not illustrate the poem Limonov? - Says suddenly brazen Vagrich, they already stand at the door, the audience came to an end. Face of our young men flooded with shame, invisible to his flesh with a deep stuck under the skin blood vessels, but the surface temperature of the person rose by several degrees, no doubt. - Bah! Are you ... - the evil he pushes his elbow Friend. </P>
   <p> less strict and less proud-looking, softened by the end of the visit old artist suddenly agrees. </p>
   <p> - What! You can shake the old days, Vagrich H.. Ready poems and come. But, please, no more than a dozen poems. In your time trying to squeeze in a book as much as possible. In my time trying to make a book of poems more interesting. "Better Fewer, but better!" - As used to say Predsovnarkoma Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin ... </p>
   <p> some time the idea of a book of poems with illustrations Ermilova troubled youth. Sam Ermilov, each Klebnikov, a man whose solo exhibition catalog with a hole (as a finger in the palette) was released, and then banned and confiscated! .. Ermilov himself, the man who commissioned the project to the Soviet pavilion at World Expo 1937 (model of the pavilion is made of papier-mache, Ed saw the home of the artist. Ermilov fell into disfavor, and the project was never implemented ...) Sam Ermilov make illustrations to his poems! Perhaps Ermilov unfortunately lived in an era of inactive projects or his personal ill-luck was so great and powerful, can only speculate. Draft joint work with the representative of the tribe of young, but finally the tribe resembling ermilovskih peers, shared the fate of many other unrealized projects. The young man soon left for Moscow, Ermilov died shortly after. It is a pity, of course. Maybe it would be an excellent book. </P>
   <p> - you know, Vasya want to restore the Union of Artists? - Said Bach, when they took to the streets Sverdlov. </P>
   <p> - Why did he need it? - Surprised poet. </P>
   <p> - We do not understand ... - Vagrich sighed. - For him to be a member of the Union - is very important. In our years Vasya has been a professor of Fine Arts. His whole life was spent in the artists. </P>
   <p> Ed did not understand the connection between life, held in the artists, and membership in a despised and Vagrichem, and Ed Kharkiv branch of the Union of Artists, but did not delve into the problem. The old man Yermilov, perhaps senility begins. Like all young people, Ed deep in his heart despised old and attributed them to the category of blind and hunchbacked. Youth is cruel no reason, but his instincts, every physically healthy young man - a fascist, but will stubbornly deny it and will beat you if you will insist on their opinion. </P>
   <p> - you know - Bach for some reason, looked around suspiciously. They walked toward the Soviet area, main mall, to go up the hill to the street at the Free Academy, which flows into Rymarskuyu - returned to his native "Automatic". - You know, Vasya because in the occupation that ... a little collaborated with the Germans ... </p>
   <p> - and it was not planted after the war? - Amazed Ed. </P>
   <p> - Well, it is not something that has worked physically, not in the police, of course, served. But I have done for them, posters, ads, worked on the cultural front ... - For some time they walked in silence, Vagrich their normal elongated strides, Ed - faster and faster. - You can understand - continued Vagrich - Communists Vasya and ruined lives and careers. He started better than the major European avant-garde artists of the time, but to whom he is known now? You can imagine how he was angry with them in 1941 and he was glad that the Germans came! Especially to the St. Petersburg school of painting, sculpture and architecture, he was in Germany, he studied for some time there, the Germans kept good memories ... </p>
   <p> - Why do you think of Bach, it turned out that realists have seized power in Soviet culture? During the Revolution and immediately after the revolution because the avant-garde have become major. Not a realist, and Tatlin with the guys because instructed to decorate the Red Square to mark the first anniversary of the revolution. (Tatlin was born in Kharkov. From the draft International Tower, without thinking twice, then painted all the trees on the Red Square in red. From dispensers.) After all that happened, Bach, what people were working! How did they Otterlo, who's to blame? </P>
   <p> - Who? The Communists, of course! What are you, Ed, as a small, do not realize that there? </P>
   <p> - Wait a minute, but first, then the Communists approached the avant-garde. Even in the provincial Vitebsk, in the wilderness, someone named after Marc Chagall, and not someone else's People's Commissar of Culture. And Lunacharsky that would now no pizdeli understood the avant-garde art. Only already somewhere in the late twenties, began to scour the avant-garde social scene behind the scenes and deprive them of a piece of bread. But ten years, they held out. </P>
   <p> - I think these ten years away from the Communists to clarify their own tastes. The first four years in general civil war was not to be art. Then there was "chaos" as they say, and when his hands finally came to art, then they themselves and showed the new authorities their kozeplemennuyu essence. </P>
   <p> - And I think Vagrich that after the civil war, pushing gradually make the revolution "shiz", such as we Vagrich, came to power other people, quite different - functionaries. Profession functionary - not to destroy the state, and to manage them. As the functionaries of the inherently conservative and bourgeois, and they began to encourage the art which he alone was close and accessible - realism. </P>
   <p> - All communists are the same, Ed. And those that made the revolution, and those that came later. </P>
   <p> - Not dick like that. I assure you, Vagrich that if we were not now, but at that time, we would be with Lenin and his kids, but not with survivors of mind fucked by the ruling classes. </P>
   <p> - Well, you would have died in the thirties in the camps. </p>
   <p> - I would have died ... </p>
   <p> - Oh do not bullshit me, Ed, and not like you, perished in GB. </p>
   <p> - perished because of the power struggle was. They were not angels. Vaughn Meyerhold threatened to arrest Ehrenburg, and the famous Blumkin, murderer Ambassador Mirbach, an admirer of Gumilev what it takes! Now all the pussy after a fight, and it turns out, as if those who died were mileyshie people, and those who survived or died of natural causes - the villains and monsters. To judge from the standpoint of the history of another time - stupid. All this was a gang. We have the same morals, only in time of peace - peaceful means. Instead of hiding, that you gave Sashka Cherevchenko for what it is with your Irka stood at the entrance, instead of a few punches Victor and butting boots Monsieur curlers, in those days you could put Sasha to the wall. Then, of course, have pity on the poet ... </p>
   <p> Bach smiles. And to him, and Edu is still not time to reconsider their views on the world around us and correct them in accordance with the experience of each new stage of life. Bach is delayed in the history of our boys much longer than the other characters, because it makes sense to stay for some time to "Armenian with large feet," as he called it Irochkin dad, my dearest intellectual - the owner of a small fetish collection insoles, stolen from a woman's shoes. However, this should tell the reader at least the most basic information about the attitude of our main character of a young poet to the powers that be. </P>

[Vladimir]

Another remembered that when the editors of Dovlatov began producing in America magazine, then came up with the rubric "Bahchanyan on the wire. But Sergei Dovlatov himself heading and illustrated - a figure human in the loop (on the wire). They say that Vagrich offended, humor is not appreciated. Category renamed. He loved to joke myself, but did not like, so over it by joking.