Hulot Sooster in the Literary Museum

[Тютчев]

MASTER PROTEST imperturbable

For Russia, the artist Hulot Sooster - controversial leader of the underground, for Estonia - naive surrealist
       
Too fine line between the position of the positioning, the friendly company of a successful project ... Especially when we face - "guru underground", and in the yard - in 2006.
       
       He seemed like a stranger from their own "Martian" landscape. Shine "bourgeois" art studies and European languages. Reduced to a single aesthetic denominator imposing Estonia and nervous Moscow. Smoking a pipe and the side of those in power ", confusing accent, but more so coolly, high-handed at the" Manege "Khrushchev. Trained personnel "Aelita" to the fact that the cafe did not go there, and reasoning. And when the cafe made ravioli, started in her house the famous "Tuesday". I always drew. In the camp at will. Burning pictures during Shemona and destroying cull officials versions bold illustrations and theatrical models. Without a shadow of doubt in his own talent.
       He was older than all of the sixties and left before anyone else, crystallized bohemian irony, bile and jealousy in the cherished memory of the sixties, a sentimental icon, consonant behalf Hulot Sooster.
       Guru - for Zhutovski. For Kabakov - the philosophical opposite, for his son Tenno - a creative motif. For others - an example of artistic stoicism and independence, which follow today may still not all.
       For Russian Hulot protest leaders always remained underground. For Estonia - naive surrealist, persuaded philosophize simple juniper.
       Two films - animated, Andrei Khrzhanovsky, and game, Ivo Aho, molded these two national image under misleading names "Landscape with juniper" and "Gooseberries. And, finally, a half-forgotten, in contrast to the Unknown, a dissident and Sooster Sooster known collector, dear.
       The first was in the seventies in the exhibition "Gruzinskaya, Tartu and Tallinn, the ninety -" Gulag-Art "society" Memorial "and Moschus and personal exhibition in gallery" The Ark ". "Then, - says its director Sergei Safonov - only managed to collect, but did not publish a catalog. The texts are written at our request, fellow associates - Ilya Kabakov, Yuri Sobolev, Yury Gerchuk ... have not been paid for and later partially published in various publications.

Читать дальше... 

And now in the gallery "Romanov" opened a new, already commercial, international and even dynastic exhibition father and son - Hulot and Tenno Sooster. Released and catalog. Lyrics - memories of his wife Lydia, Estonian and Russian art criticism. Curator - younger comrade (the famous "Manege" he was only 20) Boris Zhutovski.
       Various exhibitions, different Sooster. Opposition Sooster - Kabakov, closed eggs and birds flying to the window, farm centripetal, the closing of the circle and oval chitinous juniper needles and angles, and the city centrifugal, leaving the viewer only snatches of speech, now property of criticism.
       "Romanovsky" Hulot like self-nest, around which winds Tenno - not a painter, not a portraitist and cartoonist and graphic artist. Living in the volatile, but still free, and democratic Israel. Maybe that's why all of his work - outside, in the irony, conflict and anger of the day. Not god-like clowns, like his father, but ambiguous clones. Not a seductive female horse, but bone formula, not dive into the background, but the insertion in the frame, not opening, but the output.
       Tenno strictly and sadly repeats: "Take care of the sixties. They do not come back. I will be more expensive. It is hard to disagree.
       

       
       Tenno Sooster and Boris Zhutovski - my interlocutors.

       - In the legacy of your father has a very interesting layer: cull officials variants book illustrations and "failed" models of scenery. Both evoked enthusiastic responses of friends. Anything saved?

        Tenno Sooster : Yes, indeed, my father had five times redo work. After Manege he even had to temporarily work under a different name - Smorodin. "Marriage" obliterated. And if only for illustration! The only copy of the first version of the cartoon "The Glass Harmonica" Andrei Khrzhanovsky, with Schnittke's music, which drew my father was cut down to pieces with an ax, as has been drawn up. The act kept by our friends. The film is subjected to ruthless altered - for example, in the frames were inserted titles that action is not with us, and in the West.
       "Harmonica" was in the cinema "Russia" exactly two weeks. It literally lomilas Moscow intelligentsia. And then it was removed and 20 years had lain on the shelf.

       Boris Zhutovski : All the same figure has been the salvation: we feel at least some relevance. But the situation was ambiguous: a couple of years after the "Manege" Khrushchev was removed. Authorities could not understand what to do with exiled artists, disgraced general secretary. And on the eve of the 50 anniversary of October held a major conference, to which we so carefully prepared that the then Deputy Minister of Culture, Vladimir Popov has put us in the same example of our opponents. We have collected good reviews about our work in the foreign Communist press, distributed, and that someone would speak, and were almost invincible. So much so that, when Popov asked a tricky question of how we prepare for the anniversary of the revolution, Yulo said: "If you have no calls in everyday life, which may be general holidays?".
       Sooster far ahead of the Soviet book illustrations and, of course, "stepped on toes" editors. And for all our company Yulo played the role of teacher for one simple reason: the fundamental arts education in the classical, "bourgeois" sense, none of us received. Neither Surikovka nor "left" Polygraphic Institute could not give that gave Sooster Tartu Art Institute. We only "instilled a taste," but we had to learn ourselves. In addition, Hulot, with his seven years of the camps was to order us adults. Hulot knew languages, reading foreign literature, and he had some internal mission - to generate ideas. We went to joke that it is for ideas and to pay the artists of the Central Committee.

       - But now no, no yes and hear from the curators that the essence of modern art in the idea, but the skill can be learned and the Arbat, painting portraits for a hundred rubles. Then I remember Constantine Batynkov, and my companions quickly go back down.

Tenno Sooster : Absolutely agree. Mastery - is the quality of execution, and his father managed to combine it with ideological innovation. For me, drawing by hand - kind of meditation, care themselves. I have long been involved in computer animation, and finally realized that the true creative freedom in the "box" was not found. It would seem a brilliant opportunity to do everything myself from start to finish, but I still feel someone's invisible presence. Ever want to put some blocks, dampers, passwords ... So I live - earn on your computer, and soul otvozhu pencil.
       For him painting was also a necessity and a means of survival. In camp, he sketched in charcoal on the inner side of the chessboard. Draw and erase, to clean up the place. Craft rescued from a nightmare. And, of course, love, whom he met in prison.

       - Tell us about an erotic cycle Hulot. It would seem that all the "nude" - camera angles and poses - long since discovered. However Sooster all, like the first time. But even these tender mutants.
      from what was to come into raptures Yuri Norstein, when he drew sketches for the film Khrzhanovsky.

        Boris Zhutovski : Young guy in the camp can be understood. But when I see how organically rotates in the plane and its trehrukaya trehgrudaya dancer, I begin to better understand Matisse, and it seems to me somehow even easier ... Sooster Movement - from the draftsman skills, from these endless conversations with scientists about the world order, an internal beliefs. As if each of its shape - the only and last on the ground.

       - Tenno, how does your father such a passion for the process, I would say, mirorozhdeniya - from eggs, from the contact pieces, from songs? Can I here refer to the influence Strugackih, work on illustrations for the magazine, "Knowledge"? Or is the voice of the ancestors?

        Tenno Sooster : Hulot-philosopher - a separate, undeveloped theme. They say if Sooster was not an artist, he would be a physicist. On his outstanding ability in physics and mathematics says Victor Reed, whose father, illustrated books. Actually my father was interested in everything, it is a lot of experimenting, searching for something beyond that.

        Boris Zhutovski : Physicists in general have been privileged classes. Authorities did not touch them, because they were responsible for the defense. And so might think about the universe whatever, speak the "bird language" to communicate with foreigners. I must say that thanks to books in general and popular science in particular illustrators quickly recruited intellectual potential. Back in camp Hulot was friends with one academician and conducted lengthy interviews with him.

      - We have before us in all respects symbolic figure. The wrestler with totalitarianism, spontaneous naturalist, a true and sincere Estonian surrealist.
       With such a leader of the Moscow underground to start would now its "not a good shop" with the museum's collection, exhibition plan and thick periodicals.

        Tenno Sooster : The thought of the Museum of the Moscow underground - good. But his father's shop was burnt down in the many, so that about any room until it is difficult to say. On the other hand, this exhibition - the beginning of a larger project under the working title "Fathers and Sons.

       - Why did not manage to say many contemporaries and descendants of Hulot Sooster?

       Tenno Sooster : The story of his mysterious love. Long before meeting his mother's father painted a portrait of his dreams. The result was a eastern girl, strongly reminiscent of future Lydia ...
       Very interesting topic spoken Estonian and Russian artists, which led and supervised by my father. I think he was one of the conductors of culture prevalent in the West bohemian salon in Soviet Moscow. A famous kitchen gatherings seem to me now the result of the closure and arty cafes.
       And, of course, resistance. Some imperturbable European, craft style to remain an artist in any environment. That's interesting.

       

Julia KVASOK