The book of memoirs of Mikhail Chernyshev Moscow. 1961-67 "

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Book Misha Chernyshev Moscow 1961-67, was published in New York in 1988, the circulation, presumably, was small, most likely, it can be considered a rare book, and in Moscow to find her, I think, difficult. So I decided to hang out here a few heads, even all, if the spirit be enough.
Warnings: First, remove all responsibility for the views expressed in this book, they are not mine, they are - Chernyshev, even though quite often I agree with them, and secondly, the book has interesting illustrations, but the print quality is very poor, even in book to understand them with great difficulty, so I did not even try to scan them - nothing will come of this can not, and thirdly, lexicon, in particular, inappropriate, too, not mine


By the beginning of the sixty-second year, the second year of a daily walk to the Library of Foreign Literature on the street. Razin, there was a qualitative leap forward in my perception and evaluation of modern painting. All these thousands of names and reproductions decomposed in different regiments, and the necessary information to give me an instant. With Edicom Lubnina and V. Shifrin, I played in a win-win for me the game. Any reproduction, including some where Esteban Vicente and Oliver Debre, recognize me on the dispute. Bring anything from "foreign" was not possible, the books Gorky Street I had not afford it, and my memory is sharpened in the process of working with the material.

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At the time, on our street, Malaya Bronnaya, lived a lot of interesting people - Mischa Dorokhov, Pavlik tzolkin, Garik Superfin. Garik in their 16-17 years old was a man-guide to literary matters, very energetic fellow. He introduced me to the Left Shipmanom, Shipman and Lubnin were my close friends. They could talk about Mondriane and Klee, Malevich and Kandinsky, but then they pulled. For sixty or sixty-one, it was the limit, people even with this level of knowledge one could count in Moscow more than a few dozen.

Sv through continuous attentive work with periodicals I am too broke forward and discuss the "classics" to vremenmi I was tired, and talk and argue about the momentary was almost no one with whom. After two or three specific questions of any started to mumble. "Intellectual" conversation about the bush with me not pass, and the man had to confess to his incompetence. I am simplifying, of course. To admit defeat in discussions with sixteen guy was not easy for many, some, somehow on the defensive, but in the end, my awareness and logic prevailed. I was focused on only one, I was not interested in the so-called "common culture" and intellectual of those years, as a rule, know little about many things.

On the painting while a lot of arguing. I remember at the Manege exhibition winter sixty-second year of work at Falk nearly came to blows no. Reconciling all hanging in front Luchishkin, "The ball flew off. Excitement in the debate I showed back in the fifty-ninth, the American National Exhibition. At that time I myself was still quite "raw" (preparation - topic of "Crocodile" - Uncle Sam draws himself, a dozen rooms "of America" and a pair of some antimodernistskih brochures. Not much). Frankly, if I did not like De Kooning (only a couple of years he became one of my most favorite). The reaction to his "woman" was absolutely negative, it is me then was very interesting. At the exhibition there were many exhibits - from a tartan pants with cuffs to the "Ah-Bi-Em Ramaka-305. All this delighted the visitors, but the halls of paintings and sculptures called to say the least, puzzling. American painting seemed to be all nonsense, some even looking for some kind of super-task "to dupe the workers. Soviet audiences were well aware that this "abstract" support and cultivate the millionaires, who have fooled the people and divert them from the struggle for peace throughout the world. Do not forget, that was the fifty-ninth year, the people, even in Moscow, lived Stalinist concepts and attitudes.

The most stubborn and noisy "comrades" could precipitate a simple phrase, sluschay, friend, the Americans clearly have forgotten how to draw, you would have to go there, to teach them good sense. In such cases blizstoyaschie diverted to loyal "wiseacre" really went to teach so as to draw a naked woman. I do not know, such numbers could not go anywhere in town, but heartwarming at the time of U.S. territory, amid all this high-grade equipment and free Pepsi-Cola, such criticism could be made to shut up. Even then I began to learn the art of dispute, given the level of opponent. It was necessary to be able to think for him to assume and to know his arguments. In the Manege in the sixty-second I played the fool, advocated against fellow-scholars skygazer, it was even more successful, because I spoke seemed to be against himself a couple of years ago. Well, what else could I do, to create a contrast to the artificial equivalent, I could not, and the energy required output.

Return to the pavilion in Sokolniki. Rothko put "old gold on white, very fine job," European ", it's great contrast with Gottlieb and gross de Kooning. Albright was distasteful to me, I remember Baziotesa, Tomlin, Fritz Glarnera and, of course, pollokovsky "Cathedral". After the show, I gathered all the magazines, "America" with articles on art and reproductions. I well remember the room with reproductions of Arthur Dov - "An abstract interpretation of the mill" (I suspect that American editors that name themselves thrust for intelligibility), there was there Mullikan Lee and Stuart Davis' work is very rough on color. All this work I copied and increased up to a meter, hung over his desk. Parents liked - perseverance is always appreciated. I have seen in a number of the work of Georges Braque's "Philodendron", like the name, but what it is, who inquired of no one knows. After some time, learned that this is simply the name of the flower. Charm secrets immediately disappeared.
The second hot spot at the exhibition was in the alley, near the sculpture of Gaston Lachaise - hefty babishchy. Its shape caused many respects, diskusstviya there was not so fierce.

In the fifty-ninth year of painting was not for me the most important, I was mesmerized by the Electro-225 "," Bonneville Vista "," impala ". Corona number was a red Chevrolet Corvette - he was on the disk before continuing the crowd of onlookers, where I even once saw a smiling Nixon, he arrived in Moscow for a few days. "Ramaka-305" answered several questions, the visitors carried off the perforated tape for memory. The tumult reigned in the production and distribution of plastic jars labeled S-The USA on the bottoms, there should have been able to work elbows.
Some open round pavilion lined queue fans Pepsi-Cola. She was free, and drank it all you like. Many then was cut off American style of dress, hairstyle, etc. After the show, I, like many guys from the street, Gorky was sure to wear a white shirt under a dark shirt, as if tishort, a haircut kryukat (Soviet "box"). It was funny to meet on the street like myself, birds of a feather ...
Stilyagi-uzkobryuchnikov with nabriolinennymi cooks and podzhakami on his knees still missing, then they realized it, learned a new strict style - the Ivy League. Khrushch then ride to America on TV fairly often shown and everyday life of Americans, so we knew how to dress, time stilyagi already entering.

At Mayak, I visited often, lived nearby, heard there different rhymester. In fact, some poetry for me - as a wall peas, quadrille there girls. Put together a small company. Almost always you can catch it Levu Shilmana, Boria teeth. We sat on the edge of the sidewalk, the monument was not through. Someone spotted that the real "Shtatniki" not afraid to get dirty, even white pants - sit down, like sparrows, anywhere, chic. Some Italian unexpectedly shelknul me with friends, barely had time to hide behind, we, you know, it seemed "typical". I would have forgotten about it, but after a few months, met with an American tourist Stephanie Boylan (she lived in Long Beach, Okana Avenue, house number do not remember so many years have passed). We met several times, she was then twenty years. She once brought me a "Catchers in the Rye" and the number of "Time" with a picture of Yevtushenko on the cover, there was an article about Moscow. Brought home, was regarded - like see my face, and next to Matthew and someone else. The person on the pictures I have covered, so that the "identification" helped my sneakers, pereshitaya of school uniforms jacket and toy on elastic band, "prescription" Sasha Vasilyev. Magazine proudly showed their parents. My father said that it was not me, but the next day polfotki was filled with ink. I estimate the chances of a coincidence in this story - unbelievable. I said so at the next meeting of Stephanie, she was surprised, no less. When he left, she asked to write, but I was not up to it.

Parents made a last attempt to reason with me. My running away from home since the age of twelve with overnights at the entrances warm, vintage fever, abstract, etc. they were regarded as yavnvya abnormality. Exhortations and physical impact gave little persuasion, its autonomy, I stubbornly insisted, remained the last - check my psychiatrist. To register in the district mental hospital, with fourteen years, I think. The doctor I had a wonderful, Esther Yakovlevna Braginskaya. We talked about her bad painting. She, unfortunately, was still at the level Churlionis, although she liked my "Paris" abstract watercolors. After "Time" parents still packed me in the loony bin.
This was done quite cleverly. How to reach us, my mother went out into the corridor, the doors were closed - mousetrap, the bazaar is useless. They led to the bathroom, washed, gave the gown, and in the House - to the "fools". In the "observing" every man did what he wanted, it was noisy. I was not myself - just do not understand that all of these "psychos" harmless. Eat there, I did not, stand six or seven days. Medicines were not given to me - were examined. Sergei Mikhailovich (if I'm not mistaken, in this Hospital. Korsakov was zavotdeleniem) long tried to convince me of my "illness". His main argument was that the patient can not understand their illness, only need a little medical treatment and everything will be fine, but really there should be mandatory.
Here surrendered parents. They were, of course, aware of my refusal to eat, I even loved iced cheese tossed in a bucket along with the entire transmission. Feed teenager violently, and even in a hospital as a preferred Korsakov, nobody has dared to - so that exactly a week later I was released.

Parents were waiting for me at the door, I walked past them, without greeting, and then simply ran away. There would, strangely enough, not really, but on the way caught a barbeque "re" - from such odors, even in well-fed giddy. Money I had, but I bravely went and sat in the far room, ordered kharcho, shish kebab and one hundred grams of cognac. The waitress looked at me, hesitated, but the brandy brought. I swept it quickly. Hello zakosel, and as salts in O'Henry, declared its insolvency. Well, I am the administrator - so beautiful plump blonde - phoned his father, he paid the bill (Soviet classics - professor's son cleared).

Parents I have been mature, I was a postural child. They were good, but to me it just was not lucky: if they knew that they were born, I think, would refuse. Then, because I certainly could not understand what it is all worth it.

Try to remember something from my first scenic impressions. Between the ages of eight, I often stare at the mosaic ceiling lamps with pre-war planes at the metro station Mayakovskaya, considered them like their own property. I have them and now I remember, and I can list in order.
With the festival the exhibition of the fifty-seventh year imprinted in the memory of the Golden Fleece, germetricheskaya composition in the yellow-black-red (I think Devazne). This work is perhaps the most vivid impression of my childhood. It is well remembered by Ben Nicholson and Vic Pasmor at the exhibition of British art in Moscow in the early sixties.
Garik Superfin gave me a few pages from Life magazine article A. Marshak, "The Hidden Art". There I first saw the work Zvereva, Yu Vasil'eva, Egorshina, as well as "old men" - Falk and others. I do not really interested in, such work could not be a revelation for me. I, as usual, waited for my next five books (as you can order and keep to one name) in a foreigner. Zverev in the Life "was good, perhaps best of all cho I then see in Kostaki. Looseness Zvereva was a big plus, in Moscow at the time because they were afraid to work, canvas or even paper caused too much respect. The number of successes in Zvereva not great, they are inevitable in the way of his work (five to ten per hundred marriages). "Automatic" Jean Tinguely, or even shooting Niki de Saint Phalle allow a higher percentage. At bezrybe, and even as a protégé Kostaki, the animal was immediately enrolled in genius. By that time I already knew a lot about Volodya Slepyane, his courage technology, saw the work of Igor Lipkova. Kostaki promoted his henchman, well, this is understandable, but why do people make a fool Zverevsky mythical championship. With Pontius "master" flourish Zvereva helpless, but got away to Moscow. Markevitch -? Markevitch, excuse me, a musician, and not Michelle Seyfor, do not ask him too much. Once I saw hanging beside the work of Yakovlev, with Zverev, then for me finally cleared. Yakovlev almost have no setbacks, could turn even the minuses into pluses. While working, he "pulled out" even bad at first glance, things, a couple of months I had to work with him. Volodya is sincere and works primarily on themselves. Zverev as any smear or "scratching" vyebyvaetsya the viewer.

Gaststube LFL Street Razin was a small, very cozy. I came to eleven, it was free, only six hours to fish for the people, by the time my "working" day has ended.
So I spent about three years since the fall of the sixtieth year. These studies became the foundation for my creativity. In the "foreign" I met Nussbergom, Beryozkin, Safonov and his company, they usually were older than me for three to five years. For me it was a very interesting time. Books we looked through the same, periodicals gave fresh information in the smoking room on the stairs could discuss new materials. I note that the thinking in most of my friends have been frozen, the latest trends in poorly perceived. I was younger, carried away by the dialectics of change of direction, any dogma to me was unacceptable. I was conditioned circuits experimented. In the second year for self-similar calculations, I have no need to climb to the dictionary Knaura - I knew it almost by heart. Development of my place rather one-sided - nothing except painting, I did not know and did not want to know. Equals the volume and evaluation of information I could find, but they could not have been. What idiot would kill a very prosperous years in the then Soviet occupation.
One should add that on such a simple possibility of receiving such materials known in Moscow a few, some people were just too lazy and not interested, they completely lacked beards, icons and the Impressionists (five years later a book on modernism and almost all of the periodicals began to be issued only through spetszal on art, so that if someone then caught himself, then later).

In Moscow, almost every beginner in the informal art goes through several stages (or levels). The first involves podrazhaenie "blue" perodu, Čiurlionis, bad Symbolists, some sort early glazunovschina with bulging eyes and a deep "sense." Such works were quite understandable, even for the vigilantes, who realized that these people can and if you want to draw a cow. For many of the "Left" realists, this was the limit of novelty - here they are somehow able to use the acquired in a long learning skills. Work as a Pollock, in their opinion, could have any. I, fortunately, the Soviet arts education is not received, art studio and six months in the College of toys does not count, so I did not need to forget everything that hammered them. I started with a Devazne, but not with Reshetnikov. After viewing the work and conversations with goon I could "relax" even on any ordinary Moscow exhibition - this ultra-Orthodox even worked correctly, they felt the force.
The summer in Moscow, opened the French National Exhibition, I learned about it from posters. The day before the opening came at Sokolniki, jumped over the fence. The Soviet official had already left, the police almost never happened. He went into the halls bezlyudnyye painting. All these Tal Co., Lapikov, Le Mo, Gishia, Bissio and Bazin I already knew from books and periodicals, abstract "Ecole de Paris" rules while in the art world. It was a time Mathieu and Soulages, Esteve and Manes. Kooning in Pollock were their second-rate. Stumbled in on zakutke unusual for me to Puni, some "vyuyarovskogo" type, so I did not recognize him without a signature. Returned to the main hall, kolupnul plaster on the green and pink Fotrie - reliably worked. Gvrtung hung next to Soulages, size is good, but the work is not very. For sculpture Raoul Ubac hid little Tanguy, disgusting. He and Magritte were idols Moscow ssurealistov. Surrealism I refer to the second stage in the development of the "Left" realists. They were already saying the Soviet language, much more "progressive" - a cheap claim remaining, but at least "psychology" and exophthalmia disappeared. A fascination with Dali, Magritte and Tanguy were all, and it was impossible not to succumb to this temptation. Large reproductions of Dali's knock down anyone from the academic to the collective farmer. The third stage requires overcoming a serious, forget and throw away a lot, almost turn inside out. Just slap a piece of paint on canvas could have been in Moscow only a few, prevented ballast training. All the established regulations were zaimet minus sign, take such a step could almost none. For the "seekers" Moscow artists created a paradoxical situation. In fact, even the above, they could not clearly realize it already would have been for them at least some key. The confusion in the minds of many were covered again beard glubokosmyslennym face and a donkey: "Listen, old man ...». These bohemian loudmouth I endured difficult, better to our yard punks communicate.

Okay, let's return to the exhibition. I liked the "abstract" work on exit. I looked, yes it is Claude Monet, a pond some overgrown, this never expected from him, reproductions of his recent works I have not come across. Climbed in the book room, people - no one, only a few workers in green overalls stand dokolachivayut. There was a table laid out with books: what is there not, my eyes ran. I had a orange shirt - no jacket, no jacket, no place to hide, even the newspaper, still, looking around, shoved his bosom skirovskogo Klee, Max Ernst, laid on the right, for a gift - it Lubnin loved. Moved at a brisk pace to the fence, jumped and hid books under the branches and back to the exhibition - was overcome greed. Around a soul. Took two soft album with large reproductions of Kandinsky and Miro, and turned them into the phone, then suddenly a woman speaks to me.
Talking became first in English (translated somehow learned, but did not speak much, and still not better). I managed to prove to her that these albums do I need for the business. Before convinced that she even gave a bag easier to those who have not yet seen. Her name was Natasha Babel, switched to Russian. She became interested in the opportunity to see works of Russian hudlozhnikov. A few days later I came to her in a hotel "Youth". Before the trip came to Stollyaru, took a dozen chart Voroshilov, and Yakovlev, picked up from home and their work.

In the room she lived alone with his girlfriend, sat down to tea. I brought the work laid out, its course, in the center, the other way, for support. My squares and work Voroshilov she quickly folded back into the pile, and Yakovlev became attach to the wall - like. Wanted to see his other work. I took her to Vadim, well, and then they all began to turn, drove the pilgrims, was even the Basin. We bought a lot of Volodins work, from 15 to 20 rubles per schedule.
Oils Stollyar appears to have given, I do not know it all without me there.
With the French, I argued a lot, especially about American painting. This refined aesthetes repelled by American abstract expressionism, then they still believed themselves to Paris center of the universe. About Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, or they can be and do not stutter. They, you see, is Yves Klein, Georges Mathieu, and Soulages, there are different types of avangardistki Niki de Saint Phalle. They were ready to take on equal terms, only two Markov - Toby and Rothko, those were all the same "Europeans" in painting.

These conversations are a lot to me ajar. Funny situation turned out - in Moscow, at the age of sixteen I was trying to protect the American painting from the French arrogance. Such a task proved daunting even for me. Natasha Babel at the name of Jackson Pollock snorted - snobs worthless, French.

At the exhibition I was a lot of times, estimating the impact of size, studied the technology, texture, color - all this could not give a reproduction. By the close of the exhibition, I glut oneself these French "cakes" and through that a better understanding of American abstract expressionism. Misha Roginskii then joked - in such sluyachayah needed pickle.
At that time I became interested in Ad Reinhardt - he then went into the black canvas, changing only in size. The work, which is nothing but a black cover, should theoretically be extremely boring, he does not fear. Well written by a black square of Malevich nevertheless remained painting. On this square at that time in Moscow for many heard the name of Malevich evoked respect, even in hopeless admirers Roerich Čiurlionis and Glazunov. It was considered bad taste to say anything bad about Suprematism. All played in the competence, as well know, and myself - such rectangles, I'll draw at least a hundred.

Already in the sixties to work in the contemporary art without the constant information was impossible. Moscow in the first place was for this reason the provincial - the artists in the mass of the people lazy, wooden football players: the shit we train, we both masters. On the periphery, and say nothing, there was almost no exceptions. French exhibition and Reinhardt gave me the idea to make a picture, not like a painting. At all other sites were already other people's posts, the history of painting direct perception and evaluation were completed. Ahead was the displacement of concepts, the dialectical intellectual game. Application of Lichtenstein and Warhol had already made, but in the periodicals of the first small black and white reproductions have appeared only in the beginning of the sixty-second (Art News, Arts Magazine).

I want to make some clarifications and terminology. Pop art, as such, took shape in the sixty-second (exhibition "Popular IMAGE"). Members of this exhibition, I knew well enough - squeezed everything possible from periodicals (especially memorable dark violet Arts Magazine spring of sixty-three, with the materials of the symposium on the subject). Pop art is, above all, the work of Roy Lichtenstein and early Andy Warhol painting, Oldenburg - in sculpture. "Donald Duck" and "Campbell Soup" 10x10 - the formula of pure pop art, its flags. Up to 61-year no pictures, no cause absolutely no emotion. Enlarged fragment of comics on the canvas and the frame or a hundred labels - things are absolutely new quality. These works are shifting all the usual representations about them nalzya say they are good or bad - they are simply zero. Play them and everyone can, simply insert the sheet of comics in the overhead projector, or neatly glued on the basis of one hundred supnyh labels. This - classic, the audience does not give the slightest concession. At "Popular IMAGE" he could go a little "warm up" next to Vesselmanom or Rosenquist - those not gone so far as Liechtenstein. For me, "Donald Duck" meaningfully equivalent "Women Avignon" ( "Dick Tracy" then was not yet published).

Fool the viewer, using stereotype can, of course, sympathize or rejoice "subjects Liechtenstein evaluate Warhol," colorist ", but the easiest to call them charlatans (remember, all this is happening in the sixty-second year, is not yet" digested "Even De Kooning and Pollock). Some try to attract the ears to pop art Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, Larry Rivers, this can not be and speeches. Rauschenberg successfully combined Merz with G. Hoffmann and Mozervellom, nothing more. Assemblage in the fifties and sixties, too, novelty was not. The concept has remained the same as that of Schwitters. Helicopter Sikorsky Kurt Schwitters at the time, of course, could not see, but it makes no difference. Jones - a great painter, he was more concerned with paint and surface, than the intellectual bias. Closely related to painting and Larry Rivers. I believe that to make a "clean" thing is much harder to fight must first of all with himself - a modern "classic" thing must be emasculated to the limit (it is the sixties). Referring to my work: in some series considered the work finished only when removed all non-working one hundred percent of the elements. Schematic - let, hanging garlands on the tree is not for me. Absence of clear ideas often disguise an imaginary complexity, fool the audience likes it. Demagogue Filonov, by the weak "carpet" of tracks, has managed to convince its exclusiveness of many, now it is almost a legend. Well, anyone like affordable "inaccessibility", it is nice to feel concerned and competent.

Unsubscribe from all that is positive values, it is very difficult, especially in Moscow in those years, people here are still Miro with Magritte rue, only begin commercial Paris to learn, and you suddenly butting in with some explicit *** it, and he is so same and call. The principle of the worse, the better understood by very few, "what is". Discuss these problems could only Safonov, Misha Roginskii and Lipkovym. For me this was not enough.

Attempts soap from the Union I have taken years to twelve or thirteen. He escaped from his home in Odessa, and wanted to meet with foreign sailors in the club sailors, naively counted on their help. Zamelo me directly at the station in Odessa - the parents have signs. Spend the night had a double "quarantine", and then enter the main room. Feeding is very bad. Filling bed - a ritual, some there are triangular scarves have been putting on fluffed pillows in a strictly defined order. I had to learn, otherwise I could ogresti the forehead of "senior". After breakfast, caregivers were interviewed in the red corner. They told us about Kotovsky, Parkhomenko, Meresyev, etc., were all very interesting. A stroll led out into the yard with very tall whitewashed walls. With dominoshnogo table I saw for the first time the sea, small boats in the distance, the very Odessa to see and not have to. Protorchal there for three weeks in the children's home, then with tow arrived in Moscow on Novoslobodskaya, there took away my father. Awkwardly ended trip to Leningrad and Riga.

My dream slip away in the free world finally enveloped the summer of sixty-one years, I remember, we Lubnina almost wept at the news of the beginning of construction of the Berlin Wall. Count was not on that. He spoke with Bukovsky about the possibility of moving through Poland, he gave a couple of competent advice.

Our two-story house number 34 on the Little Bronnaya prepared to endure. He has been compressed from two sides by high buildings - 32 and 36. The builders decided to use the ends of these buildings by building a new block. Our house stood right in front of Patrick, the place of the picturesque: the summer - the boat in the winter - skating rink, music from morning till night - "Rio Rita", "Johnny, what a fine fellow, my lad."

Many neighbors have already left, but my parents are not in a hurry and won: they gave us a great apartment on the Falcon, near the metro. Before moving I went to the abandoned apartments, painted on the walls - the size! Then I saw - a wallpaper, it is almost the same everywhere, no more than three-chetyrezh types. Realized here is applicable only an empty gilt frame to the wall and the painting is ready. Any additions are excluded - a policy decision must be clean.

Wallpapers were wonderful - one type of obscene another. My parents painted the walls bright yellow paint, so enjoy similar wallpaper in the empty spaces I could for the first time. At that time I was engaged in symmetrical compositions and pasted the monotonous rows of squares on the canvas, so that formally to such a discovery was close. I went to the wallpaper store, in the choice of ten to fifteen samples, stood in line for imports, "democratic". Let me in the back room, where large fragments were loose, picked up a very cheeky.

The next day I went to the GUM, bargain big box of hardboard, doper it all up to the house and he brought in an empty room. One box, if you add four bars - six ready-made framework for the work cheaply and without fuss. Purchased a carpenter's glue - the most reliable, took kleevarku, put wallpaper on the basics. Now, I think, should frame get - simpler, but always gilded, to complete the effect. Rembrandt, say, fucked your mother. He made four of them, I sit, you bastard of his own masterpieces, exhibition Pinocchio. Fascinated me. This idiocy - something which, as even a rabid abstractionist these things for pictures not accept. With frames was tight, had to sheathe of lath. Further - more, I walk the streets, I think, what else can borrow in the same way (then, after getting acquainted with Roginsky, learned that he was at the same time wanted to train posters posshibat 'for their own collections, they are back in the early sixties, were still quite good). In Politmagazine on Arbat bought several posters "1st May", "7th November", etc., also stuck to hardboard, obshil rack - the frame. They came friends: Safonov, Shilman, Volodya Schifrin - they liked, but "hang" No one asked, worked all was rude. Yes, and even they did not hang a "wallpaper" on the wallpaper, such decisions were predlevremenny not only for Moscow.

Some of the random said, boring, they say, wallpaper, I had to have something to draw, to revive them some nmibud foul language - dick. Neto people have a sense of proportion, I knew that if I slightest wheeze add - the whole principle of "zero" fails /etc. I was so dangerously close to dady and Merz. Boring about my work - well, naff. The audience is almost always a fool of us should forget.

Repeatedly, when I was a beginner, I "gets" - praised the work of, well, I think that's finally a competent person has got, look at some other time, this "expert" praising one hundred percent bullshit, there are omnivorous people, they all like it wishers. Deduced for myself - do not cast pearls. Kakko while it was interesting to provoke the viewer, it is possible at any level, you only need to know in advance who then waits, and give back. Working in the end you can for yourself, this gradually get used to, in the presence of periodicals is tolerated. It is difficult to explain the whole game writings. My work - painting, writing is difficult and no fun.

Simply, their principles of those years I can explain this: either the plane bounded by a frame or rack, is the picture. No relief is above 10 millimeters is not allowed, ie without entering assamblyazh.Vychurnoy technology and a plurality of normally conceal the absence of new formal ideas. There shall be no additional items for this limited plane - a thing should be very easy, nothing lishneego. I deliberately put these limits. For me, the notion of a clean plane of the picture was as a field for the game of chess, and the number of combinations, even on 64 cells is inexhaustible. In my opinion, almost any new idea mzhet be implemented on a small sheet of paper, that's enough. Applications Karpova, Yves Klein, Kineticism etc. I was dismissed for themselves immediately. Vanguard of this kind I have attributed to the theater, attractions, sports - for anything. Playing on other rules. Revision of the values of these "achievements" in the painting front, gentlemen and artists rhymester.

The first time ran away from home years in 11-12, we had four, made a tent in the woods near the station Razdory on Belarus. Throughout the night burned a fire, but still froze solid. The morning decided to return to their homes. Escapes me then was a lot, but preferred their own. He was in Zagorsk Maloyaroslavets, well remember children's home in Kalinin, merry place, I was put off then with the Leningrad train. Sometimes I even from Moscow had not left. Day walking with the kids, and spent the night in a warm doorways them I knew a few in the region of Brest streets. Sleep can be in the subway, sit in the corner of the car at the Ring - and ride. Morning people a lot, no one before you do not care. The money I vodilis from coins and stamps, missing. The cafe "Harp" in Stoleshnikov, took first and knead at least half a kilo of bread, he togla lying freely on the tables.

Ought to write about friends and acquaintances. Beginning with the second class, I roam to different schools: 122nd, 137th (above a bakery on the corner near Patrick), 124th (Big Bronnaya) has not yet entered in the fifty-ninth year of the 112th, the relatively privileged, for radioprofil to Dorf Schuster, the then-known methodologist. The school was equipped with a radio studio in the hardware soyali console MIE-15.

[Vladimir]

Сообщение от LCR

The person at the pictures I have covered, so that the "identification" helped my sneakers, pereshitaya of school uniforms jacket and toy on elastic band, "prescription" Sasha Vasilyev.

This is what Sasha Vasilyev? Historian fashion scarf?

[color="# 666686"]Added after 2 minutes[/color]

Сообщение от LCR

Garik Superfin gave me a few pages from Life magazine article A. Marshak, "The Hidden Art».

What if someone survived?

[color="# 666686"]Added after 8 minutes[/color]

Сообщение от LCR

wallpapers were wonderful - one type of obscene another.

I cried ...

[LCR]

Сообщение от Vladimir

This is what Sasha Vasilyev? Historian fashion scarf?

I do not know what a fashion historian in a shawl, tell us!

Alexander Vasilyev - it was a very colorful character Moscow 60-70-ies., Son of the Vasilyev brothers (who "Chapaev"). Rather, he was the son of only one of the Vasilyev brothers, but some of the - this story does not specify

[color="# 666686"]Added after 3 minutes[/color]
In our class, children learn well-known in their fields of people: Gotsiridze, Lakshin, Malinin, Braginsky, Zhivov, Borisov. Odngoklassnikov intellectual level was very high, it causes strain in the classroom, although I have little interest at that time, except for grades, cars and airplanes, I'd know what the hell fuck me for example, chemistry or mathematics (in cars and airplanes to me was important only the design and color). The American show has just ended, the class went catalogs General Motors, Chrysler and Ford - we knew many of the visual model, even including affiliated car - Vauxhall and Opel.

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I made friends with Igor Lebedev. We both collected burnt marks British colonies and rock 'n' Roll record. He had a "Tesla", I - "Spalis. We lived side by side, and I have two or three times a day for him dropped. He lived in a large, on Moscow's notions apartment. His father, Vladimir Lebedev, was an assistant and photographer Khrushchev. They hung a lot of colored house pics Nikita. Subsequently, an emigre from the press, I learned that my father Igor was one of the initiators of the printing of "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich".
Khrushchev, he was accompanied in each trip abroad, brought Igor gifts. I note, however, that the Czech "Tesla" was worse than my "Spalisa. Igor's father did not encourage our hobbies Bill Haley, Tommy Steele and Pat Boone, so that the plate for the record, we were caught where they could.

After Khrushchev's visit to America in Igor got a lot of American things, magazines, books on art. Igor knew angoiysky, preparing himself to enter the MGIMO, the chances he had almost one hundred percent.
Somehow, seeing my work, Igor carried away by the art. Gusto he was short and he took up the most accessible and spectacular area - surrealism. Special knowledge and training not required here, but he managed to paint as he could. Works by Dali, Delvaux, Max Ernst, acted on any. Tanguy and Magritte's work, some were very simple to follow, had only become adept paint volumes and shuruy, unless, of course, is fantasy.
Lebedeva work oil "Baby, fallen from a 20-floor" purchased for 5 rubles (new) Braginsky - person in our class dear. Having 15-20 oil paintings Igor cold, father and this fascination is not approved. I often wore his jacket and shirt, he wanted to give me the jeans, they in Moscow was almost not there. Over the years, our meetings became less frequent, friendly relations lasted until the end of the sixties, when we have not met.

Before his departure from the Union, I called him, my mother said that he was in Washington. A couple of years ago, in the LDCs, I read an article about a Soviet diplomat I. Lebedeva, convinced that he was talking about Igor.

More of my zhruzya had little resemblance to Lebedev. In the personnel department of GUM (I get there as a loader) met with Bob Dokuchaev. I was in jeans and a lend-lease green park, while clothing was one of the main indicators of the status of its owner in the area of Gorky Street. After seeing "their" could start a conversation without ceremony. Then already begun to come about poluangliysky jargon, all there "skeypanem", "vaytovye truzera", "shuznya", etc. These words are used not only fartsa and pochtmi all young. Bob "bricklayer" we immediately became friends, spent time together in the "Youth" and "Moscow". Summer had given up on the south - Igor Lebedev sent me a letter from the holiday home in Miskhor. I thought that Bob would be interesting to visit. The Kursk got into the first train south, the money we have almost no, just a backpack with many of people.

The usual way from Moscow to Simferopol occupies half of the day, while we traveled for four days, a couple of times we chafing. Slept on the luggage third shelf, grub problem was not - the road is always treated. The guys we were sociable, especially likeable cornstalk Bob. From Simferopol to Yalta traveled by trolley, there for a week slowed. In tishortah white and blue jeans walked the streets of Roosevelt, how, "shtatniki. Found, of course, their own kind, the time spent cheerfully. They settled on the loaders vegetable base near the beach "Mermaid" had a day gold piece. Returned to Moscow only in late August. Lived a week at home, then again fled. Some days we lived with Bob in good house, in the Pipe, it shows us Alexander Vassiliev. There was a sort of mezzanine, there were two cot with glass wool, cozy. Occupy this place should have been no later than eleven, we closed the hatch, but it did not get away from the drunken, after twelve climbed, snakes.

The idea to slip away from the Union was then, not modern, every second of our environment. Only a few ideas, he had to be persistent and courageous. On the map had to be submitted to Batumi. I was ready for this was not, despite all the arguments of Bob - I remember Odessa children's home, and hopes for success were few.
A couple of years, Bob waved his alone. After that, I never saw him again. Bob Khurgin Dokuchaev and ex-wife claimed that he was killed, but the exact circumstances, no one knew. By the time he was not even nineteen. I was very sorry for him, though in recent years, he did oshizel and communicate with him was impossible.

Here it should be noted that many of the guys with whom I was friendly, fond of for some time, Western painting. I had a collection of reproductions available and I could explain the essence of the case. Dokuchaev drew even before his acquaintance with me, so that abstract art captivated him immediately. In his makeshift shack in Pirogovka I saw the canvas with patches a la E. Ney. He did and kleevskuyu "linear" schedule. Six years ago, in New York, I was Volodya Teteryatnikova, and in one of his albums of the sixties found its Dokuchaev and drawing once, then visited at his home. When dating women, Bob, in my example, declared himself abstractionist - operated smoothly, the most intelligent fool can zatorchat with bitter words of Jackson Pollock and Salvador Dali. "Crocodile" has made these artists good publicity.
After the American exhibition a month or two painted cars in our class that worked I am not alone. Satskaya and other invented dikovennye bumpers, put on the radiators, six or eight lights. About Abstract Expressionism, I remembered at once, somewhere in November.

Once the parents had gone somewhere for the day. I laid on the floor a few kleenok for insurance, frayed and spread watercolor, opened a couple of bottles of ink. Pollokovsky method of work, I knew, I saw pictures in the exhibition. I used the school drawing paper. Countersigned by the gum arabic for two or three sheets. First pasted background, using cut back issues of the American magazine "Foundry", his father received. Paintbrushes dipped in dish with watercolor on drawing paper, she went to bed well, and glossy magazine letters avoided. Well worked English script - the firm. He began then all this watered ink, got carried away and almost all flogged, was serfdom fear dirty walls, this would be my parents are not forgiven. One of the work dried and hung over the bed, the rest had to be thrown.

All winter the fifty-ninth /sixtieth, after the failure of the "large" size and ink I was doing fine abstractions a la journal "Poland", to make small collages, superimposed on top white gouache. The texture was rich, but short-lived. Technology abstract expressionism mastered only in the summer. His parents rented a dacha, he worked on the veranda - space.

My mother tried to make fun of my occupation, teasing me "Aloshey" was such a moron with Palashevsky market. He drew anything from a feudal castles to color triangular-spiral abstractions. I was with him a couple of times in his zassanoy room was not breathe. His work I did not like, I'm still not ready then to the perception of such idiocy. Working with oil, he could not, is cheap poster gouache. Stilyagi bought his ties with palm trees and crocodiles, they were made of the same gouache through a stencil. We took some and abstraction, he asked for them no less than a bottle of port. Paintings and ties Alosha covered with a layer of varnish, so it looked like everything decently, shone.

This Alosha was not alone - demand breeds supply, dudes need not only to the ribs "with Bill Haley. Price for such "abstractions" rarely exceed the cost of a bottle of vodka, cloth with mollusks were much higher, pulled up from chervonetz chetvartaka.
The next time I went to see him only a year later, neighbors said that in Moscow he was evicted, then the law has already begun to wreak havoc on parasitism. "Crocodile" mocked the Americans, who buy scribble chimpanzees Betsey, and me at this time began to work like ugly, illogical. I appreciated the painter's rudeness De Kooning, was like early, before the "arabesque", Jackson Pollock.
After that summer I realized that the necessary knowledge and reproduction, because then I'm not quite understand what he was doing. Since late August, stayed in the sixtieth Inostranka, "America" and "Crocodile" I have already outgrown. Going to school tired, walked two, transferred in the evening, on the street 25-th October, near the library - Inostranka morning, with six in the evening school. In the evening school in general did not raise deuces, teachers meet students from any nonsense, driven percentage performance. My father stopped by several times in the library, looking form, talking to workers, believe in the seriousness of my self.

Of course, he could not endorse it all, but do nothing, we worked out a compromise solution. His previous "arts" I won the right to autonomy, in addition, there was another case, which has restored my confidence in parents.
Plus raypsihdispanseru I was registered in the nursery at 83-em police department, were the cause of frequent runaways. Chief of a child's room was Margarita Mikhailovna Milovanova, police Major. It has repeatedly threatened me "Ikshey", they talked about the colony. I do not very much afraid. Father, this would not be allowed, as a professor and an old Bolshevik, he enjoyed the respect and authority. One day she brought me home Medinskaya writer, author of "Honor", which describes a "kook" Teens and their "correction" in the colony. She herself, quite far from stupid woman, my rant did not cope, in disputes that time I was great to train. Then, to my surprise, my father intervened and quite politely presented it, and my mother managed to calm Margarita Mikhailovna.

In our contract with my father, I, for its part, was required in two years in any case to obtain the certificate, he admitted, even as external examinations. In these circumstances, the father began to devote my monthly amount. This allowed me to take off for the whole winter cottage in Kalistovo (53 km from Moscow). There I began to live and work. On the road to Moscow and back, I spent about three hours. In almost all trains had delved Mutter, not to waste time in vain. Receiving the money, I bought canned goods, pasta and potatoes. All my problems were quickly resolved. I think that hardly anyone from Moscow hudlzhnikov had at the time such a "hedge" freedom.


A couple of months, I attended a course taxi drivers from 4-th park. When registering, I replaced the passport birth year, five took over three - it is not difficult, but it did not come of age. Be our task in shifts of six hours a day, then I went to Razin. The structure of cars we have studied seriously. Makeyev, our teacher, was very demanding. I liked the poster adjustment, something I have pretty well. I liked the steady hum of the engine, the smell of gasoline.

The guys on the course knew about my main hobby, as I usually did not spare notebooks and textbooks. The large "perekusochnoy" change many of them did at my request, "abstraktsionazm. The condition was - not to peek into the work of each other, techniques - colored pencils. Work of future taxi drivers were generally very similar. Typically, they used a diagonal through the whole list, "jumping brush" and always eye. Unexpectedly complex work gave Lishchenko - then he confessed that he had cleverly camouflaged in his abstractions of beetles and butterflies. Reproductions to these tests, I did not show them, so that they all went inside. Loew Kershner and Misha Polyakov done pochtm that Mondrian used the design of a cafe across the street. "Steward" Shamritsky issued a frenzied expressionism, broke a pencil and broke through in several places the paper - closed up Hartung, confident that they are unlikely to have been close friends.

Cartoons of Western painting appeared at that time in many newspapers and magazines, a stereotype "abstraktivizma", as I found out, was formed.
Some, especially on the second pass, seeing other people's work, were carried away and continued to paint during the lesson. Makeyev, our teacher, threatened me (after eight absences driven automatically, but I was already five). Before driving I do not have time to get - a week later I was kicked out. A pack of work these guys I kept a long time.
It occurred to me, and that if illiteracy use as a new value, if the work is extremely bad, not whether they are just so excellent. The idea of such an exhibition had to be postponed for at least a decade - it then me so it seemed.

After the course I began to "construct" their own engines, put them on their planes and tanks. My father once looked looked at my "diesel", at first glance, there was still "way" - injector, cylinder block, etc., but then I was disappointed - such nonsense, he probably saw the first time in my life . On my motor any war would be soon lost. My favorite book has long been a "Life Berezhkova A. Beck, many" technical "work was done under her impression.

Subsequently, I was doing experiments in the madhouse. Choose the most wrapped and first "programmed" them - showing pictures and some their designs. I gathered a collection of the most "outstanding" work. Some of the most illogical decision, I used them in things. Works of schizophrenics made with brushes and paint freely current, it is sometimes very good. They needed time to work on time to tear, otherwise the extra two or three swab turns everything into mud. "Deaf" psychos without control all zaparyvali - worked to a victorious end, "concealed the entire surface. Now I feel sorry for this lost collection, but then I have trained myself to destroy even their own work. Stand on the spot, I could not, I'm interested in what's next - a process for the process.

In foreign nationals in total, I spent at least three or four years. Without current information, work in the forefront, it would be impossible for me. A good source in the beginning was Leninka. In the common room where one could get even "secret vices academics" article Malevich. Some of my friends Safonova dug "Museum of the book, is also in Leninke, right of the main entrance. You could get "Grafis", "Ozhurdi" was quite a lot of albums and books on painting. A good point was the information and library in the house-museum of Mayakovsky, the Russian edition of the twenties. In Inostranka on the stairwell of the second floor were tyat chairs covered with white byazyu, a local debating society, kuralka. There, basically, I became acquainted with many artists and connoisseurs of painting. His place in the hall, I served with eleven. It was at the window to the left of the entrance.

On the first page of Pravda published a crushing ilychevsk article - it was immediately after Khrushchev's blowing up in the Manege. In the smoking room the next day was a lot of talk about it - a blow for us was unexpected. Of the guns on the wheel. It was found that exhibited bilyutinskaya "group", for her, none of us did not take seriously, so amateur. Safonov suggested that the values it does not have to Khrushchev certainly Laktionova than any painting, like a red rag to a bull. In terms none too shy - the inertia of a thaw. Bald pate parody: "so-called abstraktivizm ... which, excuse me, comrades, our people (and any other cattle) with *** do not need) which again is true) ... pidarasy !...!».

[Samvel]

Thank you!

[LCR]

ADMIN and ADMIN,

but here in our cyber-sitting censorship automatic or if you manually put an asterisk? )))))))))))))))

[Vladimir]

I join. I'm against to obscenities deleted if it comes to historical documents and memoirs. Still, it is not abusive, and copyrights accents.

[Vladimir]

Сообщение от LCR

Quote:
Message from Vladimir
This is what Sasha Vasilyev? Historian fashion scarf?

I do not know what a fashion historian in a shawl, tell us!

I assumed that this could be http://www.vassiliev.com/aboutAV.htm, but now I understand that most likely mistaken.

[LCR]

Сообщение от Vladimir

I suggested that this could be http://www.vassiliev.com/aboutAV.htm, but now I understand that most likely mistaken.

No, this is definitely not it, already by age does not fit: your Vasiliev - grudnyashka, 58-year birthday

[color="# 666686"]Posted 10 hours and 45 minutes[/color]
Bohemian life was attractive. I was sixteen - booze, women, and verbiage are not interested in, and the audience that I did not know. At the beginning of the sixty-first overall in the hall came a guy in the green Japanese krtke, received delivery of the huge volume of Pollock, edition of the Thames Hudson's End. He sat down in a remote corner of the right of extradition. Put Pollock on the stand, and laid the folder, and paint. The sixtieth to sixty-second is allowed, I've been doing a lot of copies, but think of copy Pollock could only person inexperienced. It interested me, and when he went into the smoking room, I went after him. They got to know: he was on three or four years older than me. Ed Lubnin, as he called himself, was a connoisseur and lover of jazz, in painting, he was a newcomer. Lubnin came from Novosibirsk, but felt right at home in Moscow, knew half the town. I spent the night where he may have to eat in the conservatory canteen - for ten cents they could eat a plate of soup, bread - from the belly, free. Cabbage soup were quite edible.

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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".
/.../
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.
/.../
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

[LCR]

Misha liked my work "Fire Tool" - a red board with the numbers for fixing crowbar and shovel, she was also in the suit for this exhibition. On its reverse side, I then drew the German tanks to save space, so that the picture has become two-sided.

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hung on the wall paintings - "Poster 1st May" on hardboard framed, monotonous work with glued-on red color, contour map. He brought a couple of "wallpaper" tracks, ornamental symmetrical "geometry". From his father's car magazines cut out a lot of trucks to fit using the mat, obtained under the framework, called them to PONT "watercolor". Attach to the wall planar jets, fool as he wanted.
Came Safonov and other acquaintances to a foreigner. Were Volodya Schifrin, Shilman, Igor sticky. Heard many statements, it was important to me. All together produced a different impression than the viewing of works in turn. Strengths of the work and I knew myself, I was interested in the shortcomings. Lipka was never ashamed of the characteristics, his opinion was very valuable to me. Taking into account the findings of some discussion, I'll soon set to work.

In "Children's World" to sell bundles of colored paper on the back was written: technical waste. This paper allowed me to quickly dismiss carved series, saves time. Even then I brought for myself, that the right technology - the basis for the purely formal search, at some point it begins to self-development, it is sometimes something подсобника. I, a formalist, did not have to overcome himself, to abandon some sort of anthropomorphic values, their I just was not there. So far, funny when I hear phrases like "the artist-philosopher."

Hueplety-art often even do not have representation on the specifics of contemporary fine art, my abstract geometry of the early sixties - the "thing in itself, and I never wanted to see these" experts "identified himself on my" raw material ", any interpretation takimh works very simply, a shadow on the fence. In geometric painting is very simple, so simple that if so frankly, few people believe. I believe that if the picture is the content, which can talk, then this picture should not draw at all. Conceived the more easier for talkers and writers, "Joe Blow were on horseback, demagogues pushed artists. , Objective point of reference, there were hundreds of naked kings.

In the early sixties, read "Secret vices academics" with a rather impudent remarks Malevich, his hooligan nature, I immediately felt I liked it. Malevich only later pochuvstvaval a solid, almost "demigod", also a kind of cult of personality, he is helping to create hangers, "filed with". Ninety percent of his later writings, as well as nonsense Kandinsky anyone reading would not be advised. They are purposely, all confused, "dark" - well, that's their right.

I'll be back to his dacha in Kalistovo (53rd km from Moscow). For 15 rubles a month, I passed the half-house. The hosts were good, the Shem and Jora. They were my lovers, I'm kidding, of course, Jora like moonshine. The first time I saw then moonshine in action - just the "kinetic" sculpture.
In my room hung a large reproduction of Kandinsky mat (with a French exhibition), a number of pictures of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krazner. Pollock tishorte in black, his face hard.
Paper for the work I took in GUM - wrapping. Rounds of all three lines and made a whole pile, all for free. Not have to pity her, and then experiment could without looking back, that you do not torchon. In the art shop in Pushkin brought "relief paste, thick oil enamel, cheap. I bought her a lot, it was very profitable. Surik famous or chromium oxide took in the economic, so that the paint had no troubles. I am not a painter - paint valued primarily for hiding. For major works took plywood and hardboard, once stretched canvas, so he stayed all winter, I was a stranger. The addiction to cheap materials has remained with me forever, even after twenty years, I often zaparyval work, made with paint from the tubes on quality canvas.

Winter and sixty-one-sixty-second was very productive, work lay foot on the porch, hanging in the room and arrange large. I worked then, and on the boxes from the oranges, using a discount poluzasohshuyu watercolor from a tube, ocher, all from the same store on Pushkin. Zabil produce half of the room, smeared with the landlady's wallpaper. I was then only sixteen, how much there is culture of production.

Jora was complacency, especially when the machine gave liquor. The cottage was always well well heated. My "Spalis" played Horace Silver, Jazz Then I started to really like. I tried to listen to classical music, the plate can be taken at the library on Sadovaya - not vospronimalas, no matter how tried to focus, except that the overture of Wagner, and even then, probably due to the fact that he liked Kandinsky. Exhibit on the walls I changed every week. Informel almost did, geometry was clear and floating edges.

Once I managed to get a few rolls of candy wrappers "Swallow" and "Southern Nights". Strengthen all the walls, well, I think, is something I really nobody pereplyunet.
That winter, after the French exhibition, disputes with Natasha and the other French, I mastered the excitement of competition. Destination search then was for me quite clear. I worked very quickly and, as it turned out later, haste in my work was justified. "... Abroad aggressive circles frantically hurrying their KB to develop weapons of mass destruction ", ie sorry, diluted glue supnyh labels and deduced Donald duck on the runway.

This winter, I was a sin to complain, had everything he wanted. Material I was independent, tushonka and rice in abundance. Above me there was no control - either by the school, the Komsomol, trade union or anyone else there. Western periodicals I could see a delay of two to three months, nearly abreast of the latest trends. My preliminary fundamental training allowed me to properly assess the current information. In the sixty-second in the "Art News" I saw a small black and white reproduction of "100 Cans" and Donald Duck (Dick Tracy for a long time, not reproduced) - was bitter to the extreme, for me, working in this vein, de, the subsequent course of events was as palm. At the beginning of the sixty-second candidate had collected on the "Popular IMAGE". Details about this exhibition, I learned after a year of "Arts Magazine", there were proceedings of the symposium. In November, sixty-three, I received the catalog and "spoken" plate with this exhibition of Igor Mead. Besides vremenmi I went to a steppe that was not to talk with anyone in this game dovollno hard to play alone. I could not do anything - write, as Nussberg what-nmbud Vasarely was not for me, I realized that his "genius" enough. He had to blame here, but the Berlin Wall in August and sixty-one was built out for myself, I have not seen. I knew the price that he was doing at that time in Russian art. While in Moscow, I was doomed to obscurity.

My several attempts to escape from the Union were unfounded, lacked the courage and perseverance. Shortly after meeting with Stephanie, I went to Riga, it was no longer any escape from the house. Father, I said that I would look for there school or work close to my beautiful experiments. Operated in me then aksenovsky Star ticket "(as it turned out later, not to me alone, Victor Tomachinsky tried to use the same route, he talked about this before my departure from the Union). Train the collective farms, state farms in the area of Riga - a dead issue, namorosil Aksenov. Was foolish, even in Ventspils - catch nothing. He returned to Moscow.

Trying on the southern land was afraid to shoot regardless of age, the fact that there is bound to the castle, hard drum in childhood "Pionerskaja truth." The real way was one - for higher education in a suitable institute legal journey, and then - with the ends. For me, for so many years pretending to be expected and was a task almost unbearable. So Superman was Alex Levin, my friend and old friend Safonov, nobody's head would not come, that Lesch capable of such a feint.

I'll be back in Kalistovo. Has come April, it was time to move out. Carry all the work in Moscow was impossible, my parents had a collector's mahogany furniture, my mother just home with me all these good things would not let him. Held selection and three or four hours dragged too much for the gardens and burned. I did not think that time spent in vain, I went to a new quality. In February I was seventeen, and in this age, one for a long time was not discouraged.
/.../
Autumn came sixty-three, November. Once out of the Youth Theater (I worked there as a lighting), rose to Gorky, he saw fresh posters of the exhibition of the American charts. Clattered for joy on the shield, look at me askance, two, heard the English language. Asked where they are, one, lower growth, spoke in Russian. It turned out guides from this very exhibition. Long did not know Russian, generally Silent in the second, Igor, I arranged a meeting the next day. Seen on the "Mayak", went to an acquaintance, sat with her, a miserable situation, and then went for a walk in Brest. My knowledge and theoretical utterance \ I have been for Igor unexpected. In our conversations had to use home-grown and to some extent even jointly worked out by the terminology, the word pop art, as I recall, did not eat. Then fashionable muz.zhargonnoe word such as "messy", for example, serve with me for the name of what later became known as "kitsch", etc. In discussions of "popular IMAGE" greatly helped the concept of dialectics, the negation of negation, for example. Pop art (I use this term only in the absence of another), his formula was the inevitable consequence of the domination of Paris abstract "impressionism". French fifties and sixties, reached their ceiling, above can not jump. It was kind of Tel-Amarna or rococo. New York clearly reacted to the situation - appeared "primitive" a new quality - the intellectual. Formal ideology of Liechtenstein and Warhol's request is akin to Picasso and Larionov 1907-1910 gg. Both use negative values (conventionally this concept I called antiformalnoy). American pop-ORT using a sign system designed for the millions needed and respected its customers. In the Soviet Union was, and there is only one distinguished user - the army, others simply do not, all the impersonal, from the stove and must dance. Comprehensive cult of Soviet imperialism includes both components of the revolutionary and party themes. This militaristic Eldorado I exploited with pleasure bordering samoizdevkoy, I knew what he was doing. Militarism has introduced several generations of Soviet, get rid of it is almost impossible, except is a relatively small group of intellectuals.

My baggage is then included hundreds of names, I have their free operated, and could give shematichechky figure, if something Igor did not remember. In his room at the hotel "Ukraine", he worked on some popartistskoy composition, using of the former Soviet posters, invited me to her, but at that time I did not want to risk it. I made him a list of artists, at that time I knew almost all the most interesting in Moscow. Surrealists, I can not stand. This spectacular for a fool-viewer *** It involved many of Lubnina to such "known" mediocrities as Vechtomov or Sooster. The first "illustrated" science fiction "a la" The Andromeda Nebula ", the second" improved "Magritte's introduction of a blevotnoy invoice.

We meet frequently with the Foreign Ministry, took him first to Roginsky. Mischa had just finished his "desk and chair, large. Igor immediately appreciated his work on the road I've told him about Misha, so that he vrubilsya immediately. Discussed the sale, the next day, Igor was unable to attend, I drove Misha money and wanted to take the canvases, he suddenly any success. I tried to convince him for a long time, but nothing came of it, then I did not quite understand. I now think that his fate could be quite different. Mead drove to Moscow, were the addresses of ten to fifteen, at Shifrin, Safonova, Nussberga, Durnovo. To people not to fail, used prohodnyaki, subway doors, etc., books on such matters, I read a lot, just drove Igor. There were a Sitnikova, Vasily Yakovlevich added it addresses these visits have taken place without me. At home, I introduced him as a Polish art historian. Igor looked at work, liked, and said that they had I would have gone. Gave him two small gouaches from the "Land" series. My pop-art work, past kalistovskuyu selection, were very cumbersome, plywood and hardboard not svernesh, they weighed a lot, so take them with you, he could not.

After some time, received a summons to appear in the reception room of the KGB at the Kuznetsk bridge, near the vintage store. He told me about this father, but he went alone, I fear they were nothing, that you do not Agajanova Squad, where spifflicate be thorough. Took me a uncle, Basil typical, massive, like his desk, this and that, of the Foreign Ministry, of course, why, they say, you meet, what conversations. I do not know, but I think it managed to convince him that anything other than painting, I did not speak with Mead. I gave him a couple of names of American abstract painters, few-isms, ie went on the offensive. He sent me, telling no longer meet with foreigners. Mido, I stopped to call, at that time decided to come to MSU art criticism, geese do not want to tease. Discussions with Mead (except Muscovites Lipkova and Shifrin, of course) gave me a lot, a new incentive to work. Was the end of the sixty-third year. Kennedy has already slapped, and "voluntarist" still continued to bark at all, time for art was not very good, but again I vpryagsya. Meeting with the Foreign Ministry, I took it as a gift from above, for such I never dreamed of - a man there, but still aware of all cases.

[iosif]

LCR,
thank you very much. For me it is almost unknown, and therefore particularly interesting.