Edward Steinberg: My prediction is reduced to the fact that this market is bound to collapse ...

[Евгений]

Interesting thoughts of Edward Steinberg (forecasts come true ..),( EA)
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  Article: Yuri Kovalenko (Paris).
Rows of Russia Academy of Arts supplemented by four well-known artists of the sixties, called nonconformists. This is Erik Bulatov, Vladimir Nemukhin, Oscar Rabin, and Edward Steinberg. The youngest of them, Steinberg, 71 years. The last two decades he lived in two houses - between Paris and Tarusa. One of the most popular modern masters - Steinberg exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery, Russian Museum, in New York's Guggenheim Museum and the largest galleries in Europe. Opened Steinberg, then drag out a miserable existence in the mid 80-ies-known French gallery owners Claude Bernard. "I was shocked by the beauty of his paintings, - says Bernard. - It was clear that for these works are great traditions of Russian avant-garde." With academician Steinberg in his Paris workshop met the correspondent of "Izvestia".

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question: What are the feelings you felt at that moment, when the president of Arts Zurab Tsereteli put on your toga academician?

Reply: Recognition homeland terribly pleasant. And the fact that he wore toga Zurab, doubly pleased. He is head of the academy, and I to him is always a positive attitude.

in: Of course, this event: the leaders of non-conformists, persecuted under the Soviet regime, suddenly joined the ranks of the classics of domestic art.

A: First of all - not suddenly. We have been working for more than half a century. Soviet power, of course, we did not like. But today times have changed. And I said during the ceremony: "let bygones be bygones."

in: In short, the Academy rewarded you deserved.

about: I was very surprised that Tsereteli, and especially Vice-President of Tair Salakhov almost tearfully confessed more than talking about our merit. Yes, we were persecuted, not recognized, but no sense of revenge I do not.

in: "Of the non-conformists - in conformist" - snapped some of the critics about your admission to the Academy of Arts. Power, they say, petted former dissidents.

about: Power petted, and thank God that now in Russia a normal life.

in: You have recently awarded the Order of Friendship ...

about: It is a pity that not awarded the other nonconformists. But most of all I am touched that I was made an honorary citizen Tarusa. I was a little public-spirited, and I can help with these regalia of the city and to intercede for the persecuted people.

Q: And how are you doing this?

about: Helping the hospital, church. I gave at a charity auction of his work, which was sold for 15 thousand euros, and gave the money the hospital. I have two homes in Tarusa, one of which I want to do fund families Steinberg (artist's father - a famous poet and translator Arkady Steinberg. - "The News") and convey to the city.

To: You say that you help the persecuted. Now is there were persecuted?

about: And how! I helped to achieve justice in the scandalous history, made a splash with a hospital in Tarusa. Started a good thing, bought equipment and began a persecution of officials of the chief doctor ... I wrote a letter and the local authorities in respect of a disabled woman who lives in a ten-room with his daughter. They do not even water. It is also driven.

in: So you're in Tarusa play the role of defender?

A: Yes. All resentful of authority can be knocking on my door, and I will help than I can.

Q: Why are you so attached to Tarusa?

about: I was brought there in months of age. I've become an artist. Tarusa was famous even before the revolution - here lived Baltrushaitis, Polenov, Borisov-Musatov, came Balmont, Andrei Bely, Tsvetaeva. And in Soviet times - Richter, Paustovsky, Tarkovsky, Messerer. In Tarusa visited and Solzhenitsyn.

in: Earlier you mostly lived in Paris, and now you, you say, "pulls in its kennel."

A: I had cancer twice - in Paris, I was treated ... Of course, I'm from France pulls in Tarusa. While the friends I have now more in Paris. I still find myself in the French art space, and Paris - my second homeland.

In: The supreme art of the French consider "art de vivre.

A: Yes, they are able to live and live for today. So it should be done. But the main thing that people are protected by law. To you and will not approach the police for no reason at all will not let the face. At us in Russia so far in this regard, the absolute powerlessness.

in: You often call themselves rooted in the soil. What does this mean?

about: natives - is one who walks the earth, not divorced from it. I love my geography, and accuse me that I was "nationalist", "patriot". But I really love Russia. What's wrong?

Q: Where can you better understand how the artist - in the West or in Russia?

about: me, in my view, appreciate, and there, and there. But, of course, an elite circle. I am part of the Russian-European culture. My idol - Kazimir Malevich. It is more visionary than artist.

Q: In your abstract painting many religious symbols.

about: I'm a believer, and I have all built on Christian philosophy.

in: Today, prices for paintings of artists of your generation have reached staggering heights at auction. Kabakov spent several million dollars. Drew themselves up to one million milestone Krasnopevtsev, Bulatov, Vasiliev ... Do they really worth all that money?

about: One dress, so worth it. In this regard, you can laugh, you can applaud. But I'm skeptical. I am a little familiar with the situation on the art market. In Western art such prices do not.

in: Some experts predict Russia's art market inevitable collapse. Others, however, are convinced that at current oil prices will rise and prices of art.

on: My prediction is reduced to the fact that this market is bound to collapse. from contemporary artists remain two or three: Kabakov, Weisberg, Krasnopevtsev.
When will incur to sell the rest, their pictures will be worth two pennies.

Q: In "Grand Palais" just passed Salon "Art Paris", widely open the doors for Russia's art. George Ostrecov showed sculpture - a sort of human-machine, copulating with a refrigerator. Our other artist captured on canvas Chinese, Russian raping the girl. Maybe the rights of ex-Minister of Culture Sokolov, who called such creations pornography?

A: This is a monstrous banality. And Sokolova, who was brought up in this culture - this, of course, pornography. But the ban is not necessary. Any ban is a backlash.

in: Artists for the needs full freedom of expression?

about: Picasso said that art in general, freedom is not needed. He said that art is born when there is no freedom and complete freedom when it dies. kill him and money.

To: You claim that the artist creates for himself. But Rubens and Rembrandt worked to order.

about: Their customers had other - at the level of the artist. And then order the order, but they wrote for themselves, thinking about God, about death, about life.

in: Familiar art dealer recently complained that the demand for contemporary Russian art is growing, but the "quality product", they say, is not enough.

about: The territory seized gentlemen curators and art dealers. Solid-commerce. Today, some curator at the Venice Biennale is nonsense, and thinks that the terms of idiots. King, long ago, naked, but everyone is silent, afraid to look stupid.

in: Meeting of the Tretyakov Gallery reflects the situation in the contemporary domestic art?

A: In some extent, yes. Although the exposure for some reason now, no such remarkable artists as Sveshnikov or Kharitonov. But still, my generation is mainly represented. And I like that there is and avant-garde and Socialist Realism. So it should be - this is our story.

Q: In an elite list of Russians, published in the press were just two artists - Ilya Glazunov and Nikas Safronov. Both occupy the 104-th position.

about: 104-place is not so bad. Hence, they are still thinking. And Glazunov, like him or not, - a phenomenon. Poor, but a phenomenon.

in: Today, the most advanced Russian art in no way inferior in courage to the west.

about: Our art is very provincial. We still have to reinvent the wheel, which in the West have been using for half a century.

in: Well, how dear one a social art, which has been raised to the skies in the West?

about: Art in Russia is highly politicized. Sots Art - pure politics, painted by Russian geography. the Council of Deputies upon a time there. How much can you talk about it! I'm not interested in kissing policemen.

Q: Is there a modern art sort of mission, but shocking?

on: Zamorochit head. Pretty cheap. Sell. This is theater of the absurd. As one Frenchman said: "What is fashionable, it is art".

In: Met thou among today's collectors of new Tretyakov, Shchukin and Morozov?

A: No. It all collectors ... money, unfortunately.
http://www.izvestia.ru/person/article3117760/

[artcol]

Adequate and honest man. Just look at a monograph on him. Not all like it - but some things are really outstanding.

[Евгений]

artcol, Edward Steinberg, one of the best non-conformists, and you're right

Сообщение от artcol

adequate and honest man.

[Евгений]

Artist of Russia, academician, a brilliant representative of the second wave of Russian avant-garde. Born in 1937 in Moscow, studied at the children's artistic circle, then his father - a graduate VKhUTEMAS. Exhibited since 1961.

The first exhibition Edik Steinberg held four decades ago in his apartment in Moscow and was devoted Tarusa. Now one of the pillars of Russia's non-conformism most of the time working in Paris, but every year a few months back at home. " The opening of his latest exhibition at the prestigious Paris gallery of Claude Bernard honored by the presence of the famous art historian Pierre Rosenberg, until recently the director of the Louvre. He appreciates the painting Steinberg and attends all of his exhibitions. The main French expert on Russian art Jean-Claude Markade writes in the catalog of the exhibition: "Absolute originality Steinberg is that it creates -icon painting, figurative elements which acquire a transcendental dimension. In many ways, he develops the idea of the Casimir Malevich, who had a huge impact on the world of painting. we discover new, previously unknown to the world of contemporary Soviet art, which surprises us with the diversity, depth finder, spirituality.

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The state loves only those who love him

- You - one of a handful of powerful non-conformist artists, the sixties, which included Nemukhin, Yankilevsky, Yakovlev, Plavinsky, Rabin, Sveshnikov, Kabakov ... It's amazing how you put up mode!

- In the 60-s regime has already begun to decay, had become less rigid. We were lucky - it was not so terrible as in the 37 th or after the war. We have condoned, and maybe some people at the top, even sympathized with us: they, like us, like freedom. Of course, there was fear - that will be sent, sent to prison and the like. But the artists still special language, which does not interfere with that system. We neither of whom are independent, though I'd been followed, along with his wife was summoned to the KGB ... When I was following the expulsion of Solzhenitsyn signed a letter in his defense, for me a long time closed all the roads. State loves only those who meet him to reciprocate. This is not my case, even here in Europe.

- You were the son of an "enemy of the people." Your father - a poet Arkadii Steinberg - spent time in camp. And you think, for many years in misery ...

- Very. But the whole country is stricken. I was a child, like many Soviet children. When I went to school, then no one said that my father was sitting. He served from 1937 to 1941, then from 1948 to the 1953rd. My father always said that the camp was free. He was an idealist, a fan of our leader and teacher, and believed that the term he was given the case - "that was not such a fool."

- Is it true that your father was sitting a wonderful artist Boris Sveshnikov, who had recently died in Moscow?

- Boria with the other children were taken directly from the institute in 1947. When the father saw his drawings at the camp, he was struck. My father worked there as an orderly and helped arrange Boria hospital. Then parents Sveshnikova paid overseer, who rubbed his guard. Only because of this he was in camp and survived.

- Who dare to buy your paintings?

- In general, unfortunately, the diplomats said. Unfortunately - because the pictures are gone and they do not return. In this "diparte" I see a great injustice. On the one hand, the diplomats to buy them, because they might have liked them, but on the other hand, it was their "work" on the erosion of ideological foundations, and other follies.

- Therefore, they have contributed to undermining the system by purchasing your paintings?

- Build and he has already compromised from the inside ... Of course, buying and Russian - the poor students, as well as Slavic studies from Germany and France. But even such a collector, like George Kostaki. But basically, we gave their work. Support Costacis was moral rather than economic. Even in the first Russian avant-garde, he is not very much pay as much to us, tramp ... A bottle of vodka, put da invite home to sit among his masterpieces, which are now known throughout the world.

- Some of the artists - Shemyakin, Tsalkova - managed to escape back in the 70 th. Why you did not follow their example?
 
- Firstly, I never wanted to leave. Secondly, I have long since "gone" in on itself, and be an immigrant twice in my power not enough. And then, each in their own way to understand freedom. I had a duty to the parents, the daughter of ...

- But, as we know, the ice was broken, and after the first exhibition in Paris 15 years ago was followed by a series of exhibitions in different cities of the world, including New York, Cologne, as well as in the Tretyakov Gallery. Today, you - a successful Maitre, who settled on the banks of the Seine.

- Fifteen years ago I first got out of the "iron curtain", in Paris. I fell in love with him. In addition, I am very fond of French artists - Van Gogh, Gauguin, Rousseau, Picasso. But when Claude Bernard invited me to work in Paris, I immediately agreed. First tried. Look - turns. And now more than ten years is obtained. Unfortunately, at my age it is difficult to teach the language - this is my only set. In all other respects I almost Parisian. Paris - an international city.

- And life is like here other Russian artists?

- Russian artists of the third wave forever remain in exile. French society is not only Russian, but in general few people are taking, so their arrival, in my opinion, was a great misfortune for them. They were not ready to meet with Europe, with the rigid, closed world. At us in Russia are connected with love, soul and heart. And then, Russian art - especially the 60-ies - is out of the market, but here the art of moving in the direction of the market. Artist - something like an athlete: who was the first run so far, that and get a piece of cake. Our artists worked only in the table, and when they arrived here, they were regarded as abnormal, trying to reinvent the wheel. The language here was long passed.

- Almost none of them could not name either do not earn big money, but almost no one returns to his homeland ...

- Very difficult to return. And those who lived in the West 10-15 years without a break, do not do that. They simply can not live in Russia. Society has changed, everything changed.

- And you do not consider myself an immigrant?

- No, I never was. As I said, I was an immigrant "inward". But, I am a Frenchman born, probably, and there would be an outcast. Each year, leaving a few months to Tarusa - where I grew up, studied, where my friends. Sometimes I worked there, and sometimes, if I get tired in Paris, the favorite in Tarusa just breathe ... In general, I love Russia.

- For what?

- For what it is - a sick child. To understand why Russia is sick, we must honor our history but in our skin to live ... She taught me to love my father and ... life.

Life as art, art - like life

- The French played a big role in your destiny. First of all, I mean the Claude Bernard gallery owners ...

- It was a gift in a terrible world where everything is decided by money and where the artist is very difficult. Especially since my pictures are intended for purely elitist circle, and I once refused to many galleries. Claude Bernard - former pianist, selecting artists, in which he feels the music. Previously, he was in his castle in the Loire, where the body of the XIV century and a hall for 1200 people, conducted musical festivals and invited the best Soviet artists - Sviatoslav Richter, Natalia Gutman. Bernard not only satisfied with the exhibition, but also gives me the opportunity to live well. But in the end, I lived in the "Council of Deputies, so that probably does not have gone here. Well, there would be a workshop in Paris. So?

- Were there for you, as a painter, some revelations in the West?

 
Group photograph of: Steinberg, Victor Pivovarov, Ilya Kabakov
 
- In the West, I have seen many exhibitions of classical avant-garde, which could not be seen in Russia. Opening for me was Paul Delvaux, the Belgian surrealist. I specially went to Brussels to show Rene Magritte. But because of modern art to me little love. In the West everything is very commercialized. A lot of bubbles, which burst after their "hyped" and removed the foam.

- To what extent the French experience and the local "ineffable lightness of being" reflected in your work?

- In Paris, where everything is so convenient and cute, I kept the existential sense, which is brought from Russia.

- Can we consider the past decade, "French period" of your creative biography?

- Most European. Many Western artists influenced me, including the U.S.. Influenced and Parisian atmosphere, and the city of color, and communication, and French charm. The French life as art, and art - like life. Infinite sitting in restaurants, talk. I even sometimes think that they are working just as bad as the Russian, and it brings us together. For me important is the fact that my French friends I can rely on. They are not jealous, not intrigue, and artists often need help. True, I had to work hard for ten years, the French to appreciate me. I'm a stranger to them.

- In our age of globalization, can we talk about some specifics of modern French art?

- It is, unfortunately, is like an American. I also like artists mainly 50-60-ies - Nicholas de Stael, Serge Poliakoff, Andrew Lanskoy, Sergei Sarsuns ...

- But what are the French? The same Russian who lived in France!

- They both Russian and French. And I myself, as I think fit into this line of the Paris School of abstract art ... First of de Stael I saw in the 70 years in Moscow with George Kostaki, and recently passed his major exhibition at the Pompidou Center and the Russian Museum.

- I understand that you are writing mainly in France, and the house is "charging" thoughts and impressions ...

- Artists must be constantly nourished his country with all its problems - political, economic, cultural. I aspire to be rooted in the soil in the sense that invested in the word Dostoevsky. I understand perfectly Marc Chagall, who said that he and Paris continued to write Vitebsk. This applies to all our masters, who found themselves in France. They have kept Russia's powerful energy and thus gained their freedom. The paradox, in my opinion, lies in the fact that in Paris, where everything is allowed, the collapse of modern art. This is a dead city, where the best exhibitions are devoted to classical art, including classical avant-garde. The French are not very fond of the modern language of art. It has always rested here on the individual dealers - not the Impressionists, Van Gogh or a Gauguin nobody bought. The local authorities, however, as elsewhere, supported only official art.

- However, hundreds of Parisian galleries briskly selling works of contemporary artists ...

- All this is a purely commercial matters. There are pictures for the circus, for the church and a barbershop. For the latter, and designed what is now sold in galleries. Recently, at a Paris auction Drouot sold for good money to Russia crafts that were issued for the new Moscow and St. Petersburg "school". Their hardened artists who specially brought from Russia to Paris.

All we got out of the square of Malevich


- In France and Germany, your exhibition followed one after another. When will turn to Russia? The last time you exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery 10 years ago.
 
- I offer the exhibition and the Russian Museum and Tretyakov Gallery and the Museum of Samara, but for the exhibition should be about 50 thousand dollars - a directory, insurance and transportation. We are looking for money. One sponsor has been found.

- What are the trends in your opinion, dominate contemporary art?

- Painting with all its accessories dies. Modern art is everything, including our conversation. I do not know what will happen in the future - can return to the picture. Art is a big illusion, and contemporary art is trying to put together art and life.

- What time is most suitable for the muses - the strong shocks or social well-being?

- "Art in the freedom does not need", - said Picasso.

- But in the Soviet era art consisted of 99 per cent of social realism ...

- But in the Soviet arts were very good, quality things. Name at least the work of Academician Dmitry Zhylinski. A good theatrical designer David Borovsky. Can somehow relate to Popkov, but he is still a classic "thaw". Finally, it was a wonderful school schedules.

- You frequently refer to the philosophers - Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus. Does this mean that your creative philosophical roots?

- Yes, it's roots mystical, philosophical. I have not invented all those involved in Russian avant-garde.

- Do you agree with the fact that the Russian art came out of the Icon?

- It's not quite true. In the XVII century, with the Wanderers, the avant-garde - a different artistic language. And interest in the icon appeared relatively late. It is inherent power, which enables the Russian culture to exist. Under the icon, we mean God's religion.

- And your painting is connected with an icon?

- The icon for me, especially the space of worship, from which I draw knowledge. The icon has a different dimension - the religious, visual. She has a timeless artistic language, which leads to the Byzantine Empire. As an artist, I came out of the Russian avant-garde, which was connected with the Russian icon. It is through the icon, I realized Malevich and realized what he was doing. His square - the same icon, but the icon of the church split. Then were the icons representing the red square, then there is fire. They hung eunuchs.

- Can you be considered the heir of Malevich, with whom, as you say, you never stopped the dialogue? "I broke the blue shade of color restrictions - wrote a great artist - came out in white. For me, comrade aviators, swim in the abyss ... "

  - Of course you can. All we got out of his square. I am the heir of the entire Russian culture. We recently spoke with Nemukhin about whether we can assume Wanderers Russian artists - I am referring to their visual side. In my opinion, national, coming from the icons of Russian avant-garde art, opened, and not itinerants. Art I largely intuitive. In my last exhibition critics already saw something else. They claim that I have found some other perspective, which I, frankly, has never sought. They say the relationship with the Kabbalah, which I have not studied. Yes, I enter the number, but it is not a Jewish cult Kabbalah. Instead, I went from Byzantium: the number "3" - this trinity, "12" - the number of months ... All this is in Christian symbolism.

- Your wife - known art critic Galina Manevich, author of many works on the domestic non-conformist artists. Whether you value her opinion on your work?

- Galya - my guardian angel. And then, she a character from this time. Unlike artists who have no education, except internal, it is a professional critic. If it says "bad", I agree with her. True, she sometimes alters his point of view!

- Do you already have successors, imitators?

- There are many, but they are all from me repudiate. A lot of fakes and that for me a great "compliment".

- Russia crowd slowly ripens to the most "advanced" painting. Exhibition "Abstraction in Russia" was organized at the Russian Museum and another 23 galleries of St. Petersburg. Released two-volume catalog has 1200 items, which included and your work ...

- There are attempts to introduce an abstract language in the Russian consciousness, but it will take to pass a huge school. Looking for a good exhibition. In the meantime, we are only dealing with opportunistic things. We must pay tribute to the Russian Museum for his work. This is a real, albeit belated feat.

- What should be kept, in your opinion, in the history of our painting artists who call the strange word "nonconformist"?

- Such major artists as Krasnopevtsev, Kabakov, Weisberg, Rabin, Nemukhin, Yakovlev, Yankilevsky already entered the history of our art. They are absolutely competitive in relation to the Western masters.

- Was not their art in the main protest, that is politicized?

- Every art protest. We protested against the lack of freedom, not against social realism. The artist creates primarily for himself, but his inner freedom is the cement of art.

- Are not you embarrassed that the symbolism of your paintings is not easy to decipher?

- My pictures - it's still not coded, not "Glass Bead Game". To understand them, we just have a little think. Besides, I still partly returned to figurativu. Sometimes I write on the canvases of the character names - "Ivan the sun", "Mary and Ivan Zvezdarevy" ... "Ivan the sun" for me as a pagan concept. A Zvezdarevy - my dead friends, who lived in Tarusa. It turns out that sort of conversation with the dead.

- In some of your recent paintings striking red color ...

- When I was sick, I lost a lot of blood. And Claude Bernard, seeing my work - disturbing, intense, expressionist, - said: "So this is your red period."

- One of the paintings is called "Eurasia". This, presumably, about Russia?

- Naturally, although I am not a fan of Eurasianism. I have already said that I consider myself rooted in the soil, and not a Westerner and not Slavophil.

- I know that you have a heart aches for their country, for which you want to do something ...

- Built in Tarusa house, which will leave the city. I do not pretend that there was a museum - let them live in it, poor people, maybe artists. In addition, I have paintings in Paris, Lansky, Mansurov, other artists, which I give to the Tretyakov Gallery.

- You is more important than the recognition in Russia or the West?

- Of course, in Russia. But we have long been resigned to the fact that houses are not wanted.

George KHABAROV http://www.sovsekretno.ru/magazines/article/1091Paris

[Прохожий]

That's interesting, and the adequacy of the perception comes with age? Or the level of understanding by all thinking people of approximately the same, just need to muster the courage to pretty to speculate on the extent to dress the king? In any case, great interview - good questions raised by a wise man ...

[artcol]

Steinberg, he lived in the countryside, hence the appropriateness.

[Кирилл Сызранский]

artcol, how much to spend in the village to become appropriate?
Many, long time, probably not necessary, and some from a long stay in his village in such an "inadequate" care, house burning.

[artcol]

Сообщение от Cyril Syzransky

artcol, how much to live in the countryside to become appropriate?
Many, long time, probably not necessary, and some from a long stay in his village in such an "inadequate" care, house burning.

It depends on what. Now he seems to Tarusa lives. Not quite the village - a small town like. And he lived in the northern village on Vetluga in Pogorelka.
A lumpen - that he was in lumpen, that in the countryside.

[Кирилл Сызранский]

artcol, "Every year, leaving a few months to Tarusa - where I grew up, studied and where my friends. Sometimes I worked there, and sometimes, if you get tired in Paris, the favorite in Tarusa just breathe. .. "
Here's a recipe adequacy, live in Paris and come to Tarusa.

[Vladimir]

Сообщение от artcol

Now he seems to Tarusa lives.

What, again? Is it not in France?