IZO

I believe in Veryu

Work on Oleg Kulik's monumental project Veryu ("I Believe") is proceeding apace. Each participant is required to produce a special project; most of the thirty-odd participants have had their ideas rejected multiple times as Kulik forces the bar higher in search of a new level of ambition and professionalism. Post-modern irony is definitely out, New High Seriousness is in. Maybe Boris Groys's prediction for the exhibition will be borne out. The show will occupy a huge space in the new VinZavod complex; the "closed opening" for VIPs takes place 24th January, the public opening on 27th. Total cost: over $300,000, unheard of for a privately-curated show in Russia. Kulik himself dons a suit from time to time to glean funds from Moscows oli- and minigarchs. Chief sponsor Vasili Tsereteli is wondering, will there be a massive scandal, outdoing Look Out! Religion! and the recent Blue Noses confiscation?

Pants!

A Blue Noses saga, Italian-style (pdf).

Piter 2006

Andrei Vorobei reviews the year in art (pdf) in St Petersburg.

Images of Russia

Gerd Ludwig has been photographing Russia and the USSR for thirty years. Links to his series Broken Empire and Soviet Pollution. Below: Novokuznetsk, circa 1990.

Putin's visit

A week ago (21 December) President Putin visited the art school established by Ilya Glazunov, the Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. His entry in the visitors' book reads:

I congratulate the staff of the Academy on the high standards you set for your students, educating them in the best traditions of the patriotic school. We are proud of you. [Via ITAR-TASS, in Russian].

Bulgakov flat attacked

The museum-apartment of writer Mikhail Bulgakov has been vandalised by people who believe that Bulgakov (and his fans) was an agent of the Devil. Report (in Russian) on LiveJournal.

SovCom results

Lenta.ru looks at the results of SovCom's auction of 23rd December, under the heading Prices of Soviet painting have stabilised; Kommersant also reported on the results (both in Russian). The conclusion drawn in these Russian articles - that the market has ceased to rise because works were failing to better or even achieve the prices they would have made last year (for example, Deineka's image of boys running out of the water went for $100,000, whereas a lacklustre still-life reached $250,000 last year) - is not compelling. There's the question of quality, which journalists can't be expected to ponder; and doubts about the authenticity of any of the works would have been enough to keep prices down. As a rule of thumb, when a work at a reputable public auction fetches significantly less than the market price, the reason is often that most potential buyers are suspicious of the attribution or other claims made for it. One can see the same pattern of surprisingly low prices for some lots at Sotheby's and Christies' auctions in London and New York.

New collection at Zimmerli

The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, home to Norton Dodge's collection of non-conformist art, has acquired a major collection (pdf) of Hungarian art.

Cheer up!!!

LJ User Sturman reports (pdf) on the extraordinary paint-jobs given to some apartment-blocks in Ramenskoe, just outside Moscow. A couple of panoramas below, plenty more images on his page. Via englishrussia.com blog.

Russian-Jewish art collection

Vyacheslav (Moshe) Kantor has a fine collection of Jewish art, including work by several Russian-Jewish artists, among them Chagall, Soutine, Bruskin. According to ynetnews.com

Six years ago millionaire Moshe Kantor embarked on a war against those trying to conceal the Jewish identity of Russia's greatest artists. Now he boasts the greatest collection of its type worldwide.

I'm not sure that the Jewish identity of several of Kantor's artists has been concealed very effectively, but I'm prepared to stand corrected. Kantor, who apparently lives in Switzerland, talks a little about his mission here.

Hermitage art returned

Another painting stolen from the Hermitage has been returned. This time it was Jean Leon Gerome's Piscine du Harem. Apparently it has been cut into four pieces.

The year that was

The Moscow Times has a round-up of the year in Russian culture (.pdf). Brian Droitcour, of the same publication, looks at the year in art (.pdf). By Saturday December 23 the art business in the West has largely shut down, but in Russia activity will continue until New Year's eve. Today, for example, SovCom is staging the highest-value auction it has ever attempted. Prices in excess of $100,000 are expected for works by several post-war Soviet realists, including Boris Shcherbakov, Aleksei Gritsai and Vladimir Stozharov.

Wi-Fi champs

Moscow seems to have leapfrogged every other capital city in the world in the matter of internet access: Golden Telecom has arranged blanket wi-fi coverage across much of Moscow. It's currently free in beta. A friend of mine is using it on the 13th floor of an apartment block near Moscow University, and it works well.

Gavrilov rising

The Guardian looks at the ups and downs in the career of pianist Andrei Gavrilov, youngest ever winner of the Tchaikovsky Piano Prize. Gavrilov is the son of painter Vladimir Gavrilov, one of the leading Moscow country-life painters of the 1950s.

Intellectual property

According to Kommersant, President Putin has signed into law some intellectual property legislation; but it is not clear to me from the brief (poorly translated) article just what it will mean in practice.

Museum of icons

The Asbury Park Press looks at Gordon Lankton's Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, Mass.

Sotheby's does contemporary

Bloomberg previews the upcoming Sotheby's sale of contemporary Russian art in London. Star lot may be Erik Bulatov's Revolution-Perestroika of 1988.

The Method

The Australian looks at The Method (pdf): the hidden link, as I pointed out in Soviet Socialist Realism, between Soviet Socialist Realism and Hollywood. Both the Soviet painters and the Hollywood actors were influenced by - they both practised - The Method.

Sunday morning mood

Judging by the newspaper  Moskovskie Novosti, which I am reading over brunch in the Starlite Diner, Moscow has finally got the conservation bug. There are articles about Ginzburg's 20's block on Novinski Boulevard (the plan is to turn it into a timeshare); and another about the decay of the Park of Economic Achievements which suggests that a 20 metre statue of Stalin by Merkurov may be buried somewhere in the grounds. In the same issue: a review of a new book by Ivan Tolstoi which claims that the Nobel Prize-winning Russian language edition of Doctor Zhivago was paid for by the CIA; and a report on the challenges faced by the Hermitage following the widely-reported thefts - such as the new requirement to take stock of all the 3.5 million items in its collection.

Saatchi on the case

In the last few days the Saatchi Gallery blog has reprised the Blue Noses confiscation. Meanwhile, on his blog, Marat Gelman reports that the next Blue Noses show, entitled ебаный фашизм (I'll leave the translation to someone more, er, articulate than I) opens in his gallery 15th January.

Tsereteli controversy

Cathnews.com reports that a giant sculpture by Zurab Tsereteli of Pope John Paul II, erected in the small French town of Ploermel, possibly publicly-funded, is proving contentious in a country that requires the separation of Church and State interests.

Museum security

Moscow's Historical Museum is installing airport-style "scanners" at its staff entrance and, by 2007, at its public entrance; other Moscow museums are expected to replicate the move. In addition, exhibits will be security-marked and filmed from multiple angles. This seems to be a reaction to the Hermitage Museum thefts earlier this year (from Polit.ru, in Russian).

Old year thoughts

From the Christmas Message circulated by old-master dealer Alex Wengraf to his friends:

"I had this picture briefly, offered by a client for sale. Quite strong posthumous portrait (apparently most of them are posthumous) it tumbled out of my brief case at the bank.  The girl behind the desk was 22 years old (I asked), and she did not recognise the sitter. Ok, but when I told her it was Lenin, she did not recognise the name either.  Never heard of him!  Another, older, customer was as astounded as I,  but the other girl, aged say 30 (I did not ask) didn’t recognise him either, though she thought she had heard the name somewhere.  So fast does fame vanish from the old monster."

On a related note, when UK curator David Thorp last visited Moscow he had supper with a couple of up-and-coming artists, age about 21. They'd never heard of Joseph Beuys, but were au fait with Tracy Emin.

I Believe

Oleg Kulik's exhibition project Veryu (I Believe) has a website (in Russian).

Markin Penthouse

Collector Igor Markin, one of the first to attempt a comprehensive collection of Russian contemporary art, shows snapshots of his home. Below: the dining room with a work by Konstantin Zvezdochetov. More on his LiveJournal page.

Russian collectors in Miami

Lindsay Pollock/Bloomberg reports on the Russian art contingent at the Art Basel Miami Beach fair.

Russian prints

The Moscow Times looks at a new book on Russian popular prints by Stephen M. Norris (link; .pdf).

Sensible buyers?

Colin Gleadell of the Daily Telegraph looks at the Russian market and finds, amid fakes and some mind-boggling auction prices, a sound market with a core of good sense:

Second-rate paintings by Russian-born artists Chaim Soutine, Serge Poliakoff and Nicholas de Stael, whose works are readily available in sales of modern and contemporary Western art, looked out of place – and overpriced. The Russians were having none of it.

The Russian sales are about rediscovering more home-spun talents Often, prices and estimates were inexplicably erratic. But, like the problems with fakes, this is all part of a young and booming market.

Great Domodedovo

More architectural gigantism: Great Domodedovo, near Moscow: to be built with Middle-Eastern petrodollars, phase one covers 3 hectares and will house 450,000 people, The Times reports. In England, on the other hand, there seems to be nowhere left to build anything.

Wives of rich & famous

The International Herald Tribune reports on celebrity portraitist Nikas Safronov.

Hirst in Moscow

The Independent reports on Damian Hirst's sell-out show at the modestly-named Triumph Gallery. Marat Gelman approves the show in his blog (in Russian), and here, via Igor Markin, are a view of the show and Hirst himself with collector Markin.

Hermitage thefts update

Geraldine Norman in the Daily Telegraph writes on the thefts from the Hermitage reported in August (link, link, link). According to Mikhail Piotrovski, the museum's director, the affair is being used in the ongoing struggle between Russian nationalists and westernisers:

If his enemies have failed to turn the thefts into a resigning matter, what will they try next? I asked Piotrovsky last week, and he replied: "They will attack our internationalism - our foreign exhibitions, foreign friends and foreign exhibition spaces - which runs counter to a certain brand of Russian patriotism.

The Hermitage is open to the world. We consider it a world museum which belongs to everyone and that it is our duty to provide access to the collections."

Tea Room refurb

The New York Sun looks at the refurbishment of the Russian Tea Room in Manhattan.

Mellon biography

A new biography of Andrew Mellon looks at his dealings with the Hermitage during the great sell-off of works by Stalin; reviewed by Cecil Johnson at The Philadelphia Inquirer:

In Mellon: An American Life, British historian David Cannadine reprises a well-known account of financier, industrialist and government official Andrew W. Mellon's having kept a group of bankers waiting in his apartment in Washington about two hours while he talked of pictures generally and deflected questions about the Hermitage paintings.

The Hermitage collection consisted of paintings bought by Russian Empress Catherine the Great from Great Britain, France, Prussia and the Netherlands during the second half of the 18th century. Subsequent Russian rulers added to the collection.

The Soviets were secretly selling the paintings to help finance Josef Stalin's five-year plan. The talks were secret because, as Cannadine puts it, "the Soviets did not want it generally known that they were selling off their greatest national treasures to the capitalist enemies of the revolution."

And Mellon didn't want the world to know that he was dealing with the Soviets, whose political and economic ideas contradicted everything he believed in. But he wanted the paintings. They were crucial to the realization of his vision of a national art museum.

What is the moral of this story? Maybe, that to get the art you want you sometimes have to do the things you don't like.

Origins of Socialist Realism ;)

Below, a childhood drawing by Geli Korzhev, no doubt laboriously copied from a beloved book. Not far from the Three Musketeers to the heroics of Socialist Realism, of course. Vitali Komar thought so too: he portrayed the socialist realist artist as a knight-at-arms, setting out to do battle with the ideological foe, in the second work below, entitled On Motifs By Shvarts, from 1967.

Russian sales' round-ups

Reuters report suggests that the London market for Russian art may have reached saturation point: main-sale totals for Sothebys, Bonhams and Macdougall all fell, although Christies' total rose; several top lots failed. To my mind, these statistics veil the the simple truth about the market: there is a dearth of top quality work, and the best lots, assuming they are reasonably estimated, do extremely well. Also, maybe Christies' marketing strategy (taking a show to Samara) paid off. The St Petersburg Times, in its round-up, reports that Russians or Russian emigres made up 70 percent to 80 percent of Tuesday's 230 registered buyers, and that bidders included Vladimir Voronchenko and Andrei Ruzhnikov, directors of Aurora Fine Art Investments, a Russian art-investment fund majority-owned by oil-and-mining billionaire Viktor Vekselberg.

Mariinsky hall

Leonid Turnevicius blogs about the new state-of-the-art Mariinsky Concert Hall in St Petersburg.

Art Manezh

Art Manezh, which occupies a niche somewhere between ArtMoscow (contemporary art) and the big antiques' salons, runs in Moscow 15-19 December.

Russian week in London

Kommersant stresses the sale of Somov's Pastorale Russe for over $5 million at Christies' sale. Note to self: never underestimate the commercial appeal of a sentimental image.