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2006 The pS ace of Freedom Joseph C. Troncale University of Richmond, [email protected]
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Recommended Citation Troncale, Joseph C. "The pS ace of Freedom." In The Space of Freedom: Apartment Exhibitions in Leningrad, 1964-1986. Richmond, Virginia: Joel and Lila Harnett usM eum of Art, University of Richmond Museums, 2006.
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THE SPACE OF FREEDOM
The future historian of our otherworldly nrt will undoubtedly face nn i11'1possible task if he or she wishes to penetrate deeply into the psychology of our time, into /lie compelling motives of the artists to create, and of the viewers lo see whnt wns done by these artists. They will come face to face with the astonishing phenomenon of our time tlint bears the name "apar tment exhibitions."... A strange exhibition set up, as a rule, in some dingy apartrnent to be found at the end of dead-end Lanes and dark courtynrds after tripping over slippery staircases and piles of garbage. • It was worth every moment to see an exhibition in this dilapidnted roo111 when th e lights go out for a while, and not a one of the many visitors heads for the exit, but, instead, they begin striking matches - the dancing, rninisrnle flames Light up fragments of the paintings.
The canvases immediately take on n marvelous multi-di111ensional spntinl q11ality - something that just couldn't have happened at even the most out/and i sh officia I exh i bi lion !1
The exhibition The Space of executed and exhibited art that Freedom: Apartment Exhibitions did not conform to the ideological in Leningrad, 1964-1986 invites prescriptions of the Communist visitors directly into the carefully Party of the Soviet Union. These re-created interior of a Soviet artists had to substitute the private communal apartment. Within the space of their apartments for the kind of environment where the public space controlled and denied paintings first breathed freely, them by the Party. Planning and )\J ,\lol fll
28 The art in The Space of Freedom represents tangential to mainstream Soviet culture. However, only a fragment of the unofficial or "second it must be noted that when creating these works the culture" that became an important feature of author were impervious to the term "illegality" painting during the Soviet period of Russian and, ironically, the works themselves were quite history. The apartment exhibitions in Leningrad possibly one of the few points of contact with an and in Moscow played a significant role in uncompromised culture that art during the Soviet period may be able to claim. Much as the Russian Orthodox churches were the "sanctuary" of meaning associated with icons, the communal apartment became such a "sanctuary" for nonconformist artists and their work. Installing nonconformi tart in a museum is similar to displaying icons in a museum because the in 'titutional setting diminishes the art's critical content. The Space of Freedom is set in a re-created room of a communal apartment as an attempt to PHOTOGRAPH FROM THL 1991 fll\llNG or THE ~10\" lf restore the context in which the paintings were "BROKEN LIGHT," B\ V. GI AGOLl-\A, I!\ \\lllC.11 I Ill created, exhibited, and discussed. Tn addition, APAl!T\t£NT 10x11rn111or-; "()\ Hno.v.vn.~KAL\ ~JRLr1' Lhe re-creation of a communal apartment in an w.\s Rll-.NA(,'llD IN A DJllFRFNI .\P. .\l\T\ltl\I (:2 \I
10 Pu~HK11'i STREET). l· RO\I I Fl-1 TO RH,ll"I ; ') \ '11 \, ,\ American museum gives a visual representation
BARA . 'OVA AND nu; ART I STS
Freedom recalls and dramatizes the reconfiguration lMA(,E PROM AN APARTMENT EXHIBITION, DATF AND of the commtll1al apartment not as a space of IDENTJT\. OF SLHJEL1S L' NKNOWN . confinement, but as it became a space of freedom in the hands of free creative artists who exhibited there. surprising that from time to time suspicions of Whether consciously or subconsciously, those artists the presence of KGB stoolpigeons hung heavily transformed that space of exposure and isolation above some of the apartment exhibitions. into one of transparency and unity. The exhibitions The cataclysmic changes in Bolshevik Russia became a venue to see and discuss each other's work, dramatically affected the direction of Russian art enjoy the camaraderie and encouragement of their from 1917 to the present. In 1918 Lenin declared peers, and plan their future. Moscow the administrative center of Soviet In some respects unofficial artists, or, perhaps political, economic, and social power. After 206 even more accurately here, the artists of the second years as the capital of Russia, St. Petersburg was culture were "homeless" except for the home they forced to bow out of the political and cultural created collectively in those apartments. That limelight for which she was born and regally "home" was a form of consciousness predicated outfitted. In the new Soviet ideological climate, on the integrity of the creative personality as the culture of St. Petersburg that had developed discovered by the individual and on the free in close company with the great cultures of the play of the creative impulse as exercised by the world since its birth, became isolated and was artist. They had to discover this consciousness forced to submit to Moscow's control.
10 After a 1932 decree abolishing all revo other than those of an already bankrupt Marxist lutionary artistic groups, the Party moved to Leninist ideology. 1he Party controlled everything impose uniformity in artistic production; art was through the government. Every theatre, every to be "engineered:' In 1934, after consultation with museum, every newspaper, every television and members of the artistic community, the Soviet radio station, and every film studio - all had both cultural establishment adopted Socialist Realism a Party and a government apparatus as part of the as the official party line according to which all directorate for the proper ideological use of those forms of creative expression would be directed to outlets of culture, education, and information. best serve the building of socialism. All artistic There was no commercial art world, there production was polarized: official art bore the were no private galleries - nothing was private, Party's ideological approval and unofficial art did at least as far as the Party knew. Artists working not and suffered the consequences. outside the parameters of that ideology were, at The criteria for the creation of any work of best, ignored, or, at worst, suppressed. The Union art whether it be painting, fi lm, poetry, prose, of Soviet Artists controlled all exhibition spaces, sculpture, theatre, cinema, or music, were which essentially belonged to the government narodnost', partiinost', klassovost', and ideinost '. since it held and controlled all assets within Narodnost' (literally translated as "people-ness" or the country. populist) is the quality of being accessible to the Some artists avoided membership in the people and reflecting the essential characteristics Union of Artists as a matter of principle since and interests of the peoples of the Soviet Union the Party used it to co-opt the creativity of its without partiality for any ethnic group. Partiinost' members by promising them highly prized perks ("party-ness") is the quality of being imbued with in return for submission. When artistic work loyalty, dedication, service, and sensitivity to the was deemed ideologically inappropriate, the Party as the leader of the masses on the road to Party denied permission to publicly exh ibi t that socialism. Klassovost' ("class-ness") reflects the work and excluded the artists from the extremely understanding of the history and principles of class privileged world of government commissions. warfare and the struggle to eliminate bourgeois The official re~ponse to the unofficial individualism in favor of social collectivism. artists' request to create their own independent ldeinost' ("idea-ness") demands that any work of professional educational structures an \I to the public. If they pursued a career only as a professional artist without the proper official documents, the Party considered them parasites and, as such, criminals. Even their own self-obsession with being followed by government agents began to hound unofficial artists. Like Fanon's native, nonconformist artists in the Soviet Union existed in a nervous condition because of the constant threat to their culture. The nervous energy from such a precipitous existence became a catalyst for them to create and sustain a remarkable new culture. ALEKSANDR AREHE\' (LEFT) ~ D NIKOLAI LYUBUSllKIN As Solzhenitsyn wrote of his heroes in the world (RIGHT) AT AN f.XHllllTION OF TWENTY ARTISTS THAT WAS of the GULAG, unofficial artists became human SPONTANEOUSLY ORGANIZED IN 197 6 Af EUREKA , A CLUB INSIDE A STUDENT DORMITORY. PHOTOGRAPHER U1'KKOWN. beings in the white heat of this "condition." Oddly enough, many of the artists who experienced this now often find themselves at a Joss without its to eradicate non-sanctioned art and to punish its stimulus and are nostalgic for it. creators became a primary contributing factor Denied public expression and demonstration in the creation of the nonconformist movement. of their creativity, the ever resourceful and resilient In fact, in many instances, the government's artists began exhibiting in their own apartments disapproval of literary or artistic works was often in 1964. Similarly, banned musicians performed considered a reliable indication that they must "apartment concerts" and illegal troupes of actors have had significant aesthetic merit. gave "apartment plays." The point of their efforts The demand for adherence to the criteria was not necessarily to oppose the system; they of Socialist Realism was unequivocal. In the were simply creative artists who presumed that second half of the 1930s, the punishments for they had the right to express themselves and to violation were draconian. The Party decimated demonstrate their creativity in whatever form the nation's creative genius and erased the names that might take. of an entire generation of creative artists by exile, There were great risks in presuming they imprisonment, or execution. During World War were free to create. The Party defined the exercise II, when the USSR was in a life and death struggle of this freedom as defiance, and, thus, as illegal. against an outside fascist enemy, there was a brief From the artists' perspective, the creation of a reprieve for alleged internal enemies of the state. nonconformist art was not necessarily intentional; However, with Hitler's defeat, the Party stepped the majority of the artists were apolitical. up its efforts to control those enemies and to keep Nonconformist art was defined as political from out the effects of so-called decadent bourgeois the point of view of the Party's collective paranoid and cosmopolitan Western influences. imagination. Many of the artists would agree that, One of the earliest groups of nonconformists in ironically, the Party's dogged and cruel attempts postwar-Leningrad was the Order of Impoverished .l 2 Painters (ONZh, later known as the Arefiev Circle) re -create their society. Vladislav Sukhorukov, a that included Aleksandr Arefiev, Rikhard Vasmi, nonconformist, said that, "Immortality begins Valentin Gromov, Vladimir Shagin, and Sholom with consciousness and consciousness begins with Shvarts, and the poet Roald Mandelshtam, who artistic creativity." Eventually, their consciousness provided inspiration for the group and a place and their choice changed li fe in their country. Tt for them to gather. Generally recognized as the was their sense of the true nature of culture that fathers of the Leningrad underground, each made their efforts neces. ary and their eventual of these artists is represented in The Space of success certain. Mikhail Epstein writes of the Freedom. Innovative in form and content, their kind of disposition such a commitment entails in work was instantly recognized as problematic and the realm of culture: threatening. Inspired by Cezanne's experiments in color and form, their work tended more toward To live within society and to be free of it - this the grotesque and often portrayed the abject is what rnlturc is about. It enters the l1lood and moral and material poverty of everyday existence bone of society, in order to liberate individuals in the Soviet Union - a forbidden theme in any ji·om the constraints of their social existence, from sense of the word. its repressive tendencies nnd historical limitatio11s, Resisting official culture was a tremendous much as spirit is not.fi-ee from body, but represents challenge, the mere undertaking of which n liberating force able to transcend external contributed significantly to the stature and historical obstacles .... 6 value of the second culture. Yury Novikov, a leading historian of the movement, writes: The Space of rrcedo111 focuses on what these artists were doing in their own time as part of In the unofficial sphere, as nowhere else in our the development of art in all of time. In a sense, country, the development of art is left to its own their work was simply a part of an inevitable and laws in the purest form ... There's just one difference universal natural process. They were attempting today. Now the process is hamstrung by ... social to find a way to engage their own particular pressure that significantly distorts the immanent process and search for self-awareness and self laws of the development of this art. On the other knowledge both as individuals and as artists, and hand, it cannot be denied that the impulse to to develop and apply an artistic form or systems of respond to the needs or pressures of society is a forms and approaches for the expression of both traditional aspect of Russian culture. That is what the process of their search and its results. The has given Russian culture its longevity and its context of suppression in the Soviet Union simply stamina. 5 complicated matters. The task of these artists was to reflect and represent public and private life in Unofficial artists lived as if they were part of artistic form no matter the conditions of their a society that supported free expression. They time and space. Given the traditions they were believed, as Hegel did, that consciousness makes born into, they were well equipped to undertake life rather than the other way around. By choosing that task. to live and create freely, they were determined to The conscious configuration and assertion '' of their right to express their ideas in whatever harassment were not enough to capture and hold form they chose is the legacy that unofficial the attention of the Western press as were the artists left for all future generations of artists suppression, imprisonment or exile of a dissident in Russia. They undertook the arduous and writer in open defiance of the system. The artists' dangerous task of ensuring that culture would not insistence on maintaining the integrity of their be denied its process of perpetual renewal and right to self-expression, not necessarily as a form growth. Paradoxically, the true significance of of opposition but as a form of free expression the underground may be that, as such a cultural of ideas, distinguished unofficial painters from force, it served the dominant culture as a source writers such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose of innovation and renewal necessary organically work was openly critical of the Soviet regime. for the mainstream Soviet culture to survive.7 Solzhenitsyn and other dissident writers used Historians agree that through its process of their work to criticize and pummel the system; self-evaluation and renewal this new form of painters, in general, simply created as a naturally culture moved art forward in the Soviet Union inherent right of self-expression without overtly beyond the prescriptions of Socialist Realism dramatizing righteousness. While unofficial and whatever the artists themselves or the Party artists were hardly ever mentioned in the Soviet could have even imagined. Unofficial artists press, dissident writers and their works were assumed the responsibility of generating progress regularly and vehemently denounced and, thus, within their culture, creating what could be had an instant audience, both at home and abroad. called an aesthetics of transition. 8 Scrupulously However, dissident writers and marginalized maintaining the integrity of their artistic vision, unofficial painters together were responsible for they, nonetheless, had to work in isolation from the process that led to the political and social the rest of world. This isolation complicated the changes of peres troika and glasnost begun in 1985 indispensable intersection of influence from under Mikhail Gorbachev. other cultures with the discoveries they were A phrase that repeatedly appears as the making. On the other hand, unofficial artists context of the discourse in Russian art history themselves saw their predicament as analogous is duxovnaja kul'tura or "spiritual culture" as to that of cavemen beginning a new culture from a specific product of the dynamics of all the scratch or to that of the ancient Greeks. In any phenomena of Russian culture. The phrase has an case, they pride themselves on rejuvenating their elasticity that accommodates practically anything culture and reconnecting it with those of the rest that affects the evolution of the human spirit or of the world. soul. Characteristically, Russian cultural figures Compared to the plight of oppressed writers consciously accept a level of responsibility for during the Soviet era, the history of unofficial the creation of this duxovnaja kul'tura by relating visual artists remains relatively unknown. everything - even the very byt or daily grind of Through the Western media, international Russian existence - to the fundamental principle attention to the plight of creative writers under of being itself. the USSR amplified their voices. A single Today, unofficial Russian artists often speak bulldozed exhibition, periodic beatings and of their compulsion to express the spiritual dimension of human existence in their work. their understanding and definition of the creative Russian Orthodoxy was, in general, the chief artist. For subsequent generations of the avant dynamic cultural force that gave birth to this garde this definition and understanding became compulsion in the visual arts. The second culture the sine q11n non of the artists' lives. They did not that seemed to appear spontaneously in the 1950s merely see their world as matter, as Marx would through the 1980s is part of a continuum begun in have it, but as the manifestation of a higher reality the first three decades of the twentieth century by to which they were accountable for their "vision" the Russian avant-garde and the artist-cosmists of the earthly reality. Dostoevsky codified that who likewise inspired the later generation. In connection for the Russian artist when he wrote in fact, recent histories of the movement go so 'D1e Brothers Kara111azov ( 1881) of a "paradise on far as to define the second culture as "an illegal earth" that is the manifestation of the eternal verity institutionalization of the ideas and experiments in the passing show of earthly existence. From in culture that have continued in Soviet art since Dostoevsky's perspective, a spiritual search cast by the l 920s."9 means of artistic endeavors has as its single goal While living in the shadow of Socialist the realization in real time and space of the truth Realism, nonconformist artists were committed discovered beyond the search, the transfiguration to preserving and keeping alive the process of (preobm zl1enie) of the "earthly reality." discovering the beautiful rather than advertising a In the work of Malevich, Filonov, Goncharova, prefabricated and engineered ideology of beauty. and Larionov during the second and third It was a spiritual and conscious process. In the decade~ of the twentieth century, there is a early 1920s Nicholas Roerich (1874-194 7), a pronounced disenchantment with the traditional major figure in Russian cosmism, recast the well views and convention · of form. This arose from worn adage attributed to Dostoevsky that "art will their understanding that the forms of conditional save the world" when he wrote "consciousness of existence that serve as the creative constructions beauty will save the world." This "consciousness" to convey visions of a greater reality had either was the subject, the substance, and the context failed or betrayed humankind. Somehow the of the process that artists engaged in creating a artistic conventional arrangements of the elements second culture in the Soviet Union. of form at their di~posal no longer served the Contemporary critical readings of the first revelation and understanding of truth. generation of the Russian avant-garde of the The Russian avant-garde attached a broad second decade of the twentieth century and of significance to their work. They based their the second culture of the 1960s and 1980s are creations on life-building principles, on the often skeptical of this spiritual aspect expressed utopian idea of rebuilding reality by means of by those artists in their work as well in what they art. A distinctly unique sense of civil or social have said or written about their work. Beginning responsibility was part of the motivation for their with Kandinsky, the avant-garde was deeply spiritual search. Rarely did these artists remain engaged in a process of creativity to which the solely within tame or purely aesthetic boundaries dimension of spirituality, not necessarily in some of art for art's sake. Kandinsky's and Malevich's mystical form, was ontologically fundamental to theories of the spiritual extended far beyond ; ' the confines of visual art and directly addressed Constructivism with their formal concerns and humanity, demanding spiritual growth. Their their geometrization of the language of painting investigation into the spiritual dimension of art dominated artistic expression in Russia. However, was to create a socially significant art with a Amaravella sought to reveal the subtle, esoteric spiritual dimension. In Russian culture this goal aspects of the cosmos in human form, in landscapes, had become the unconditional internal tradition and in the graphic depiction of abstract images whose influence reached across all trends, styles, of humankind's inner world or microcosmos. "In and different artistic concepts.10 striving for this goal;' the members of Amaravella By the beginning of the twentieth century declared in their manifesto of 1923, "the element Russian science and philosophy had in the form of technical form is secondary, not claiming any of Russian cosmism begun to formulate its own totally independent significance. Therefore the version of the creative transfiguration of existence perception of our paintings must follow not the by man in the image of the divine. Russian cosmism path of a rational, formal analysis, but the path of sees the universe as a union of all living beings in feeling-intuition and of inner empathy ...." ll a single non-anthropocentric process of secular Amaravella dedicated itself to developing a and spiritual evolution toward a higher state of new aesthetic language to depict the immortality consciousness with humanity actively moving of the human soul, the infinity of the cosmos, it forward morally, physically, and psychically. and the relationship between them. Their work A fusion of unwavering faith in the potential of depicts the cosmos as an organism and projects humankind and the cosmos with a remarkably a future of infinite promise. Under the influence creative synthesis of empirical and abstract of the writings of Nicholas and Elena Roerich, thought, Russian cosmism is an ultra-utopian Amaravella created an art based on unity rather dream of the perfection of humankind and of than fragmentation, and became a form of spiritual conditional existence altogether. It can be seen as practice in the service of humanity. The group's part of the deep-seated impulse to Socialism and goal was to expand human consciousness by as germane to the Bolshevik Revolution i.n Russia. developing a cosmic point of view. They sought to As important as the link between the first remove humankind's anthropomorphic, geocentric generation of the Russian avant-garde and artists blinders, by penetrating the reality of the cosmos living and painting today in Russia is the link that beyond the merely Euclidean and empirically can be traced back to a little known group of painters verifiable, and to expand the potential of the senses called "Amaravella" that formed in 1923. By 1927 through an understanding of psychic energies. the members of this group included Pyotr Petrovich This penetration to the other side (v tu storonu) Fateev, Boris Alekseevich Smirnov-Rusetsky, through art necessitated the development as well of Vera Nikolaevna Pshesetskaya (Runa), Aleksandr a new aesthetic of the beautiful that recognized Pavlovich Sardan, Sergei lvanovich Shigolev, and the suspension of the restrictive parameters of Viktor Tikhonovich Chernovolenko. conditional existence as the true purview of human Amaravella arose in the 1920s when the consciousness. These ideas resonate powerfully with atmosphere was one of revolution rather those of Dostoevsky, particularly in Th e Brothers than evolution. Suprematism, Futurism, and Karamazov when Alyosha looks to the stars and is 36 attracted to "distant other worlds" that are beyond unofficial art in the Soviet Union and its place humanity's preoccupation with its own geocentric in art history has yet to be made, due in part traumas and dilemmas. to the personalities of the artists from that era. In the 1920s the artists of Amaravella, known These artists who founded the second culture also as artist-cosmists, shared the frame of mind are often portrayed as larger than life because that lead to broad experimentation and serious of their tenacity in maintaining their integrity investigation across all disciplines into the rih against overpowering odds. To some degree, such existing between human beings and between recognition is entirely appropriate; what they humankind and the cosmos. It was apparent to accomplished is heroic. However, in the past their leading cultural figures such as Scriabin, Kandinsky, legendary personas have prohibited impartial Bely, Vernadsky, Feodorov, and Tsiolkovsky that consideration of their work and many unofficial some form of relationship and understanding artists today admit that they knew they were not had to be restored between humankind and the all Picassos or Cezannes. environment, God, ancient wisdom, the universe, Also contributing lo the dearth of objective and the cosmos, in general. Restoring their links analysis is the fact that much or what was written to Amaravella and Roerich, unofficial artists about unofficial art revealed the individual taste continued the development and application of the of critics and those connoisseurs, usually foreign worldview of Russian cosmism. diplomats, who provided more of a compendium Understandably, the birth and development of who was "in" and who was "out" among the of a new culture demands to be perspicaciously struggling artists of the underground than a chronicled and objectively evaluated within the critical perspective. context of other existing cultures. Unofficial art To complicate matters, the general public was and unofficial artists engendered unofficial art ill equipped to understand or accept unofficial history and art historians including Andreeva, art. Those who did communicate publicly about Shekhter, Khlobystin, Basin, Skobkina, Rosenfeld, the unofficial art focused on its literary and Rapoport, Kovalsky, Unksova, and Y. Novikov. social aspects without addressing the context of The difficulty with the development of such a the search for a new artistic identity through the historical narrative has been that such a discourse exploration of the full spectrum of form and color. was not permitted prior to 1985 and bas developed Consequently, Alex Rapoport wrote that "... artists publicly only since the beginning of glasnost ' who became the focus of the movement were often and perestroika. Archived samizdat publications those whose work was understandable to 'men of establish the historical context of the collective letters' as illustrative pamphlets or on anecdotal efforts devoted to the creation of a second culture. levels, or as simple single-minded political satire. Some publications are collections of painstakingly It was easier for them to write about the art from 11 created catalogues and peripheral materials for that perspective." The 1itera ri ness of nineteenth apartment exhibitions, brochures, and letters century Russian painting that was familiar to the to and from Soviet officials as well as articles in Russian public and demanded and promulgated personal archives about apartment exhibitions.' ~ by Soviet ocialist Realism wa a stumbling block A full and thorough objective evaluation of to the reception of the innovative experimentation ,- that lies at the heart of unofficial art. 14 from and powered the search for individual In the history of any cultural movement expression and creative freedom. The impact there are milestones that reflect the dynamics of of these two exhibitions in terms of validating the process that leads to a fledgling movement's and promoting nonconformist art in Leningrad development and eventual institutionalization. overrode the uneven quality of the art exhibited. The historical narratives of the trajectory of Official approval for these exhibitions of unofficial art from the late 1940s to 1986 agree unofficial art was due in part to the recent on certain moments as turning points in the international outcry at the KGB 's brutality during history of Russia's second culture. The more than an open-air exhibition in Moscow in 1974. At the one hundred apartment exhibitions from 1964 "Bulldozer Exhibition;' as it was subsequently to 1986 form the bedrock of the movement in known, the KGB's hired thugs physically assaulted Leningrad. As Tatiana Shekhter writes, the artists and destroyed their paintings with bulldozers. Each large apartment exhibition led to one or Sources estimate thatthe combined attendance another turn in the life of the underground. at the two Leningrad exhibitions exceeded ten By bringing artists together, these exhibitions thousand over several days. Fifty-two unofficial synchronized creative energies, clarified the artists participated in the exhibition at the Gaz supporters and opponents of the movement, Palace of Culture that lasted for four days. Eighty and attracted new participants into the ranks of eight artists exhibited at the Nevsky Palace of nonconformists. Indeed, not every artist who said Culture, the largest exhibition of unofficial he was a nonconformist would risk falling into artists ever, lasting for ten days. Despite official the sights of the KGB by hanging his works on the approval, agents of the cultural ministry observed grungy wallpaper of a discarded apartment or in and photographed the visitors and the artists one of the rooms of an overcrowded communal participating in the exhibitions. Such "observers" apartment. 15 are humorously referred to as "art critics dressed in state uniforms" (iskusstvovedy v shtatskom), In addition to apartment exhibitions, but their presence outside the exhibit halls was exhibitions at Palaces of Culture were also critical no laughing matter. moments for Leningrad's unofficial art. The second Once the furor over the "Bulldozer culture took its nickname, Gazanevshchina, from Exhibition" abated, the KGB and the police two such exhibitions in Leningrad held at the Gaz again applied pressure on unofficial artists. A Palace of Culture in 1974 and the Nevsky Palace of leading Leningrad artist Evgeny Rukhin, one of Culture in 1975. These were the first exhibitions the chief organizers of the Moscow exhjbition, to be officially sanctioned in Leningrad, known died under questionable circumstances in 1976. for its rather obdurate cultural officials. Artists While Rukhin's death shocked and frightened with many different styles came together for Leningrad's artistic community, it nevertheless these exhibitions to celebrate the diversity of further galvanized the movement. Equally the underground movement. The exhibitions determined to live and work as if they were free to demonstrated the adrenalin rush that resulted do so, the younger generation that had appeared .Ill resumed the apartment exhibitions together with nachala xx wka: Tezisy:· Snvctskoe iskusstvoznanie: iskusstuo xx ogo \'eka (lvloskva "Sovct:.kiy xudozhnik" I 989) I 00-10 I. the older generation. 11. Jurii V. Linnik, l\atalog 1'yst111•ki pro1z1·edcllii gruppy From November 14 through 17, 1981, in an ':A1 11nrcwella" iz kollcktsii )'. V. Li1111ika, (Petmzavodsk: "Kareliya" 1989) 1-2. Linnik, a prolific writer and professor of philosophy apartment vacated for major renovations, one of at the University of Petro-Zavodsk, hold s the largest anJ mos t co mplete coll ection of th e works by this group of artists. Practically the largest exhibitions of Leningrad's unofficial l'Vcry inch of every wall in his fai rl )' large ap.1rtmcnl is covered wi th art was held at # 1/3 on Bronnitskaya Street. these ex traordinary painting>. 12. 111e archive al th e Mu>cum of NorKonformist Art in St. Collectively, the sixty-one featured artworks Petersburg has an ex tensive collec ti on uf such sa111i:::de1t primary represented the breadth of creative diversity materials on Leningrad's unollicial art. Many in the city have their own private coll ecliom as well. for example, Sergei Kovalsky, the that formed the soul of the second culture in president and one of the founders of Pushkin- I 0 Art Centre anJ ol the "Brotherhood of free Culture" and other earlier organizations Leningrad. Though it occurred at the beginning of artists in St. Petersburg ha' three large volumes: "Gallcrcya of the last decade before the demise of the Soviet 1·: "Gallereya JI" and ")loKyMcrrr:· in which he has g ~ Dwultsnt' let kvnrlirnoi 1•ystal'ke 'Na Hro1111itskoi'. Sankt Pelerburg: Muzei nonkonformbtskogo iskus,lva, 200 I. ENDNOTES Kush nir, I., r\1'1111gard na Neve. Sankt-Petcrburg: 000 "PRP''. l. Yury Novikov a.k.a. R. Skif, "An Article for the Catalogue on (A continuing seric' of publications on nonconformist art the Exhibition at Bronnitskaya" in 011 the Twentieth A1111il'ers11ry of in Lenmgrad) the Apnrtme11t Exlzi/Jit1011 'On Bro1111itskayn Street ' (St. Petersburg: Museum of No nconformist Art, 200 1) 7. Rapoport, A., Nonco11Jor111iz111 ost11yotsy11. Sankl-Petcrburg: 2. Tatiana Shekhter, "Neofitsial'noe iskusstvo Peterburga: Ochcrki Jzdatd'stvo DEAN, 2003. istorii" from the Archives of th e Museum ofNonconCormisl Art, St. Petersburg, (auth or's translations) 2. Roberts, Norma, ed., Q11cst for Selfi:.xprcssiu11: Pai11ti11g in 3. Unofficial art was exhibited on!)' rarely in apartments that were Moscow 1111d Leningmd, 1965-199(). Columbus: Columbus not communal. Initially. the apartment exhibitions were held al Museum of Art, 1990. private apartments of ref11sniks, who felt they had nothing ebe Lo lose. Rosenfield, Alla and Norton T Dodge. cd,.. From Grtlag to 4. Boris Groys, Co111me11tarics 011 Art (lzdatel'stvo Glasnost: Nonconformist Art (ro111 the So1•it1 U11io11. New York: "Khudozhestvennyj Zhurnal" 2003) 313-323 Thames and Hudson, J 995. · 5. Novikov, 10. 6. Mikhail N. Epstein, Afier the 1-uturc: 711e Paradoxes of Shekhter, Tatiana, "Ncofilsial'noe isku,:.tvo Pclcrburga Post111odernis111 a11d Conte111pomry Russian Culture (The University (Leningrada): ocherki istorii," 1£ arkhiva Muzeya of Massachusetts Press: Amherst, 1995) 288. nonkonformistskogo rsk usstva v Sa nkt -Pctcrburge. 7. Ta ti ana Shekhter, 1. 8. Shekhter, 4. Sa111izd11t jo11rnals: 9. Shekhter, 2-3. Arkhiv, 37, C/111sy, sold to private colh:clors in the early J 990's 1O. D.B. Sarabyanov, "K svoeobrazyu zhivopisi russkogo avangarda when the boom in Russian and Sov iet art was at its peak . .19