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THE ODESSA GROUP AND UKRAINIAN UNDERGROUND ART

SOVIET NON-CONFORMISTS

Soviet non-conformist art was born in the mid-1950s, after the death of Stalin. It was considered to be a second Russian Avant-garde, for it continued the search for new forms in art and re-established the lost link between Russian art and Western Modernism.

During the late 1980s artists in the Soviet Union experienced a new freedom of expression and their work was attracting enormous interest both at home and abroad. The significant figures of Soviet culture expelled years earlier from the USSR, were able to return. A new generation of non-conformist artists emerged from Underground. But at the same time, the artificial system of state commissions and Artists Union exhibitions was destroyed, leaving hundreds of artists (non-conformists amongst them) at the mercy of the newly established art market.

ODESSA SCHOOL AND UKRAINIAN UNDERGROUND ART

Amongst the three cultural centres of the Soviet Republic of Ukraine, Odessa always held a special place.

Being one of the most important port-cities in the country, Odessa was always renowned for its cosmopolitism, disposition towards dissidence and for the rebellious spirit of its habitants. The Odessa artists being far removed from the capital, could enjoy to some degree a relative creative freedom. Just like in the capital in the 1960s – 1970s, these artists could show their experimental works only at private ‘apartment shows’.

But at the same time most of them were professionally trained and were members of liberally spirited local Artists Unions. Their works were sometimes shown at the Unions’ exhibition rooms, like in the case of YURI YEGOROV’s (b. 1926) work in a 1971 show. The Odessa artists organised open-air exhibitions like their Muscovite colleagues. In 1967 VALENTIN KHRUSHCH (b. 1943 in Odessa) with his fellow-artists showed his work in front of the Opera house in the centre of the city. The result was the same, the immediate closure of the exhibition and forceful dispersion of the public.

Personal relationships within the Odessa group of artists played an important part in their creativity. Most of them were born during WWII, went to Odessa State Art College, worked and exhibited together. The unique and touching dedications to their fellow-artists at the reverse side of some of the paintings show that the Western spirit of competition and copyright protection was an alien concept to them. The beautiful abstract Composition, 1978 by VOLODIMIR NAUMETS (b. 1945) for example, was a birthday present for his friend Victor Marinyuk (b.1943). The captivating early work of VOLODIMIR STRELNIKOV’s (b.1939) Red Fence 1966 and OLEG VOLOSHINOV’s (b. 1936) metaphysical Landscape, 1978 carry warm dedications expressing tokens of friendship to A. Kolashnikov.

Though pure abstraction wasn’t widespread in Ukraine, many young artists experimented with nonfigurative techniques – as homage to their ‘grandfathers’, the legendary masters of 1920s Avant-garde.

Compared to the works of Moscow artist EVGENI DYBSKY (b. 1955) (From the series ‘Road Encounters’ 1989 for whom the non-figurative form is the main language of creative expression, the abstract works of the painters from the Odessa group seem to be their first attempt to master a new, unfamiliar medium (VALENTYN KHRUSHCH Abstraction, 1980s and LUDMILA YASTREB Geometric Composition, 1971).

Self-reflection and nostalgia are common themes in the work of many Ukrainian artists. Ukraine – the bordering country between East and West, between the ancient Greek colony and the motherland of the Russian State and Orthodox Church – was always looking west. LUCIEN DULFAN’S Suzdal, 1980s – a metaphysical interpretation of the cathedral in Russia’s medieval capital – and the Abstract icons by VOLODIMIR NAUMETS Abstract, 1970s and Composition (to V.Marinuk), 1978 best illustrate this tendency.

VITALII SAZONOV’S (1947-1986) composition To My Parents – is a rare example of the moving expression of suppression of the Soviet artist who is forced to leave his country. At the back of his icon-like composition Sazonov writes an emotional farewell to his parents before going to exile. “Three main symbolic elements appear in my paintings: man, the arch, the mountain.

Their beauty of destruction, their patina of the vanished, subdued tones awake an awareness of the passing of time.

They exhibit the need for an artistic and philosophical communication with the icon,” he once stated.

The multiple views of the harbour in the paintings by ALEXEI MALIK Old-Timers, 1996 and LUCIEN DULFAN Harbour Scene, 1980s represent the urge of many members of the Soviet intelligentsia to escape.

The Odessa port provided the getaway for many generations of dissidents, long before the Soviet State was formed. The road scenes of GRIGORY PALATNIKOV’S Two Figures with Horse and the vanishing images of people in the milky gloom in VALERII BASANETS’ (b.1941) canvases (Two Women Friends, 1988) look like a desperate attempt to escape the reality of Soviet life.

The Ukrainians’ self-identification with Europeans and their will to establish their connection with the past is reflected in the mythological paintings of the 1980s.

VALENTIN KHRUSHCH’s expressive, almost abstract treatment of the theme of the Rape of Europa, 1997, ANATOLY SCHOPIN’S sensual Angel, 1976 and LUDMILA YASTREB’S (1945-1980) Goddess Parca, 1977 weaving the threads of life – all represent seductive images of the nude, which symbolises the imaginary pleasures of the forbidden western lifestyle.

The next generation of Ukrainian artists felt all the advantages and disadvantages of western life. With the fall of the Soviet Union, non-conformist art didn’t disappear. Most of the artists belonging to the movement are still working and are still trying to express their profound belief that artistic expression is a universal way of communication. Their work is in great demand. But is it better understood nowadays?

SOVIET NON-CONFORMIST ART

GRAPHIC WORKS

The graphic arts were considered as more liberal even during the darkest years of the Stalin era. Many Avant-garde artists in the early 1930s withdrew themselves from the heavily censored field of painting and veered into design and the graphic arts, where they found fewer restrictions to their creative endeavors. During the 1930s and early 1950s, graphic artists maintained a high level of artistic creativity and prepared the ground for the first non-conformist artists, who emerged in the late 1950s.

The founders of Underground art adapted graphics in order to introduce their innovative experiments to the wide public, as did the sculptor Ernst Neizvestny in his book illustrations. In Ukraine, where pure abstraction was not widespread, figurative art predominated, bolstered by narrative content and this proliferated in the media of graphics and book illustrations. These fields became the norm of artistic expression for almost all Ukrainian artists in the 1970s.

Amongst them is VLADIMIR BAKHTOV (b. 1954), graduate of the Graphic Arts Faculty of Odessa Pedagogical Institute. From the early years of his artistic career he adopted a Surrealistic approach, evoking in his etchings and oil paintings the old world of ancient myths and pagan rituals seen through the lens of his time. As many other Ukrainian non-conformist artists, Bakhtov draws his inspiration from both his native artistic heritage and Western contemporary art. For many years he lived near the archacological site of Olvia, the ruins of the ancient Greek colony, in Crimea. It inspired him to execute a series of prints: Tavrian Mysteries (1987), Cymmerian Winds (1986) and Ancient Land of Tavria (1991). The world of mysterious ruins, abundant with the living and populated by ghosts, executed in a surrealistic style, seems to be outside living time and to have no reference to the ‘real’ everyday life of his Soviet compatriots. Recognised by the authorities of the Perestroika period for his talent, Bakhtov exhibited widely in the Ukraine, Russia and the West and his works are in the collections of such museums as the Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow) and the Ukrainian Art Museum (Kiev).

His contemporary, Odessa artist GRYGORY PALATNIKOV has chosen a different approach – using traditional forms he concentrates on enriching content using hidden metaphors to emphasise the emotional side of his subjects. He works mainly in book illustrations, adding a visual emphasis to the books of classical, contemporary or “rehabilitated” writers.

Palatnikov created a series of illustrations for the novels of renowned Odessa writer Isaac Babel (1984).

Palatnikov’s illustrations, dynamic, powerful and laconic, echo the ironic, sharp and colourful language of Babel’s prose.