Interviews with the authors of the film "Desert forbidden art"
ARTinvestment.RU   14 марта 2011

Details about the second-largest collection of the Russian avant-garde in the world

over the weekend in New York's Cinema Village theater last year showed film "Desert forbidden art", which tells about the collection of Igor V. Savitsky (1915-1984), the first director of the Museum of Arts Uzbek city of Nukus. Website ARTINFO.com advantage of this opportunity to interview the creators of tape - Chavdar Georgiev and Amanda Pope (Amanda Pope). ARTinvestment.RU offers a translation of this interesting material.

ARTINFO: Chavdar, you grew up in the USSR. Did you know about the museum in Nukus?

Chavdar Georgiev : I not only had not heard about such a collection, but even the existence of the Nukus no idea. It was a closed city, where produce chemical and biological weapons. About him very little people know about. In Russia, the city of Nukus and Savitsky collection known except that the leading art historians and those who, so to speak professionally connected with the activities of the city.

Amanda Pope : In Washington, for example, building the CIA, too, is not publicized. And then the city where developing chemical weapons. Of course, the Soviet authorities did not want him to someone he knew.

C. G. : And with this in Nukus is the second largest collection of Russian avant-garde art - more than 40,000 paintings and drawings.

ARTINFO: Tell us about the collection in detail. As Igor Savitsky generally managed to collect so much art in times of censorship?

C. G. : He was a crafty, as told to Amanda. A very charming man, absolutely devoted to his hobby. He literally lived in the museum. He's got hung on a hanger one suit, made specifically for the visits of the authorities. When it had come, he put on this costume. He did everything in the museum itself. And when the local office of the Communist Party gave him an apartment, he immediately gave her two conservators from Moscow, who had nowhere to live.

AP : Do Savitsky had no money, but he moved in artistic circles, and walked from one widow to another. His collection of 1920-30's going for almost two decades - since the second half of 1960 until his death in 1984. So, he went to look at the pictures, asked the widows to deploy them - they saw that he really loves art, that he is a true connoisseur. And they wanted their husbands' work on display at the museum. What we are really touched when we were working on the film - so this is how deep into the Russian people who laid the love for art. They are not interested in the auction value of work - it is important that the picture came to the museum to see its people.

ARTINFO: What are the outstanding works boasts a collection of Savitzky?

C. G. : There is absolutely stunning works of artists from Moscow and St. Petersburg, but the real gems - a product of the so-called "Oriental Avant-garde" artists, who came from Moscow, from Petersburg, even from Siberia - to build a new society in Central Asia. And Central Asia was for them as Tahiti for Gauguin: luxurious colors, Islam, Sufism, the Silk Road ... In their work the influence of Islam united with European modernism and the Russian avant-garde. And so came this startling new movement in art that have not seen anywhere except in Uzbekistan.

AP : The artists are portrayed camels in the desert - but the camels in the cubist style. Interesting, unique style. We hope that the Uzbek government can be persuaded to really "recognize" this collection and make some efforts to promote it - now she can say is hidden from everyone - and that Nukus works will be exhibited, so that you can show them in other museums. This can be easily arranged, if the government is ready to cooperate.

ARTINFO: As far as I know, the director of the museum (Marinika Babanazarova. - AI.) Already approached some western art dealers with offers to sell works from the collection. Was not she tempted to put some items in the market to the money to take care of the rest of the meeting?

AP : As for the temptation - I do not think, but the proposals were of course. Another thing is that the Art Museum in Nukus - the state, and she can simply order to sell a particular exhibit.

C. G. : If tomorrow comes daughter of the president and say, "Oh, what a beautiful decoration!", then what can you do?

ARTINFO: Do you have favorite pieces in the collection Savitsky?

AP : Yes. "Purple road» Ural Tansykbaev .

C. G. : I have two favorite paintings. The first - a "bull" of the painter Eugene Lysenko, also known as "Fascism is coming." The image of a bull with a rifle barrels instead of the eyes had seen him in a dream. Work can be seen only in the Nukus Museum. The artist called it "fascism comes, as it is being - is written in the expressionist, avant-garde style - looks truly frightening. This work was prophetic: after a while broke Stalin's repressions. A second favorite painting, titled "Teahouse" was performed Alexander Volkov , a Russian artist, born in Uzbekistan . It is curious that we have not seen it on the wall of the museum and in storage. That's an incredible painting of Uzbeks over tea. True, they drink tea in the background of a portrait of Lenin - the work was created in Soviet times, and without Lenin, of course, was not enough. As we now have in America without Obama. A picture of Lenin, now in Uzbekistan is not in favor, so the work is mired in the store and visitors to admire it can not. It can only be seen in the film.

AP : This is the thing at an early Picasso. Absolutely amazing picture. And the fact that she is now in the store just because of a portrait of Lenin on the wall ...

ARTINFO: Art is still very much depends on the policy.

AP: Yes, they are still "tied". Life Savitsky, the collecting of his activities - everywhere policy played a central role. And now the same situation.

P. S. Nukus museum has experienced an extremely unfriendly to the artistic vanguard of the Soviet era, but now his fate is unclear. Recently, the Director Marinika Babanazarova not even released from the country to film in the Washington National Gallery.

Interview: Kate Daymlin (Kate Deimling), ARTINFO.com

Translation Julia Maksimova, AI

Source: artinfo.com , artinvestment.ru

Official Website of the collection of Igor Savitsky .

Official website of the film "Desert of the forbidden art" .

Read more about the life and work Savitskiy see here .