Artist of the week: Timur Novikov

Ideas and creativity Novikov still relevant to this day. Regularly in major museums around the country and the largest galleries in the world held its exhibition. One of the largest and most representative is open on these days in the MMSI

Timur Novikov Self. 1979
Source: mmoma.ru

Modern art is often (to say the least) tends to obscure. Formed an image of "a misunderstood genius", the audience for a long time does not ask any questions to artists, fleeing from the total lack of understanding only way - intelligent face.

Timur Novikov

These days in the MMSI on Gogol Boulevard launched the largest retrospective of the famous Petersburg artist last third of XX - beginning of XXI century, one of the most prominent underground art, art theorist, art activist and educator , leader of the "New Artists» Timur Novikov (1958-2002).

Timur Novikov was born in Leningrad, September 24, 1958.

art, he became interested in early, with six years in a circle of drawing the Pioneer Dzerzhinsky district.

In 1969, the fourth-Timur and his mother moved to New Earth, a fact of his biography later allowed many researchers and interpreters of art Novikov claim that it is very open horizon polar tundra led him to build a horizontal perspective.

In 1972, Timur returned to Leningrad. A year later, he finished 8th grade, he entered the Leningrad Technical chemical industry department of paints and varnishes (« I easily entered this place and began to study the technical and process engineer for production of paints and varnishes, which seemed close to art »), and began to attend the club Young Art at the Russian Museum. In technical Timur studied for two years, then worked as a projectionist, a boiler operator in the timing.

In 1977, he met with representatives of the" Chronicle "(as defined by Novikov," Chronicle "was the group of nonconformist artists , avant-garde, independent. Group focused on extreme expressionism: western, German, and especially expressionism and primitivism circle Larionov) and joined her. Within the group in 1978, Novikov organized the first Russian art squat to them. Cyril and Methodius: « I managed to pull off a big house, a former church, which is now coming of the Georgian Patriarchate, rent it for 40 rubles a month as a whole. There and fit right group "Chronicle" ».

In 1980 Novikov organized gallery" Assa "- right in their communal, gallery, which lasted until 1987, became a kind of meeting place and a center around which accumulated advanced creative and artistic community of the 1980s.

Pictures Novikova of the time are also similar in style neoekspressionizmu. This is mainly landscapes, where among the bright spots of color look through magazines cut out applications - architectural beauty. At the same time he was actively experimenting with picture space: creates a so-called landscape plans, where the views of Leningrad pictured above, with disregard the laws of perspective.

its most important concept - a re-composition theory Novikov developed by mid-1980. « Restructuring - not a rejection of the old, and the use of any experience in a new context. Re-composition can be subjected to all. This is an exciting job. The opportunity to verify the total information. New rows go to museums - to work with art, stale art. Who is not new - the old. He - the material for re-composition ... »

In 1984, he created his art group - a group of "New Artists", whose members often come from "Chronicle", was part of newly converted adepts of art and philosophy Novikov. Initially, the group consisted Ivan Sotnikov , Oleg Kotelnikov , Cyril Khazanovich, Yevgeny Kozlov, Georgi Guryanov, then joined Vadim Ovchinnikov, Valery Cherkasov, Vladislav Gutsevich, Andrei Medvedev and other artists - to the end of 1980 in a group is very heterogeneous in composition and creative aspirations, there were, according to various estimates, more than 70 participants.

In the future, the influence of the group went beyond the visual arts - it appeared composers Igor Verichev and Valery Alakhov, Georgi Guryanov led Victor Tsoi (so far as the artist). Later, the composition of the group joined the "Cinema" and "Pop-Mechanics" Sergei Kuryokhin. In 1983, the musical part of the "New Artists" was named "New Composers". Among the stated directions of the group were the "new music" and "a new theater».

first exhibition "New Artists" with Novikov, Sotnikova and Khazanovich was organized at the Institute of Textile and Light Industry . In the future, a group of Novikov suit their exhibitions, presentations and performances at many venues, including the gallery "Assa". The "new" play rock music, staged plays and wrote literary works, film and video shooting.

considering the main purpose of art transformation of the world, "New" rewriting reality by means of art, based on the aesthetic slogan "everythingness" Russian avant-garde Mikhail Fedorovich Larionov and Cyril Zdanevich , and were ready to" ohudozhestvit "the most diverse and sometimes unexpected things, working almost in technology ready-made.

Later, when the "New Artists" and the art of the Timur Novikov gained fame and popularity in the West, it became apparent that the Leningrad underground in general - our own version of Western movements neoekspressionizma and "new wave" and not borrowed, and quite independent.

In the work of the Novikov in this period was dominated by the idea of ​​working on the audience small images. Appeared his "Horizons" - collages and stencils on fabric with extremely generalized and minimalist images. The principle of re-composition, invented for himself Novikov, creating new art from old intended reuse of materials, and its textile collages meaning acquired all the qualities of fabric, including its texture and structure. Tissue match and another principle important for the artist - compactness art collage is easy to remove from the wall, folded and easily moved to another location.

main genre of "horizons" - landscape. « My job is simple - they are not loaded with information, rest - that's what I try to give the viewer. In reality, the person is at rest in the contemplation of the landscape ... Every time I work, I check it [landscape] with the space above the bed - can you will see it every day? Do not spoil the mood it? .. Comfort perception - one of the most important tasks that I set myself, developing a pictorial system », used to" Horizons ».

tissue was the main material of the artist. Timur sewed two different pieces - the seam in his work meant the horizon. Such a division of the picture gave the artist the possibility of minimal means to create dynamic themes: forest with a running deer, the submarine, the town quay, the Egyptian pyramids, the swan lake, going through the desert camel, the rising sun. On the basis of their "horizons" Timur Novikov theory of signs and brought a perspective that, according to his followers, was the language of the new art, and modern computer near the aesthetics and ancient hieroglyphics, archaic art, diverse socio-aesthetic phenomena (tattoos, children's art and etc.).

In 1989, Timur Novikov, he traveled in Europe, exhibited at the Tate Gallery and the Historical and Art Museum in Turku. Became interested in video art, and with J. Forester, B. Mamyshev and G. Guryanov created Pirate Television (PTV) - a project that sarcastically win back officialdom and the pathos of the official television. He even played with Vladislav Mamyshev one of the leading roles in the VWP "Marks Again».

In the early 1990's in the works, and worldview Novikov and "New Artists", inseparable from it in philosophical and creative sense, a new stage: « In 1990 I began to feel the charm of the classics, and in 1988 we began to organize our new academy. Then there was the first wave of conservatism. In 1989, we formed the organization on the basis of the old times "New Artists" - every New Academy of Art - New Academy of Fine Arts.

New Academy of Arts was every alternative academy vanguard: we took our friends there, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, Brian Eno, Andrew Logan, gave them our diplomas and certificates. New Academy of Art has been a part of every Leningrad Free University, opened in 1988 in the main lecture hall of the society "Knowledge", where I headed the department of painting.

must say that in the 1990s, has changed not only the style of art, but a way of life. Former "New Artists" has paid much attention to rare books, visit the Mariinsky Theatre, studying the works of old masters in museums. Changed fashion: in everyday life include canes, lorgnette, tailcoats, cylinders, corsets and complicated cut velvet gown or coat by "Strict boy" Konstantin Goncharov. At parties classical music changed techno, at the opening day neoakademisty being invited chamber orchestras ».

changed and the work of the artist - they had new stories and a new style of performance. Gone also stitched "Horizons" - and on the road surface fabric (silk, velvet, brocade - public consciousness connects them to the historicity, the world of classical art) was something like medallions with reproductions of the past, images of classical sculptures, antique cameos, portraits and embroidery. Novikov's favorite characters are Oscar Wilde, author of the theory of pure art, and Ludwig II of Bavaria, the "king-swan».

In 1993 Novikov organized a museum in the famous New Academy St Petersburg art squat in Pushkinskaya, 10, whose students were trying to perceive the aesthetics of classical art and find inspiration in the ideal image of the past. Neoacademism policy statement can be considered a manifesto written by Novikov in 1993: « We have to learn how to write beautiful pictures, we have to learn to sculpt beautiful sculptures, we must learn to build beautiful palaces, we must learn how to compose beautiful poetry, we must learn how to compose beautiful music ».

In 1997, Timur Novikov lost his sight due to illness. This event is largely the reason for changing the image and rhetoric artist. In 40 years, incomplete image of the modern (even slightly Americanized - in jeans and T-shirt), forever young and cheerful young man he replaced unworldly appearance of an old man with a beard and a staff. With the change of the image changed and declaration: in the movement to the public, based on commonly understood the beauty of the classical tradition materials, stories and details Novikov became an opponent of a different kind of modernism. All this could not have influence on his followers, the more he kept the same intensity as before, to teach, to work on the theory of art, to create.

Khlobystin Together with Andrew in 1998 Novikov published a newspaper, the "artistic will." Afterward, "artistic will" initiated by Novikov and Khlobystin staged a "burning sticks" in the fort of Kronstadt, dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the execution of Girolamo Savonarola: Novikov, a huge crowd of people burned one of his works, repeating one of the "bonfire of vanity", initiated by Florence XV century preacher was executed.

In the Marble Palace opened retrospective Novikov 1978-1998 period, the State Russian Museum, published for the opening of his biography and the book "The New Russian Classicism».

In the late 1990s, Novikov did much as art theorist. In 1999, together with Alexander Medvedev, he wrote and published the book "The Rape of Europa" and "The Rape of the mind", an art movement "New serious", which involved artists Denis Egelsky, Yegor Island, George Guryanov, Stanislav Makarov, Andrei Medvedev and others . and opened the exhibition of motion "New positive developments" in the halls of the State Russian Museum in the Mikhailovsky Castle. In 2001, participated in Puninskaya readings (St. Petersburg State University) on "Two Stories of Modern Art».

May 23, 2002, Timur Novikov incomplete '44 died of pneumonia. On May 26, after a funeral service at the Church of the Holy Face in the Stables area, he was buried in the Smolensk Orthodox cemetery.

Novikov Ideas and creativity are still relevant to this day. Regularly in major museums around the country and the largest galleries in the world held its exhibition. One of the largest and most representative place these days in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art on Gogol Boulevard. The exhibition is organized for the 55th anniversary of the artist and best represents his work and his life story. The works for the exhibition provided a major Russian museums and 15 private collections in Russia and Europe. The exhibition includes more than 125 works, about 100 of them on display for the first time in Moscow, and much of the first shows in Russia. Sections of the exhibition devoted to the main stage of creativity Novikova: expressive painting and drawing 1978-1980's, a series of panels "Horizons" 1987-1991; neoacademism 1990, the "new seriousness" Around 1990-2000s.

Timur Novikov Basketball. 1989 fabric, acrylic. 200 x 186 Sothebys. 12.03.2008 Estimate: 20 000-30 000 pounds Result: 36,500 pounds Source: artinvestment.ru

now about money. To date, the database ARTinvestment.RU stipulates that its work has appeared at auction almost fifty times (ie, the market itself is small). They include in their catalogs largest home - Christie's, Sotheby's, Phillips. Auction "geography" Novikov extensive, buy it and you can work in continental Europe, and in Britain and the United States, rarely in Russia (the auction house "Sovcom", 2008). But purchased works mainly go to England - 16 out of 24 lots sold went to the right place.

bulk sales of works by Novikov accounts for 2007-2008. March 12, 2008-th to Sotheby's reached the maximum today for the artist at auction price - acrylic on fabric "Basketball" went at auction for 60,000 dollars. Second and third places in the price ranking of the artist's works occupy "White Night" (1990), which was sold in February 2007, at Sotheby's for 36,000 pounds, and "The Shadow" (1978), for which in June of the same in 2007 buyer at MacDougall's regretted 27,170 pounds.

Timur Novikov White Night. 1990 fabric, acrylic. 163 x 150 Sotheby's. 15.02.2007 Estimate: 15 000-20 000 pounds Price: 36 000 GBP Source: artinvestment.ru

Timur Novikov Shadow. 1978 board, oil. 45 x 35 MacDougall's. 15.6.2007 Estimate: 3 000-5 000 pounds Result: 27,170 pounds Source: artinvestment.ru

Maria Kuznetsova, AI

Sources : mmoma.ru , newacademy.spb.ru , timurnovikov.ru , Gurevich . Leningrad underground artists: Biographical Dictionary. St. Petersburg, 2007, artinvestment.ru