A story about the life and work of the famous Moscow sixties

Hulot Ilmar Yogannesovich Sooster (1924-1970). One of the most famous representatives of the "Sixties Generation", the participant Manege exhibition, the organizer of the famous "Tuesday" on the street Krasin, which drank and socialized underground Moscow. "Officially" - schedule, the illustrator of science fiction, "informally" - a master of experimental art, whose personal metaphysics is reflected in the unique style which incorporates echoes of foreign flows, as oneyrichesky Surrealism Rene Magritte and Max Ernst, "al informel and abstract expressionism.

• Hulot Sooster Red Egg. 1964
  Source: artinvestment.ru

Sooster, barely Does not the European (in the sense of "foreign") from the sixties of the first series, paid dearly for their desire to get acquainted with the international avant-garde. In 1949, the artist, along with several other graduates of the Tartu Art Institute, was sent to the camp as a 58 "anti-Soviet" under the Criminal Code. It seems that the students expressed their desire to go to work on probation abroad, for what they are "drawn up" anti-Soviet propaganda and planning escape. The sentence - ten years, of which Sooster served seven and was released in 1956. Nightmares of camp life somewhat smoothed out socializing with other intellectuals, who by the mercy of the regime in the barracks was set, and, of course, the creativity - from those years were landscapes, erotic drawings and portraits of other inmates. Often, the artist had to rescue his work from the fire, where they each Shmona "determined" the guards - so many pictures charred edges. In camp, the artist learned Russian, and met his life's companion, a beautiful woman, a Jew Lydia Sergio, persecuted for "spying for the United States." We got married Sooster and Lydia in 1956, shortly after Khrushchev had been released. Unable to find work in his native Estonia, the former anti-Soviet "and his wife moved to Moscow, where their apartment became a center of attraction for artists of" thaw ". Among the friends were Sooster Yuri Sobolev-of zero , Ilya Kabakov , Viktor Pivovarov , Neizvestny and many others.

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Hope that in Moscow, Khrushchev era "thaw" will be free to exhibit a radical painting did not come true: a bucket of cold water on the head generation was Manege. December 1, 1962, Khrushchev remembers stormed exhibited paintings there is informal: rumored Sooster even received a proposal from the Secretary General to go "on plener" in the camp, to which the artist replied, "And I was there." Khrushchev said, embarrassed, and muttered something about re-education. Other sources claim that the artist just quietly talked to the secretary-general ... In any case, participation in the Manege exhibition has had negative consequences. After the young son of the artist, Tenno, said in a kindergarten, she does not like her grandfather Khrushchev, because "he shouted at my father, Sooster burned all his correspondence. To receive requests for registration of books has become much more difficult - had to take a pseudonym.

In all of this, most creations Sooster can not be called political. The picture so displeased Khrushchev, called "moon landscape". Generally, the key image Sooster - frozen in timeless space, a huge egg, which the artist considered a symbol of life firsthand. Here we must note that he was an unbeliever (though I knew all the major religions), but, according to the memoirs of his wife, loved to talk about the origin of the world. " The artist believed in life on other planets, is actively interested in science (cooperation with the publishing house "Knowledge" had quite the way) and even said that in another life could be a physicist. He read books on cybernetics and claimed in a letter that "must-have directly to the brain include the BESM (large electronic computers. - AI ), then perhaps something can be ponimat.

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He is constantly experimenting - not only with the picturesque styles and techniques, but also with its own consciousness. In his memoirs found evidence that he used drugs. Writes in his memoirs, Lydia Sooster: "He wanted to test on yourself to try it. Above all, he wanted to feel that people experience when approaching death. I know what heaven and hell, I feel pain of purgatory. He repeatedly told me that he wanted to know what feels murdered. Once he pulled the rope around his neck and began to drag, waiting for a sense of nausea. After the sweetest feeling of nausea came ascension to heaven, and then he let go of the rope ... He often stood in the pouring rain, listening to the thunder and lightning, he was lying in the snow to freeze, he tied himself to a tree at night because he wanted to see the moon and the stars in a dream ».

Sooster died in 1970, in his own workshop. Cause of death not known. His wife and son of the artist emigrated to Israel. Tenno also became an artist. In 2006, the work of two Sooster exhibited in the gallery "Romanov».

• Hulot Sooster Composition with eggs
  Source: artinvestment.ru

best from Sooster are paintings 1960 -s, with a picture of his favorite forms - in addition to eggs, it's fish, eyes and juniper bushes (the latter as an indispensable part of the landscape of his native island of Hiiumaa, appear as elements of his unconscious). Unfortunately, the Russian public meetings prior to their offensive enough, much of the legacy of the artist settled in Estonian and American museums and private collections. Major retrospective in a major metropolitan museum at Sooster not been so far. first museum solo exhibition of the artist was only this year, in the Moscow Literary Museum . As part of this exhibition was presented a book of memoirs of Lydia Sooster.

at public auction painting Sooster appears very rarely and often works the average, because the masterpieces quickly find new owners in the circle of collectors. No auction record for an amount of 30.9 thousand pounds, which brought 30 May 2006 at Macdougall's «Composition with eggs" (estimate 13-15 thousand). This is the only time when the work was exhibited at the auction Sooster this class: usually appear early Studi "by Picasso. Even more can be found at the auction (and dealers) schedule, which is valued below. Here, the same rule as that of painting: the advantage in the market is ripe for the work period, with recognizable "metaphysical subjects.

Julia Maksimova, AI

Sources: arthouse.ru , magazines.russ.ru , artinvestment.ru