Introduction: The ostensibly synchronistic evolution of the New Artists

As I was writing a text about The New Artists and the Mayakovsky Friends Club, analysing the emergence of these interlocking Leningrad structures, I came about a problem of interpreting Timur Novikov’s article about the New Artists from 1986[1], where Novikov describes stylistic features shared by the group’s members. It is, more precisely, a problem of interpreting the development of new stylistic features Novikov defines as native roots – or, alternatively, as native traditions – going back to Mayakovsky and, thus, to the Russian avant-garde:

The group’s brief interest in the French group Figuration Libre, the German Neue Wilde, the American graffiti artists, and comics and computers noticeably coloured the work of many artists in the group. This age-related affliction quickly passed, giving way to mutual influence.

The process of perestroika under way in the country has stimulated self-consciousness and a victory for our own native roots over western influences.
The New Artists opened the V.V. Mayakovsky Friends Club, an organization designed to strengthen and cultivate innovative native traditions. [2]

Reading Novikov’s statement, I asked myself whether it actually corresponds to the facts. The Mayakovsky Friends Club was founded in 1986, but how and where did such avant-garde traditions manifest themselves in the works of the New Artists all of a sudden, as if synchronised, superseding western influences (Chapter 1)? This question was less relevant in the context of my article about The New Artists and the Mayakovsky Friends Club, which touches not questions of style, but of self-organisation: how the New Artists (1982-1989 [3]) attempted to overcome administrative obstacles standing in the way of their self-organisation as a group.

Since the concept of native roots = avant-garde traditions is nevertheless relevant with regard to determining the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the New Artists’ works in their entirety, I decided to dedicate a separate article to this question – before returning to the text The New Artists and the Mayakovsky Friends Club. (Addendum from August 2021: This article is now available here >>) The subject matter turned out to be highly intriguing. With thirteen chapters, The New Artists. Timur Novikov: Roots – E-E Kozlov: Cosmos became longer than expected.

Novikov’s statement brings to mind such “classical” declarations from the Russian East-West debate as Natalia Goncharova’s “Now I shake the dust from my feet and leave the West, considering its vulgarizing significance trivial and insignificant—my path is toward the source of all arts, the East” [4] ; I discuss them in Chapter 6. However, the scope of this article is not to provide a detailed analysis of Novikov’s text against the background of similar arguments. Rather, the focus is on Novikov’s claim in the passage quoted – the claim of the New Artists’ collective evolution.

If Novikov‘s claim has prompted me to take a closer look at this question, it is because it stands in obvious contradiction to (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov’s [5] approach to art. Although Kozlov was a member of the New Artists throughout the group’s lifespan, his artistic development was different from that of his fellow artists in that it progressed very fast, similar to that of Picasso in his early period. This process led him to a large variety of stylistic approaches that included elements taken from the Russian avant-garde – we can easily find stylistic traces of Malevich, Maykovsky, Lebedev, Popova, Rodchenko, or Stepanova – but also elements of graffiti art, folk art, and of realistic and even academic drawing.

Kozlov’s stylistic versatility and the diversity of those subjects and themes he chose for his works not only brought a certain heterogeneity into the New Artists’ body of works. They also question the cliché that an art group progresses in a synchronistic manner – a cliché supported by Novikov’s statement.

(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov Untitled. In the foreground: Timur Novikov during a performance with Johann and New Composers Igor Verichev and Valery Alakhov. Painted vintage print, 12.8 x 17.9, 1985 From the album "It's the Fashion!”, 1984-1990 More >>

Kozlov was, however, not the only New artist [6] with an individual approach to native roots. In Chapter 6, I argue that “some New artists sometimes referred to some of these avant-garde artists, and this habit continued after 1986”. When looking for features enjoying some popularity among several New artists, we can say that small (stencilled) symbols known from early Soviet porcelain and textile – in the first place the cruiser Aurora – appear in the second half 1980s, especially towards the end of the decade. Examples can be found in the works of Timur Novikov, Oleg Kotelnikov, Ivan Sotnikov, Andrey Medvedev and some others; in fact, Medvedev’s stencilled patterns take up applied art designs by Suprematist Nikolai Suetin.

To speak of the Russian avant-garde art as syncretic leads us to another interesting question: the question of identifying the very roots of the Russian avant-garde – roots in the sense of ethnic background. Where these artists came from and whom they came to be after leaving the Soviet Union is the subject of Chapter 8, while Chapter 9 considers the problem of defining narodnost’, the mystical property constituting the Russian people.

I am not proposing the reader a rigorous stylistic analysis of those native roots present in the works of the New Artists, whether taken as a single body of works [7] or present in the works of a particular New artist – or any artist from their circle. The choice of works presented, and thus of their authors, is not comprehensive, although it is not arbitrary either: Sergei Bugaev (Africa), Georgy Guryanov, Vladislav Gutsevich, Andrei Khlobystin, Maya Khlobystina, Oleg Kotelnikov, (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov, Andrey Krisanov, Andrey Medvedev, Timur Novikov, Inal Savchenkov, Igor Smirnov, Ivan Sotnikov, Yevgeny Yufit. For those reasons explained above, I have been more precise with regard to Kozlov’s works – they provide the majority of examples.

Yet to establish for each New artist that specific relation between native roots and western influences characterising their works must be the subject of monographs; Chapter 5 provides some examples of how to look for such “non-native influences” in Kozlov’s works. Rather, my intention has been to collect, systemise and interpret some relevant facts that provide a more complex – even fragmented – picture of the New Artists’ creative heritage than Novikov’s unifying descriptions might suggest. This is notably the subject of Chapter 7, “Beyond the trend: Kozlov’s Portrait of Timur Novikov (1988)”.

The second problem I will discuss concerns the validity of what Novikov suggested as the New Artists’ concept since 1986: “to strengthen and cultivate innovative native traditions” – in other words: to be new and traditional at the same time. This formula comprehends an inherent contradiction, since “tradition” opposes “novelty” (Chapter 4). It also creates an opposition between Novikov and Kozlov in so far as Novikov’s statement gave the group a distinctively patriotic pop art mission (Chapter 2), while Kozlov perceived art, that is, the creative process, as “what connects man to life, space, time, universe, cosmos, eternity” [8]. It led Kozlov, in 1991, to write his theory about “Two Cosmic Systems” (Chapter 3), which syntheses a view from the earth with a view from the cosmos. This theory expresses Kozlov’s anti-ideological attitude – an attitude contrasting Novikov‘s often polemic statements.

On the other hand, it is also clear that Kozlov accepted Novikov’s invitation to join the New Artists not incidentally: he was expecting fresh impulses for his own art. On 24 January, 1983, he wrote in his notebook, “True art must be unlike any art from the past; its only task is to be a way towards the future – that is, to be contemporary art not in the sense of art of our times, but in the sense of freedom of expression, of novelty – this is the path in the present moment.” [9] New is what Kozlov calls today “a primary matrix” (первичная матрица).

(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov, Diary 3, page 78-79, dated 24/I/1983 The original Russian text of the sentence quoted above is on page 79: Настоящее искусство не должно быть похоже ни на одно в прошлом, но только путь в будущее – современное искусство, не в смысле времени, но в свободе выражения, его новизне – это путь в настоящем моменте. More >> See also: (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov's Participation in the Second TEII Exhibition (1983) in His Diary and Photographs. Chapter 7 More >>

With regard to Evgenij Kozlov, I propose to solve the antagonism between “innovative” and “traditions” by re-interpreting and enlarging the concept of native roots with a specific fact from the artist’s biography. I’m referring to the fact that Kozlov lived outside Leningrad, in Peterhof; his flat and studio Galaxy Gallery (Chapter 12) was located near the Grand Palace. I suggest to include Peterhof into a wider concept of native roots and thereby extend native roots to native culture, or, perhaps, to a more spiritual concept of native atmosphere, the latter being free of any patriotic undertones (Chapter 10). Chapter 11 focuses on a more down-to-earth aspect of Kozlov’s life in Peterhof: his jobs, which – unexpectedly – brought some important impulses for his art.

(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov with fishing rod and rucksack . Voronikhin Colonnades with granite lions, Peterhof Palace Garden (Lower Garden). 1980. Kozlov's star sign is Leo. Photo: Viktor Labutov More >>

Last but not least, Peterhof helped Kozlov to generate within himself what he defined, some years ago, as “a perception of pureness”, which we may consider as the basis for integrating – in line with the theory of “Two Cosmic Systems” – the laws of both earth and cosmos into a work of art. In the last chapter of my article, I will pay particular attention to such a “perception of pureness” and define it as the perception of a timeless moment, a nunc stans, which has been experienced and described by different authors with their own terminologies. The “perception of pureness” is connected to an artist’s necessity for seclusion – the opposite of being a member of an artist collective, or a collectivity (Chapter 13).

Assigning “roots” to Timur Novikov and “cosmos” to Evgenij Kozlov, I am not saying that Novikov disregarded “cosmos”, nor that Kozlov disregarded “roots”. My point is that referring to “roots” in an ideological way, as did Novikov in his text from 1986, closes the way to an innovation of traditions, while referring to “cosmos” keeps this path open. 

If there is a main conclusion from approaching the problem of native roots and innovative native traditions from different sides, it comes as no surprise: I would suggest to use with great care and “due diligence” such class definitions proposed by Timur Novikov as “The New Artists’ native roots…”, “The New Artists followed the traditions of…” or “The New Artists were influenced by / overcame the influence of…”. To avoid such categorical propositions, “The New Artists, generally speaking, …” would be an option. Having said that, phenomena lying beyond what is generally true are often the most interesting ones, especially with regard to a group’s cohesion. Exceptions may even provide the conditions for that which is generally true.

My hope is that those observations, conclusions and questions proposed in this article, when added to materials and studies available up to date, will help to establish a theoretical framework to determine what “group” or “collective” means in the context of the New Artists.

This touches the question of mutual influences, which remain to be examined in just the same scrupulous manner as, hopefully one day, the question of native roots vs. non-native influences. I am fully convinced that the more facts and details become available, the better we will understand what constituted not roots, tradition, or influences, but novelty – the New Artists’ momentum.

(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov E-E Classic (НЛО - UFO), 2014, no. 3 Crayon, felt-pen and ink on paper, 21 x 29.6 cm, 2014. The picture shows the reverse of the painted photo collage displayd at top of the page. The drawing is a mirrored image of the photograph from 1995 applied to the front page displaying Kozlov, Novikov and Kozlov's portrait of Novikov. More about E-E Kozlov's series E-E Classic (НЛО - UFO) dedicated to artists from Saint-Petersburg >>

next page: Chapter 1. Timur Novikov: native roots and western influences

next page: Chapter 1. Timur Novikov: native roots and western influences

Uploaded 24 September 2020
Last updated 22 September 2021