Artist Oscar Rabin. Oscar Rabin: “The bulldozer exhibition was the highlight of my life Oscar Rabin biography

Photo: oscar-rabin.web61.server4.configcenter.info

The Moscow publishing house "Verb" is preparing to publish a book by a journalist and art critic Alexandra Shatalova "The Amethyst Casket: Notes on Exhibitions and Destinies". It includes articles and essays on the informal art of the Soviet era, including those published in NT. We offer readers an excerpt from the book.

Eric Bulatov, painter: The end of the 1950s, when Oscar Rabin appeared, it was the time when the resistance to the official ideology began. Previously, under Stalin, this was impossible, they were killed for it ... Rabin was the first artist who began to openly and completely calmly show what he was doing, without asking permission from his superiors. It was a real revolution. He was the first to so boldly, calmly and accurately show the wrong side of our life.

Lianozovo. Vanguard picnic

Vladimir Nemukhin, painter: Lianozovo, where Oscar Rabin settled and which went down in history, is a suburb of Moscow along the Savelovskaya road, maybe thirty kilometers or so. Why Lianozovo? Because Rabin's father-in-law Evgenyevich Leonidovich Kropivnitsky* lived nearby, in Dolgoprudny, in the same incredible hut.

* Kropivnitsky Yevgeny Leonidovich (1893–1979), poet, artist, head of the uncensored Lianozovsky circle in Moscow in the 1950s–1960s

Oscar Rabin: In the Khrushchev era, some of the camps near Moscow were liberated. There was a women's camp in Lianozovo, it was transferred from there to another place, and the barracks were repaired and distributed to employees. They gave me one room, and even then it was a big pull - because I painted two pictures for the head of the personnel department, who was busy for me, but not my own, I copied them from somewhere. So we ended up in Lianozovo. Well, then Lianozovsky life began.

Kira Sapgir, writer: I have never been left with a feeling of amazing, amazing, very positive contrast. You walk through this backwater - dirty, sad, in which there is not the slightest aesthetics, except for some wonderful weeds that bloomed there, and burdocks ... Burdocks were still indescribably good ... You approach a filthy barracks, enter a huge, like it seemed to us then, a room where the ceiling is propped up by a kind of Corinthian column - a wooden riser. And there is a table on which there is always food. To be honest, neither then nor now did we eat so deliciously as at Oscar, Valentina and Yevgeny Leonidovich Kropivnitsky. And the potatoes there were special, and the herring was amazing, and tea ...

Stars of the Soviet avant-garde (from left to right):
Nikolai Vechtomov, Oscar Rabin
and Vladimir Nemukhin. 1977 Photo: Igor Palmin

Vladimir Nemukhin: Usually the picture shows ended with a tea party. Or someone brought an ordinary green bottle of vodka, some kind of vinaigrette, some cut sausage, black bread. They drink a glass. Nobody got drunk, there were no drunken meetings, absolutely. Somehow Vasiliev-Mont appeared, and we decided to have an avant-garde picnic. We arrived at Oscar's a little overwhelmed. Of course, one or two bottles of vodka were bought. There were already about ten of us, probably, and decided to look for a place in the open air. We pass some small ponds, but it was spring, and Vasiliev-Mon saw frog caviar in these ponds: “Friends, caviar! We have something to eat." They quickly took out a spoon from the backpack, he scooped up and ate this caviar. Behind him<поэт Генрих>Sapgir: “Friends, an incredible event! Long live frog caviar! I will definitely write something about this.” Our ladies looked at this caviar somewhat with disgust. And I took it and tried it. She looked like some kind of fish. Taste of fish with mud. Well, in general, unpleasant food. Thus, we celebrated the avant-garde picnic, eating frog caviar at the stormy events of that time ...

** Vasiliev-Mon Yuri Vasilievich (1925–1990), sculptor, graphic artist, painter

Kira Sapgir: They looked like gods to me. Or they were the last goblin who were expelled from megacities. The intellectual elite who were being expelled from this world. And they didn't survive. It turned out that they were stronger because it was pure power.

"Bulldozer Exhibition": Nonconformists

Vladimir Sychev, photographer: In early September 1974, a rumor spread around Moscow that an application had been submitted for an official exhibition of non-conformist artists, who were then called "unofficial artists." Exhibitions of these artists, who were then registered 28 people, were held in apartments in turn. They opened the doors for everyone, and for some time people came to see the paintings and get acquainted with the artists. Naturally, they sold their paintings, but it was illegal.

Oscar Rabin: They called us in different ways, mostly in a dirty sense. Nonconformists were not officially members of the Union of Artists and were not listed anywhere.

"Bulldozer exhibition" in Belyaev, "spectators"
in civilian clothes Photo: venecianov.ru

Vladimir Sychev: It was raining, such a fine, nasty autumn rain. I came to a wasteland in Belyaevo with friends - American journalists, who by that time went to my exhibitions. I stood on one side of the avenue, and as I later realized, the main events were developing on the other side. On both sides there were Zhiguli cars, the most primitive ones, people in civilian clothes were sitting there, and I immediately noticed that everyone present was photographed from these cars. I started taking photographs one by one (I shoot quickly and discreetly) and gave the first three films to an American journalist. Unfortunately, he did not return these films to me ...

crushed paintings
Photo: venecianov.ru

Vladimir Nemukhin: I was pushed aside by six people, you can’t get through them. I say: "Let's go, let's go." And I see Oscar begins to unfold his work, and suddenly a bulldozer rides on him. It was terrible. And at this time, his son Sasha flies out, there is some piece of iron sticking out in front of the bulldozer, he grabs this piece of iron, and the bulldozer literally stops at Rabin's feet. I break through, thugs fly up to me and say: “We won’t let you in, we’ll burn your work.” I say: “Scoundrel, I give you my picture for kindling. Go burn if you have the courage. Bastard! I give him a picture, he pushes me aside, throws everything away, and they earn. They lit something, some kind of fire appeared. Foreigners immediately came in large numbers, correspondents. Of course, they immediately attacked them, ripped out their cameras, pulled out the tapes. Therefore, there are almost no bulldozer personnel. And the events did not develop for three minutes, for quite a long time it all happened. Then they turned on the watering machines: they collected some kind of slurry, dirt, and let's water everyone ... Police cars arrived. Elskaya*** was taken away, Rukhin****, Oskar was taken to the police station.

*** Elskaya Nadezhda Vsevolodovna (1947–1978), artist.
**** Rukhin Evgeny Lvovich (1943–1976) - artist

Vladimir Sychev: The next day, Monday, we were taken to court. The trial was very strange. 5 people were judged: Oscar Rabin, Sasha Rabin, Elskaya, Rukhina and me. We were sentenced to 15 days, but released after 4, because we went on a hunger strike and really did not eat anything ... The police were a little frightened.

In Paris

Oscar Rabin: I always wanted to go to Paris, I dreamed about it. It was inaccessible to an ordinary Soviet person. First, I left with a Soviet passport as a tourist, I had a tourist visa for 3 months. Then it was extended at the Soviet consulate. Then I was invited to the second floor to the consul. And the consul read to me the decree of the Supreme Council, signed by Brezhnev, on the deprivation of citizenship.

Kira Sapgir: They arrived 7 months before me. They seemed like old-timers to me. I only know one thing: when Rabin was deprived of his citizenship, it was by no means painless for him, and he protested very much against the image of a sufferer that they wanted to give him. He said: I am an artist and I paint what I see. In my opinion, he did not understand one thing - that he used the social, political moment as a method of art. Here, in the West, at first not very many people accepted him, because they did not know him very well. But still, "Passport" has already appeared, which was in the gallery of Dina Verni. And he started fighting with himself. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. There's a horse meat shop here, and here it had a wall with gilded horse heads - an absolutely apocalyptic trio breaking through the wall. It seems to me that this was the personification of his Parisian situation.

Three Passports, triptych, 2006 Image: The Tsukanov Art Collection

Michel Ivasilevich, gallery owner: There have always been Russian artists in Paris, in the 20th century there were several waves of people who came from Russia to live and work here. Soutine, Lifshits, Zadkine, after the war Polyakov, De Stael, Lanskoy. And there is a third wave - Oleg Tselkov,<Михаил>Roginsky, Rabin, they did not come here of their own free will. Oscar Rabin was actually expelled from the USSR in 1978 along with his wife Valentina Kropivnitskaya and son Alexander. In the early 1990s, an exhibition was organized at the Mir Art Gallery in Paris. Many then first became acquainted with the art of Rabin. His paintings, one might say, are of the same material as those of Nicolas de Stael. They are material, rough, like the land of Lianozovo, which he brought with him into exile.

Oscar Rabin: From the window of my studio on the second floor I see the Center Pompidou, Beaubourg, as they call it. I've been seeing it for 23 years now. I am pleased, of course, that such a museum is nearby. But the thing is, I'm probably monogamous. I was already formed when I came to France. I will probably be that way for the rest of my life. Of course, I love Paris, my real life is there, outside the window. This is an eternal theater, an eternal holiday. And I myself take part in this theater, in this play ...

Creativity every day

Michel Ivasilevich: In our house there is a painting by Rabin, in which for me all the power and mystery of his art is concentrated. It is called "Eight kerosene lamps and eight electric lamps", it was purchased at the exhibition by my husband Mark, a collector. The wall of the barracks is depicted with windows through which the head of Rabin himself and members of his family can be seen. For me, this is the personification of his whole life, we see it as if from the outside and from the inside at the same time, so the artist shares with us the secret of his being...

"Composition with bird cherry and scrambled eggs",
2013, oil on canvas Image:
Museum of Contemporary Art Erarta

Kira Sapgir: What I love about Oscar's paintings is this incredible, passionate transition from nakedness to earthly comfort. Two formulations were given to them by their guru, Yevgeny Leonidovich Kropivnitsky: he had a series of "nakedness" and there were poems "Earthly Comfort". And here is this cozy lamp by Rabin... A gray scary human landscape around - and a gentle, reassuring orange glow. On this difference, it seems to me, the whole psychodrama of his paintings is built.

Arkady Nedel, philosopher: I called the book about him "Oscar Rabin - a painted life." Rabin knows much more than my generation. I have never seen such incredible originality of writing and such a perfect sense of reality in anyone else.

Oscar Rabin and Valentina Kropivnitskaya.
1965. Paper, marker, watercolor.
Collection of Alexander Kronik,
Moscow

Oscar Rabin was born on January 2, 1928 in Moscow into a family of doctors. His father and mother - Ukrainian Jew Yakov Rakhmailovich Rabin and Latvian Veronica Leontina Anderman - were graduates of the University of Zurich. When the boy was five years old, his father died, at the age of thirteen he lost his mother. The only joy in the life of an orphaned and malnourished boy was painting. The artist recalled: “one day, wandering around the market, I suddenly came across an uncle who was selling a whole set of real oil paints! Without hesitation, I immediately exchanged them for a freshly sold bread ration.

O. Rabin. Ruined city. 1974

From the beginning of the forties, Rabin began to live in Trubnikovsky Lane. After graduating from school, in the autumn of 1942 he entered the art studio of Yevgeny Kropivnitsky in the House of Pioneers. In 1944, after the liberation of Latvia, Oskar moved in with his mother's relatives for some time.

After the end of the Second World War, in the period from 1946 to 1948. Rabin studied at the Riga Academy of Arts. Local students nicknamed him "our Repin" for his commitment to the realistic method. Since Rabin did not have any documents with him, he was not given ration cards. The student did not have a permanent place of residence, spent the night at the academy, lived from hand to mouth and was afraid of being arrested for violating the passport regime.

OSCAR RABIN Violin in the cemetery. 1969.

In the end, he managed to get a passport through blasphemy, but the young man was told to register as a Latvian in the “nationality” column. Some time later, Rabin made a short trip to Moscow and, returning to Riga, realized that he had forgotten to register with the metropolitan police. The artist decided to forge the extract, but then, in fear, destroyed the passport he had obtained with such difficulty.

In 1949, Rabin finally moved to Moscow and entered the second year of the Surikov Institute, in 1950, by some miracle, he again received a passport, married the artist Valentina Kropivnitskaya, the daughter of his first teacher Yevgeny Kropivnitsky. According to the artist's memoirs, he studied in Surikov for about four months and, not having achieved a hostel, went to work. I had to work as a foreman in unloading wagons, side by side with criminals. The family settled in a barrack with an earthen floor on the outskirts of Moscow, in the village of Lianozovo, which was outside the city in those years. The marriage produced two children.

Oscar Rabin. Absolute and two big herrings._2006,

For seven years - from 1950 to 1957 - Rabin worked as a loader at the construction site of Sevvodstroy. The schedule was changeable, two days later, so Rabin had a lot of free time for painting. Sometimes this brought additional income - local residents knew the artist well and sometimes ordered copies of works by Russian classics.

In the spring of 1957, Rabin took part in the III exhibition of works by young artists of Moscow and the Moscow region. Several canvases presented by him were selected by members of the Moscow Union of Artists.

Oscar_Rabin_Abandoned_Station_San_Michel_2006

Lianozovo group

In the 50s, a circle began to gather around the apartment of Rabin and Kropivnitskaya, which later became known as the Lianozovsky group. Since there was no telephone in the artist's house, Sunday was proclaimed a "reception day". At first, friends and acquaintances, people from the inner circle of friends, students of Kropyvnytsky, and so on, came to visit. Later, strangers began to appear, all kinds of artists and writers, collectors of contemporary art and journalists. The artists Nemukhin, Masterkova, Vechtomov, Sveshnikov and, of course, Lev Kropivnitsky (brother of the artist's wife), as well as the poets Sapgir, Kholin, Nekrasov and many others have been here. At a certain stage, everyone could come. Rabin had buyers. The first was the collector of the Russian avant-garde Georgy Kostaki. Then foreign Russophiles appeared, penetrating through conspiracy - foreign guests were forbidden to leave the city. The authorities also treated the sale of their works by Soviet artists to foreigners extremely negatively.

Oscar_Rabin_Meat Grinder_2014

The growing popularity of the group attracted the attention of the security services. It was the KGB officers who first named the Lianozovskoy group, which initially had no name, and subsequently this name was assigned to it. The KGB established surveillance over the apartment - any contact with foreigners in those days was possible only under the control of the authorities.

goddess-with-computer

In the 1960s Rabin's name was already well known abroad. French critics called him "Solzhenitsyn from painting." In 1965, the owner of London's Grosvenor Gallery, Eric Estoric, purchased a large number of paintings from Rabin and opened an exhibition. She received positive reviews critics and the press, including the BBC. The mediator in this operation was the Anglo-Soviet journalist who collaborated with the special services, Vitaly Louis, a rather mysterious and odious figure - even his real name remains the subject of much controversy, not to mention the role in the life of Moscow bohemia.

As the ideological leader of the Lianozovo group, Rabin was never essentially a theoretician and never wrote any works. Nor was he a teacher; he had no students, followers, or epigones. Nevertheless, he had a tremendous impact on his surroundings, as a result of which Lianozovo was increasingly called the "school".

For seven years - from 1958 to 1965 - the barracks in Lianozovo remained the unofficial center of the cultural life of the capital, until the family of artists moved out - Rabin finally managed to buy a decent home on Preobrazhenka.

bulldozer exhibition

In 1974, the artist duo Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid (the future founders of the so-called Sots Art, or the Soviet variety of pop art) invited Rabin to organize an outdoor exhibition - since they were not allocated a building for this. Rabin was the oldest of the artists who agreed to such an adventure; five years earlier, he himself proposed a similar idea.

The prerequisites for organizing an outdoor exhibition were the total ban of the Moscow Union of Artists on holding exhibitions outside the walls of official art institutions, the repression of artists whose work did not fit into the framework of the method approved by the authorities, the article on parasitism, which in essence forbids doing art in working time to everyone who is not a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR.

Rabin, in company with the collector of unofficial art Alexander Glezer, notified the Moscow City Council that they were holding an exhibition on September 15 in the Belyaevo district. Coordination, as, however, they did not receive a refusal.

In invitation cards, the event was labeled "First Autumn Outdoor Painting Viewing". In fact, the organizers were well aware that they were going for a provocation, many artists from the very beginning refused to take part in such an adventure. In a 2010 interview, Rabin emphasized: “The exhibition was prepared more as a political challenge to the repressive regime, and not as an artistic event. I knew that we would have problems, that there would be arrests, beatings. During the last two days before the exhibition, we were scared. I was frightened by the thought that anything could happen to me personally.

On the specified day, artists (Oscar Rabin with his son Alexander, Vladimir Nemukhin, Lidia Masterkova, Evgeny Rukhin, Valentin Vorobyov, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Yuri Zharkikh, poet Igor Kholin and some others) in the amount of 20 superfluous man gathered in a wasteland at the intersection of Ostrovityanova and Profsoyuznaya streets. Among those present there was also a significant group of observers (relatives, friends and acquaintances) and a large number of foreign journalists and diplomats. The exhibition lasted about half an hour, then a group of policemen dressed in civilian clothes (about a hundred) arrived at the scene. The action was suppressed with the involvement of several bulldozers, dump trucks, watering machines; pictures were broken, participants were detained, some were beaten. So, a NewYorkTimes correspondent had a tooth knocked out by his own camera. According to eyewitnesses, Rabin hung on the bucket of a bulldozer and was dragged by him through the entire area of the vernissage. One of the attackers, police lieutenant Avdeenko, was remembered for shouting “You need to shoot! Only cartridges are a pity!

The absurd but predictable dispersal of a peaceful opening day with the use of bulldozers and watering machines went down in history and was described in great detail in memoirs, articles, books, monographs, etc. Glezer, who was in contact with the foreign press and actively promoted Soviet art abroad, immediately called a press conference. Participants of the thwarted Bulldozer Exhibition became famous all over the world.

The results have been rather contradictory. On the one hand, the event received an international response and for a whole month the "BulldozerExhibition" was exaggerated in the world press. On the other hand, many of its participants were forced to emigrate in subsequent years. Six months after the Bulldozer Exhibition, Glezer was forced to leave the USSR. In France, he founded the Museum of Contemporary Russian Art in Exile. In 1977 he published a small pamphlet called The Blue Book. Art under the bulldozer.

One way or another, unofficial art suddenly ceased to be such and even became fashionable for a while. In 1975, the City Committee of Graphics was founded, in which Rabin and other nonconformists exhibited, thus the former underground workers received a completely official platform.

Oscar Rabin at the Tretyakov Gallery in 2008. photo by Vadim Alekseev.

Iconography of Rabin

Oscar Rabin is best known for his still lifes, but, of course, the artist's work is not limited to one genre and is a bizarre mixture of various art schools, methods, and techniques. Rabin is characterized by the use of collages and assemblages, a frequently repeated motif in his paintings - scraps of newspapers, leaflets, documents (primarily a passport) or labels. His works are politicized, but at the same time remain extremely emotional, deeply personal. So, the frequent image of the passport is explained by the experiences of the artist's youth, when he had to wander around the Union without having any personal documents with him.

barrack with moon

In the harsh iconography of the artist, with its cruel images of rotten barracks, sooty signboards and dirty still lifes with bottles of vodka, there was a place for lighter images. Rabin wrote a lot to his wife Valentina Kropivnitskaya. He portrayed his beloved as Simonetta Vespucci (My Wife, 1964) or the pious Madonna (Madonna. Lianozovo, ca. 1967) and placed her against the backdrop of gloomy Soviet landscapes of urban outskirts.

Oscar Rabin at the Tretyakov Gallery in 2008. photo by Vadim Alekseev.

The Soviet press criticized Rabin for "ideological nonsense". “Rabin’s “works” cause a real physical disgust, their very subject matter is a sign of his spiritual wretchedness,” Roman Karpel, a journalist from the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, quoted a letter from a certain indignant citizen (probably fictional) in a feuilleton with the loud title “Priests of the Garbage No. 8 in 1960. The title refers to one of Rabin's paintings of the Lianozovo period - "Dump No. 8". Later, in a personal conversation, he admitted to the artist that the material was ordered by the Lubyanka.

The paradox of Rabin's relationship with the authorities was that in Rabin's painting there was not even the slightest hint of the avant-garde trends of that time that were fashionable abroad, he never dealt with abstractionism, remained indifferent to abstract expressionism, pop art. Defending himself against attacks and harassment, he appealed to realism. “In our country, realism is praised and encouraged in every possible way. But my painting is just realistic. - The artist noted. - I draw what I see. I lived in a barracks, many Soviet citizens also lived in barracks, and still do. And I draw barracks. Why is that bad?<…>I am reproached for still lifes, for vodka bottles and a herring lying on a newspaper. But haven't you ever drunk vodka and ate herring?<…>Besides, our vodka is praised abroad, and we are proud of it. And yes, we do drink a lot.<…>This is life itself. Should we be afraid of life? As critic Zhanna Vasilyeva notes, the artist played according to the rules established by the authorities - and outplayed them. But, of course, he was influenced by the avant-garde movements of the early 20th century, all those that were vehemently rejected and condemned by the Soviet authorities for "formalism." Rabin's paintings, with their deceptive external simplicity, bold black contours and inclination to the plane, hide the depth of the idea, the continuous spiritual search. They contain references to German expressionists, surrealists, and partly cubists. According to Kropyvnytsky, he was industrious and pedantic, he was attentive to the composition of paints, the quality of the primer, and did not lose sight of a single small detail.

After emigration - our days

According to the artist, after the death of Stalin, he began new life, getting the opportunity to become a real artist. "... And in this second life, I was able to prove myself and realize myself as an artist, without prevaricating and not faking official art." This continued until 1978, when Rabin was forced to leave Soviet Union. In 1977, they tried to imprison Rabin "for parasitism." The artist was charged with the fact that he did not write in his free time, not being a member of the Union of Artists - only they had such a privilege. In 1978 he was allowed to leave the country with his family - but in exchange for Soviet citizenship. Needless to say, the artist agreed. Among nonconformists, this was perceived as a kind of "honor" - after all, before Rabin, only dissident writers became persona non grata, he became an exception artist. The artist calls his life in France "The Third Life".

He received French citizenship in 1985. In 1990, at the end of Perestroika, he received the news that he was entitled to the restoration of Soviet citizenship. After the collapse of the USSR, the artist's work was finally rehabilitated.

In 2006, Rabin finally received a Russian passport, but is not going to return to his homeland.

For almost 40 years, the painter has been living and working in Paris and rarely visits Russia, but he continues to closely monitor what is happening in the country and explore acute social problems in your creativity. The aesthetics of the artist practically did not undergo major changes.

In 2008, the Tretyakov Gallery hosted a large-scale retrospective of Rabin's paintings. In 2013, the Multimedia Art Museum opened an exhibition of graphics from the 1950s and 1960s, timed to coincide with the artist's 85th birthday.

In 2013, Rabin was awarded the Order Russian Academy Arts "For Service to Art".

In 2015, the St. Petersburg Museum of Modern Art "Erarta" hosted an exhibition latest works ageless sixties, who recently turned 87.

"When serfs are beaten - it's nothing"

Oscar Rabin on the Bulldozer Exhibition, Surrealists and Life in Emigration

Oscar Rabin is one of the most legendary figures in Soviet unofficial art. He is considered the initiator of the Bulldozer Exhibition of 1974, which was crushed by the authorities and caused a huge scandal in the Western press. Shortly thereafter, he had to emigrate, and at the age of 50 he ended up in Paris, where he lives to this day; and now about the role played by Rabin in the "second Russian avant-garde", a documentary is being filmed by Yevgeny Tsymbal and Alexander Smolyansky. Lenta.ru talked to the artist about the barracks, life in exile and the fate of contemporary art.

"Lenta.ru": Now a film is being made about you, what else can they say?

Oscar Rabin: You know, to be honest, I haven't seen the script. Actually, the film turned out partly by chance: Alexander Smolyansky (author of the idea and script - approx. "Tapes.ru") lived next to me in Paris for more than three years, he came to me, we often saw each other. He filmed our conversations. A huge amount of material came together, and the idea came to turn it into a documentary. But since there was a lot of filming, we decided to divide it into two series. One has already come out, called “Valentina Kropivnitskaya. In Search of the Lost Paradise. It was a relative success, and they started a second film, about me. They did it when Valentina was no longer there - while she was alive, there was no talk about this. So I have no idea what will be in the movie. I try not to interfere too much, because then I would have to shoot myself. This would be my line.

Have you ever wanted to write a memoir?

Yes, many artists, my friends, wrote memoirs, I read them. But I never really wanted to. Once there was a book about my life, but it again came out by chance, I did not write it. When I arrived in Paris, my friends were here, and here is one journalist - she worked in Russia for many years, she knew Russian perfectly; we were friends, she even collected a small collection of my paintings - and she wrote to La France Noire that I came and why it happened. There is a Laffont publishing house in Paris, and they decided that my biography is suitable for a series - about people who are not necessarily famous for something, but with an unusual biography. It could be anyone - both a shoemaker and a writer. And so they considered it unusual that some artist, just because he draws his paintings and wants to exhibit them, to live in a normal world - only for this he is expelled. Well, and partly for my participation, my role in the Bulldozer Exhibition - it was four years before I left for Paris.

They say that you were dragged on a ladle through the whole wasteland at this exhibition.

You know, after so many years, some relative tragedy has already been lost. What’s more, everything turned out well in the end. Someone, of course, tried to intimidate the authorities. They were drafted into the army, fired from work - at this level. No one was executed, no one was put in jail. And the benefits, on the contrary, were very large. There was a big resonance in the West, it influenced. At the time, the government was very dependent on favorable trade status with America. Then they were negotiating to cancel the Jackson-Vanik amendment - and suddenly there was such a scandal. In America, they asked how it is possible to have normal relations with such a country when such things happen there. Before the eyes of the whole world, such a disgrace ... After all, the point is not that some paintings were burned - in itself this would not excite the Western public. But there were diplomats, correspondents who filmed it - they behaved completely incorrectly with foreigners. We're okay, we're used to it. Everyone is used to the fact that the authorities can treat us as they please. But when the American correspondent was hit on the camera, his teeth were knocked out ... He then had to go to Finland to insert them. So when serfs are beaten - it's nothing, but when foreigners ...

You are now a foreigner yourself. How do you feel about the fact that your fate after the exhibition has developed in this way?

I firmly, of course, did not know what the West was - it's a completely different world. But it turned out that they gave me a second homeland, a second life - like this. For me, as an artist, and as a person, it is much more suitable, because I could finally work calmly, go about my business ... Nobody bothered me, it didn’t concern anyone. Of course, I did not immediately understand this. At first there were everyday problems, it was difficult. And I was short of money, and at first the paintings somehow ... were sold, of course, people bought them ... Foreigners bought them in Russia, they took them out - so they knew me a little. It helped at first. Well, then it got easier. Then rich people appeared in Russia, and somehow we got involved in this international picture market. Prices went up, at one time the paintings even reached completely unrealistic prices - Russian art, I mean. This, however, did not last long, then the crisis began, and everything fell ten times. Still, this is enough for me to live and work.

People come here, to my house, and ask to see my paintings - in this case, I’m even surprised that fate seems to be repeating itself ... Only in the USSR it was forced to show paintings at home, because there was nowhere to exhibit, it was excluded. And here, of course, there is where to exhibit. But it turned out that it is much more interesting for me to show pictures at home, because there are a lot of people at the opening days, a flea market ... This is good, but not quite what I want. At home, firstly, there are not so many people, and secondly, you directly feel the reaction of a person - you like it, you don’t like it, you can talk. Sometimes they say something. And it is much more expensive and interesting for me as an artist.

Have you managed to join the French art?

No, you know. From the very beginning I understood that I do not fit into contemporary art, contemporary, conceptual - it is called differently - this is what hangs in all museums. Including opposite my windows, in the Pompidou Center - there is now a Russian exhibition taking place (Kollektsia! Art contemporain en URSS et en Russie. 1950-2000 - approx. "Tapes.ru"). Although one small picture of mine was taken there, the exposition literally begins with it. But this is not because this picture suits them, because there is no modernity, conceptuality, text about how this should be understood - otherwise a person cannot, of course, figure it out - there is none of this. But this still life hangs in the hall. This is more likely because of my role - because in Russia there is still some kind of such a small place, some of my role was in all this activity, including in the bulldozer exhibition. And some positive result brought this activity: because after this exhibition, the authorities suddenly recognized us, unofficial artists, who were not considered artists. They were allowed to join the trade union, and those who wanted to cooperate with the leadership, they really lived relatively well - there were exhibitions, even some benefits from the state. But not everyone agreed, which is why I ended up in Paris in particular. And not only me.

Yes, many artists emigrated in those years, even a “Russian Paris” was formed. Is it still left?

No, in fact, all that association, even back in the USSR, was caused only by the fact that we had a common fate - they didn’t expose everyone, they didn’t recognize everyone as artists. It was not some kind of purely artistic association, there were no common ideas. Everyone wanted to be a person, everyone wanted to express themselves, to find themselves in art - therefore, when everything became possible - to exhibit, to work - it all ended. Today's artists, on the contrary, although everyone has their own fate, are united by conceptual ideas. We fell into a break in the thaw, when Soviet socialist realism ended. And our groupings were mostly in the image of Western, American ...

But there were no common ideas?

No, only fate united us, the fact that we were unrecognized, unofficial. We were forbidden to sell paintings, we were not considered artists. Therefore, we had to work somewhere else, otherwise we would be judged as parasites. And after the scandal, the opportunity appeared for those who wanted to join the City Committee (the Moscow City Committee of Graphic Artists - the trade union of artists, created in 1975 - approx. "Tapes.ru"), officially become an artist with all the pleasant consequences. But no - then there was a choice: go to the West, and someone left.

You were in the City Committee, weren't you?

Yes, but it was forced. For many years I worked at a job that was not suitable for me, to be honest, on the railway, but then, already when I was painting my pictures, they began to recognize me a little, people, familiar editors, helped me - they gave me several books from the publishing house of Soviet writers. So I joined this union. And then, when I did not accept the new conditions, they expelled me - with the aim of somehow pressing, intimidating.

And you ended up emigrating. Did the difference between Parisian life and how you lived in Moscow influenced your artistic style?

Any emigration is difficult, of course. Especially when you are 50 years old, and you knew nothing but the USSR, you have never been outside this country and you know only one language - Russian. And at the age of 50, to start again ... I also had a wife and son with me, this is a certain responsibility. There was a time when paintings were not bought, and there were money problems. But simple things were always enough. In addition, it so happened in my life and work that my paintings have always been close to a small number of people. Not to some wide circle - no, because they did not quite correspond to the fashion of the time, and even now they do not. There are artists who have entire halls, and I have a small picture - but that's not even the point. And this is, again, because of my role, I have already said. There can be no sympathy in contemporary art - there are completely different principles.

I'm talking about the fact that in the USSR you painted barracks, vodka, herring, and in Paris you have a completely different landscape before your eyes - that is, you lost the main theme of your work?

This theme of creativity, in fact, was forced. I drew barracks simply because I lived in a barracks, worked on the railway, with loaders, we unloaded wagons, lived among workers, where vodka, herring played an important role. It was something folk, very close, understandable. In this sense, I am a realist - not in the sense of form, but in the sense that I draw what I see, what I have experienced, convey the mood, some kind of sadness, sometimes even tragedy. Well, of course, and the social meaning that is present in people's lives, and - occasionally - the reaction to political events. Especially in the USSR, where politics interfered in the life of every person, it was unthinkable to get rid of it. Just artificially close your eyes. Well, it means that it was present in the pictures. Religion - although I am not a religious person - as something popular, especially oppressed at that time, aroused sympathy too. By nature, I sympathize with what concerns just a living person. As my friend, the poet Seva Nekrasov, said: I live and see. Eric Bulatov highly appreciated him as a poet, he wrote a series of paintings, even an exhibition was in Russia “I live - I see”. It's the same for me, only in my own way. Great ideas were expressed there, but I live directly - I see. I saw these barracks every day, I lived in one of them - and there I have both good and bad things, a lot of things have passed.

Therefore, here in the first years I really felt bad in this sense - because I could not find my subjects. Even what I really liked here is not experienced, it's not my everything. It doesn't really mean anything to me really. But I still drew. And then, in the end, time passes, and here, too, something has already been acquired - in a year and a half forty years, it will be like me in this country, in this city, in Paris. So this is a second home, a second home. There was the first - yes, she remained, and not only in the past. And in the pictures I often remember youth - this is typical of people in general in old age, but I still have a very elderly age. So in my work, about half and half: and Paris, France, something from the local life, from the life that concerns me ... Here I have absolutely no political ideas. Of course, it is interesting what is happening, who will be chosen and so on, but I fully trust the French in this regard, they know better. I'm documented French too, but you know what I say, I'm a bad Frenchman. I know the language very badly. However, my home is here, I live here, and it is close to me.

Do you often come to Russia?

No, haven't been for a long time. The last time I was in St. Petersburg - there was a small exhibition, in a very good private museum "Erarta", everything was very nice. I stayed there for several days. I haven't been to Moscow for a long time, probably ten years. The last time during the life of his wife, just shortly before her death. And since then it hasn't worked. Well, now it’s a little difficult for me to get out, and there are no reasons. It happens that one or two pictures are exhibited somewhere in Russia, they talk about it, but it's hard to go. But it’s not yet possible to make a personal exhibition, when they were - I went. But now it doesn’t work out, because it’s not easy, expensive and not easy, and someone needs to do this, spend time and money on this.

Photo: Dmitry Korobeinikov / RIA Novosti

Do you follow other artists, what is happening in Russian art now?

As far as it is available to me, with the help of the Internet, of course, I follow. Why am I interested in contemporary art - although my sympathies are not at all on the side of the conceptual - I just love painting, traditional, as it has always been: a painting, a canvas ... And then some directions, some ideas, and this is mainly expressed in the text - and, frankly, I don’t really like textual art - although I have texts in my paintings, they merge into the pictorial mass, the traditional painting still occupies the main part.

You also called them "reading pictures".

Yes Yes. But the fact is that this has always been used, I'm not talking about religious painting, where the picture has always been supplemented by words. But it is the same in secular painting, so it has always been, nothing new - only well-forgotten old. So I used texts, but not in the sense that there were no paintings, there was no painting, all previous concepts were canceled, but there is only text design, when the text hangs in a museum instead of a picture, although this is a museum ... However, this is another question , very wide - there are pluses and minuses.

Are you inspired by traditional art?

This question is often asked, but I cannot answer for the reason that I am generally interested in all art, and contemporary art too, of course. But what will happen next, where it is going ... I can’t name my favorite artists, there are so many of them that it’s easier to name the unloved ones.

Well, I don’t like (although I still love some artists) this direction - surrealism. It’s unpleasant for me when something is done on purpose to cause some kind of disgust, that I don’t want to look at it. And all the same, among them there is, for example, Magritte - there is an exhibition right now in the Pompidou Center - I really like this, a wonderful artist. He somehow has everything in moderation, and painting, and all kinds of fantasies. But not only him. Delvaux - such is the artist, also wonderful, he has a different world, not nasty ... As for the nasty ... Here, for example, Bosch - he knows what ugliness he showed, it’s even unpleasant to say what he depicts there, some completely disgusting things. And for some reason, you can’t tear yourself away from the picture. So intention is very important. If a person wants to make a disgrace, so that it is sickening, then it is impossible to watch. And Bosch, I think, had no such intention, so he did not turn out disgustingly, oddly enough.

Do you often go to exhibitions?

I can’t say that very often, it’s still difficult to walk. You always get more tired in museums than when you just walk around. I sometimes go to salons - there are a lot of them. Then there are once a year FIAC, Art Paris. Here I look at them, because, again, the expositions are interesting to me, especially since there you can notice some kind of movement, where art moves in life. Because the same Pompidou Center - it has already froze in a certain state. There hang the same 100-200 artists that hang all over the world, in all museums, you don't even have to travel to another country. It is very difficult to judge art if it is fenced off by an iron curtain from people, there are no polls, although this is very popular in our democratic time. People can walk, but there is nothing to say.

You called this situation, when the world of art is dominated by 100 artists, dictatorship...

Yes, of course, I think so. Only God forbid, do not think that I am asserting some kind of truth, I, like every person, can be wrong, and I am certainly mistaken. After all, I see a lot of positive things in contemporary art, but, again, the positive is not in what I personally would like to see. I understand why this is so, but how it will continue, I have no idea. Yes, and this is more than a hundred years old, because the most radical things: in Russia - "Square" by Malevich, in the West - "Fountain" by Duchamp. Nobody could think of anything more radical. Yes, this is impossible, because further behind them there is no art in the traditional sense, which a person makes with his own hands. Intention is also important here. And they wanted to prove that everything in life is a form, and this, of course, is true - everything is a form, because you and I are not flat either. By the way, the Reformation included participation human body so that our body is art. But this whole path is already going beyond the limits of art, going into life ...

Now the crowdfunding platform Planeta.ru is raising funds for filming documentary film"Oscar".

Oscar Yakovlevich Rabin (January 2, 1928, Moscow) is a Russian artist, one of the founders of the unofficial Lianozovo art group.

Was born in Moscow in a family of doctors. Father - Ukrainian Jew, mother - Latvian. Orphaned at the age of 13. In the early forties, he lives in Trubnikovsky lane, studies at the art studio of Yevgeny Kropivnitsky, is fond of romanticism. From 1946 to 1948 he studied at the Riga Academy of Arts. During this period, he adheres to a strict realistic method, works a lot on still lifes. At the Academy, Latvian students call him "our Repin." In 1948, Sergei Gerasimov took Rabin to the second year of the Moscow State Art Institute. V. I. Surikov]. In 1949 he was expelled "for formalism", after which he returned to his first teacher E. Kropivnitsky.

Oscar Rabin describes this period as follows:

-Sergey Gerasimov took me to the second year of the Surikov Institute. But there was nowhere to live. Getting a hostel is impossible. The devil knows where he lived and hung out. I studied for four months. But is it education? He ended up going to work - he got a job near Moscow, on Dolgoprudnaya Street, as a foreman for unloading wagons. A waterworks was built there. Prisoners worked - not political, but criminal. Everyone - both murderers and thieves.

- Oscar Rabin, interview with the Izvestia newspaper.

Bouquet

From 1950 to 1957 he worked as a loader on the railway, a foreman at the construction of Sevvodstroy. In 1950 he marries Valentina Kropivnitskaya.

In the late 1950s, together with E. and L. Kropivnitsky, he founded the unofficial art group Lianozovo (after the name of the village near Moscow where Rabin lived in 1956-64). Rabin's house became the center of an artistic and literary movement, which was known in the West already in the 1960s. and subsequently received the name of the second Russian avant-garde.

In the spring of 1974, Rabin was the initiator and one of the main organizers of an exhibition of works by non-conformist artists on a wasteland in Belyaevo, the Moscow district of new buildings.

Dump No. 8

The exhibition, widely known under the name "bulldozer", was one of the most important actions of resistance of the creative intelligentsia to the authorities.

Two samovars

Rabin's works were not taken to exhibitions, he was not accepted into the Union of Artists. In June 1978, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, by a special resolution, deprived Rabin of Soviet citizenship.

He was expelled from the country and since that time lives and works in Paris.

In France

After moving to France, Rabin's work largely lost its social orientation. The artist's compositions have become more complex and fractional, the color has become more intense; the favorite brown-gray scale was replaced by the predominance of blue-green tones, which are contrasted by flashes of red and yellow (“Freedom”, 1991, collection of the author).

Rabin's work from this period is constructed as a collage of many objects; one of the techniques is a combination of quotes from his own early work (collapsing "Lianozovo" houses, blizzard clubs, etc.) with an image of the realities of the new country ("Ura 2", 1991, the author's collection).

AT last years in the work of Rabin, a permanent motif appeared - the Jewish quarter of Marais in Paris ("Butcher's Shop", 1992, collection of the author).

Rabin's personal exhibitions were held in London (1965), Jersey City, USA (1984), Moscow (1991), St. Petersburg (1993) and others.

Since 1957, Rabin also participated in group exhibitions: in an exhibition at the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students (Moscow, 1957), in exhibitions of works by artists of the second Russian avant-garde in Lugano (1970), Bochum (1974), London (1977) , Paris (1989), Moscow (1990-91), Tokyo (1991), etc.

Rabin's figurative painting - landscapes and still lifes - is distinguished by the emphasized ordinariness of things that surround a person in everyday life: the image of rickety houses in the suburbs, a railway station near Moscow, a table with food in a rural house, etc .; they form Rabin's special sign system, which creates in his series the hopeless atmosphere of Soviet life.

Rabin imitates real objects on the canvas mass culture- banknotes, vodka labels, scraps of newspapers, creating the illusion of their complete authenticity.

Rabin often uses direct associations; in the painting “Still life with fish and the newspaper Pravda 7” (1968, collection of A. Glazer, Moscow), a herring and a glass on a spread newspaper reflect life with its disorder, poverty, drunkenness, sarcastically compared with the headlines on scraps of a newspaper.

In the painting “Untitled” (1963), a naked woman – a quote from Titian – is depicted against the backdrop of a landscape typical of Rabin with rickety wooden houses. Rabin's characteristic style is defined by muted, deliberately poor coloring, combined with a rough, textured surface of the canvas and the use of contours circling the subject.

The painting “Passport” (1964, collection of N. Kropivnitskaya, USA) deals with the theme of Jewish rejection and isolation of a stranger: against the backdrop of a landscape, a huge page from the artist’s passport is reproduced, where in the column “nationality” it is written “Latvian (Jew)”.

Visa to the cemetery. 2004

Oscar Rabin. 1969

Photo by Igor Palmin

WIKIPEDIA

Photo from the Internet

Oscar Rabin in the program "Artificial Selection"

Oscar Yakovlevich Rabin (January 2, 1928, Moscow - November 7, 2018, Paris) - Russian and French artist.

Born on January 2, 1928 in Moscow. From 1946 to 1948 he studied at the Riga Academy of Arts, in 1948-1949
- at the Moscow State Art Institute. IN AND. Surikov, from where he was soon expelled "for formalism."
In the late 1950s, together with E. and L. Kropivnitsky, he founded the unofficial art group Lianozovo.

Oscar Rabin was at the origins of non-conformism.
Rabin was the initiator and one of the main organizers of the exhibition of works by nonconformist artists in the spring of 1974
in a wasteland in Belyaevo, the so-called. bulldozer exhibition. In 1978 he emigrated to France. Soviet citizenship Rabin
was deprived by a special resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Lives in Paris.
A family
Valentina Kropivnitskaya (1924-2008) - artist, wife.
Alexander Rabin (1952-1994) - artist, son.
Kropivnitskaya, Ekaterina (1949) - daughter.

For seven years, from 1958 to 1965, his hut in Lianozovo was the unofficial center of Moscow's cultural life.
We see this barracks, this era in his works, which were so disliked by officialdom at that time.

Conciseness of form, stinginess of color. Still life and landscape in one canvas. This is the recognizable style of Rabin.
Harsh reality, wide open. It is this incorruptible truth of life, perceived
communist authorities as dissidence, liberation from the bonds of socialist realism became the reason for the deprivation
Oscar Rabin of Soviet citizenship.

Oscar Rabin. "The Drunken Doll"

Three lives. Retrospective". "Three Lives" is the title of a book of memoirs by Rabin, published in Paris in 1986.
This is life until the death of the leader, from 1953 to 1978, when the artist’s family, who left for France on a tour
deprived of citizenship, and the Parisian period. In 2008, this period counted 30 years.

Oscar Rabin. My three lives:

The first life - from my birth to the death of Stalin, since my life also depended on this tyrant,
and the life of all people in the country of the Soviets. And, of course, with him I would not have become an artist, since those abilities
which God gave me, in no way corresponded to the culture and art of the Stalinist style.

Ruined city

After the death of Stalin, my second life began, and in this second life I was able to prove myself and
to realize as an artist, without prevaricating and not imitating official art.
After all, if I wanted to imitate official art, I still wouldn’t have anything
it happened because I can't draw otherwise than the way I do it.

Oscar Rabin. Life, Death, Love 1975

This life continued until 1978, when I found myself an unwilling emigrant in Paris, already established
an artist with his own worldview, with his own style of writing.

For 30 years now, in my third life, I have the opportunity to work quietly and do my own thing.
vocation, relying on the creative baggage that was found and formed in Russia.

The first fragment of the Rabinskaya barracks lyrics is the famous "Dump # 8" of 1959.

"Dump #8" - the center and the black hole of the rickety universe with the eternal bottle of vodka and herring
(worthy, by the way, of the best still lifes of Petrov-Vodkin). Both that, and another - for all cases.

A garbage dump that has outgrown the size of a shack and supports the crooked skeleton of a power line pole.
The dreary dullness of reality, seen through the widened eye of "another" art.

In his notes on the artistic life of the 60s and 70s, Ilya Kabakov wrote that

"the idea of where to go ... in the 60s meant - to Oscar Rabin, whose workshop has always been
open, and he very calmly, almost accounting-methodically, detachedly "showed".

Barrack of the artistic underground, where poets and artists came to speak and look freely.

Regimental military band, gathered around Yevgeny Kropivnitsky, circle, "Lianozovo group".
"Bulldozer" exhibition and display of the same 74th year in Izmailovo, arrest of the 77th for parasitism, state award
"Innovation" 2006 "For creative contribution to the development of contemporary art" - all this is about Rabin.

The object world of Oscar Rabin consists of purely ancillary materials - light bulbs, rubles,
bottles, newspaper clippings, samovars and stoves, portrait inserts and modest flower bouquets.
As if accidentally scattered, forgotten by someone, silently watching and spied on by Rabin.

He masters the communist-communal world around him through the private (details), which
becomes a spokesman for the general: in the barrack anthill there is a bottle, through it, the world of shacks is visible in it.

Through the removal of the boundaries between low and high: this is how the "Street named after the Blessed Virgin Mary" or
"Permian Christ in Lianozovo", where near the barracks sits a wooden, mournful Christ,
and a jar of sprats is lying nearby.

If there are icons in this world, there is also "Madonna Lita Lianozovsky" and a self-portrait with his wife in costumes.
renaissance aristocrats,

and "Club self-portrait",

and the "anthem" of "Capital" or "Moscow",

. Settling in Paris in 1978, he found a new breath and international recognition there.

The hard fate of Oscar Yakovlevich and his creative dynasty is truly tragic, for many years
dissidence and the tragic loss of his only son, left their mark on the life of the artist,
but they didn’t break him, because his Muse and wife Valentina Kropivnitskaya were always with him.