We live at a time when there is great confusion, certainly here in the West, about contemporary art in Russia. It is now nearly a quarter of a century since the Soviet Union fell. No convincing narrative has emerged concerning the development of Russian art during that period. Western critics have gone on parroting the names of the artists who made international reputations for themselves during the last decade or so of Soviet rule – the so-called ‘perestroika’ epoch. They seem to know little or nothing about what has happened to the visual arts in Russia since the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on 26 December 1991.

This has not been entirely their own fault. The collapse of the USSR coincided with the heyday of Post Modernism – the art movement that marked the end of the long succession of Modernist art movements that had evolved, one after another, sometimes with one overlapping and competing with another, since the appearance of the Fauves in the first decade of the 20th century. Since 1991, the narrative of supposed progress in the visual arts has become more and more confused. We are now perhaps entitled to speak not only of Post Modernism, but also of Post Post Modernism – a kind of double negative in the continuing artistic story.

Yet some developments during this quarter of a century have surely been of great significance. Most significant of all has been the way in which ‘contemporary art’, originally a purely Western concept, has become universal. This process began quite early in the 20th century, with the rise of Latin American art, often very consciously rooted in Pre- Columbian cultures. It accelerated greatly in the 1980s, most conspicuously in China, following the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1968, followed by the death of Mao Zedong in 1976; and in Iran, after the Religious Revolution of 1979. It is now a ‘given’ – contemporary art is also world art. The disconcerting thing is, however, that it is currently much easier to create a narrative about what happened in China – three generations at least of contemporary artists – and also about what happened in Iran, than is to find significant threads that may help to lead one through the bewildering maze of today’s Russian visual culture.

This exhibition is a very modest attempt to find at least one path through the labyrinth. It begins from the established fact that women were always important in the development of the early 20th century avant-garde in Russia. I remember once having the first – specimen - chapter of a book I was writing about the history of art in the 20th century returned to me by the American publishing house to which it had been submitted with the plaintive cry ‘Must have more women!’ The chapter was about the Fauves. I had to explain, as gently as I could, that this wasn’t practically possible, as there were no female artists connected with the movement.

I would not have encountered this difficulty had I been writing about the early 20th century avant-garde in Russia. The major names are well known: Aleksandra Exter, Natalia Goncharova, Lyubov Popova, Zenaida Serebriakova, Nadezdha Udaltsova. It would be impossible to write about this wonderful epoch in Russian art without discussing them.

There are certainly a number of significant similarities between this galaxy of early talent and the artists whose work is exhibited here. Some are resident in Russia – in Moscow and St Petersburg, which continue to be the twin focal points of Russian cultural life. Others have chosen to live abroad – in London and in Amsterdam. In their cases, however, the displacement has been a matter of choice, not in any way enforced by political pressure. In the 19th century, during the great flowering of art, literature and music that suddenly brought Russia to the fascinated attention of Western intellectuals, Russian culture was instinctively cosmopolitan. Yet it retained a certain exoticism as well. It was the magical combination of the cosmopolitan and the exotic that created the sensational success enjoyed by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, when the company made its debut in Paris in 1909. Ballet was, until then, the epitome of a hide bound traditional art form. Russian genius seized upon it and turned it into something else.

The artists shown here are very different from one another. Some are well known, and are fully established internationally. Others are young enough not to have had any direct experience of the old Soviet art system. It is very difficult to make any direct stylistic comparisons. If I am looking for things held in common, one of the things that strikes me is a common interest in the visually transformative – the fluidity of appearances. Also, very often, is interest in some kind of narrative, even in abstract work. One can perhaps go just a little further, and say an interest in visual magic. - Edward Lucie-Smith | Art Historian, Critic and Author

Living in England since 1991 I have witnessed albeit from afar an almost unbelievable transformation of Russia, the country of my birth. The kaleidoscope of duly elected parliaments, prime ministers and presidents, sweeping economic and social changes, rises and falls of tycoons were truly comparable to the excitement of the discovery of the New World.

The difference from the discovery of a new continent was that this brave new world did not emerge from scratch and still has vestiges of the old order. Some walks of life have more of it some – much less. The situation in the art world is the most peculiar.

We saw the birth of a modern art market with new faces and galleries following international trends and national fashions existing in parallel with the long established institutions dominated by the old guard exposing the past values. Curiously enough this retention of old traditions helped us to preserve artistic techniques and skills long forgotten in many other parts of the Northern hemisphere. Notwithstanding the influence of the past and from abroad the Russian art world has clearly managed to develop its own language, but it is still one practically unknown outside of Russia.

As is rightly pointed out by Edward Lucie-Smith in his short but as ever, concise essay, this is the result of post-postmodern art world problems. Another reason in my opinion is the lack of a general consensus on the state of Russian art within Russia’s own art establishment, due to old allegiances and vested interests that have resulted in erratic and sometimes contradictory attempts to show current Russian art outside of Russia.

The organisers have tried to bring as little as possible of their own agenda into the selection process but instead have wished to show various artists unified by the origin of their birth and artistic skills. Hopefully they have succeeded in creating a unique visual experience, not by setting up a trend but by simply providing one particular way of bringing Russian contemporary art to the British viewer. - Sergei Reviakin | Member of the Art Critics and Art Historians Association

Albemarle Gallery
49 Albemarle Street
London W1S 4JR United Kingdom
Ph. +44 (0)20 74991616
info@albemarlegallery.com
www.albemarlegallery.com

Opening hours
Monday - Friday
From 10am to 6pm

Related images

  1. Trebukova Masha, Window, 205 x 210 cm, 7-parts, 2006
  2. Tobreluts, Road to Heaven, oil on canvas, 142 x 240 cm
  3. Trebukova Masha, Window, 205 x 210 cm, 7-parts, 2006
  4. Alexeeva Marina, Anna Karenina, oil on canvas, 120 x 90 cm, triptych, part 2
  5. Fursey Dasha, Death-Cup and a Pioneer Girl oil on canvas 125 x 105 cm (49 x 41 in)
  6. Alexeeva Marina, Anna Karenina (triptych part III) oil on canvas 120 x 90 cm (47 x 35 in)