Illustrations by Erik Bulatov. And so is the politics...

Erik Bulatov, a classic of the second avant-garde, talks about his parents and Sverdlovsk, about the evacuation and how he began to paint, about teachers, Favorsky and Falka, book illustration and the principles of his work.

Eric Bulatov, a Sots Art classic living in Paris, during a short stay in New Year's Moscow, told Elena Kalashnikova about his parents and childhood, teachers and the Surikov School, about how he combined illustrating books for children with painting for thirty years. “What can an artist dream of who does what he sees fit, and in the way he sees fit?..”

You were born in Sverdlovsk on September 5, 1933. In one interview you said: “For some reason my father really believed that I would be an artist. He died at the front when I was not yet eight years old. Tell about your family.
- Here it is necessary to clarify: my father went to the front in 1941, when I was not eight, and died in 1944. He was a professional party worker.

- What was his name?
- Vladimir Borisovich. He comes from Saratov, then moved to Moscow with his parents. In 1918 he joined the party, immediately after the gymnasium he went to civil war which was a tragedy for the family. In 1937, he was expelled from the party, and everything went to arrest. But then my mother did a simple but very effective thing. I rented a dacha near Moscow, and my father lived there for about six months.

He was not a major political figure, so the authorities did not need to arrest him. There was a layout for each district - to take so much, but if this is not there, we will take another. How they recruited into the army, about the same.

When this campaign was over and my father showed up, they did not touch him, they reinstated him in the party, but he did not return to party work. He had higher education, and he went to work as a scientific secretary in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

- Why were you born in Sverdlovsk?
- My father went on a business trip to the Urals, my pregnant mother went with him, I was born there, and then they returned.

My mother had a romantic nature and was very active. Born in Poland, in Bialystok. At the age of fifteen, she illegally crossed the border: Russia - freedom, revolution ...

She was caught at the border, returned, but in the end she ended up in Russia, not knowing the Russian language, she had Yiddish and Polish. But three years later she mastered Russian so much that she already worked as a stenographer. First, a year or two, I think, in Kamenetz-Podolsky, then in Moscow.

In recent years, she has been a stenographer at the presidium of the Moscow Bar Association. Mom was very gifted person and in the 1920s she even passed an acting exam at a film studio.

There was such a teacher Room (not Romm). She went through a crazy competition, but did not work there, it was enough for her that she passed the competition.

She was opposed to the general line of the party, against all power, a typical intellectual consciousness. She had to be against her father, their views were in many ways opposite, but they loved each other very much.

Later, the mother reprinted forbidden texts: Pasternak, Tsvetaev, Mandelstam ... The whole of Doctor Zhivago.

- Participated in samizdat.
- In samizdat, that's it. She typed on a typewriter mostly artistic, not political texts, but nonetheless forbidden. I mean, my parents were very different.

- Which of them was closer to you?
- Hard to say. I was too young to choose. My happy childhood ended with the beginning of the war, the nightmare continued until I entered art school. Then normal life went on.

For as long as I can remember, I have been drawing, and drawing well. Then it was too early to judge what might come of it. This is determined by the age of ten or twelve, but my father believed that I would be an artist.

What were those drawings? Portraits, sketches from nature, landscapes?..
- Oddly enough, some of them remained. Basically it was compositions. Ruslan and Rogdai are fighting, battles, riders, something like that ... The compositions were interesting. But I drew something.

- Did your mother save the drawings?
- Probably, I don't even know. I have one of those albums in my studio. I accidentally left it, I don’t think it was specially kept. Most of the drawings from that period have disappeared.

When we left for the evacuation, those who were moved into our apartment stoked the stove with books. We started from the bottom shelves, where there were my children's books and drawings, and at the top were the books of Lenin and Marx. Naturally, they did not start with Marx, and it was far to climb there ...

- Where did you live during the evacuation?
- We went to the evacuation together with the Art Theater, because my father's sister was married to an actor of the Art Theater. We lived as one family. The father's parents lived with their daughter, before marriage, and the father lived with them, and then got an apartment. Mother, along with them, was evacuated - first in Saratov, then in Sverdlovsk.

- Did your father go to war as a volunteer?
Yes, as soon as the war started.

It got pretty stupid. First, my mother showed me my drawings. different artists even Korina. Korin and others said that there was no need to send me anywhere, they could spoil me there, something like that, in general, it was too early.

Art school is accepted after the fifth grade of general education. I did not know that such a school existed, and I found out about it by accident. In a parallel class, my peer studied, who also painted, we competed with him.

Once he told me that he was entering an art school, there were exams, but he was sure that he would pass. I was shocked to learn that there is such a school, I ran there, but it turned out to be too late - the exams were over, and I had to wait for the new year.

I was advised to prepare at the Pioneer House. For two years I studied in a drawing circle with Alexander Mikhailovich Mikhailov, whom I remember with love and gratitude.

A good teacher and a charming person, I then maintained a relationship with him. On next year I tried to enter the second grade of an art school, but did not pass the competition.

In 1947 I was accepted into the third grade. Then, somehow, by itself, he entered the Surikov Institute, the faculty of painting. Since I graduated from school with a medal, I did not have to take entrance exams.

- And who did you learn from?
- Pyotr Dmitrievich Pokarzhevsky had such a professor. In the first year we had one teacher, then another, but it so happened that from the second year I studied with Pyotr Dmitrievich, with whom I also had very good relations.

IN art school we drew like crazy, worked from morning to night and thought of nothing else. Children of the privileged and ordinary people, but for us it did not matter, they were divided only into mediocre and talented.

And in Surikovsky there was a gloomy, musty, provincial atmosphere, it was a difficult time - the end of the 1940s - the beginning of the 1950s. Death of Stalin...

- The fight against cosmopolitanism.
- Yes, and the final destruction of art.

- Interesting people studied with you?
- I had friends from art school. First of all, Oleg Vasiliev, with whom we have been friends all our lives, several people from the class with whom I still support the closest and most friendly relations. At the institute, relations with no one developed.

After Stalin's death, the atmosphere in Surikovsky began to change quite quickly, as in general in culture.

You said that after the institute you were retrained, "developing - largely under the influence of Robert Falk and Vladimir Favorsky - steadfast independence in relation to the official socialist realist doctrine." Tell us more about it.
- During the training, we came across art that was previously prohibited, which I did not understand and did not feel. Falk and Favorsky helped me understand and master my craft, which was invaluable help for me, I could not get this at the institute.

In order to explain what I owe to Favorsky, and what to Falk, there must be a serious conversation. I wrote and spoke a lot about this, recently a book of my theoretical articles “I Live Further” was published, where there is a lot on this topic.

I wanted to become a serious, real artist, so I had to retrain. The education received was not enough.

By the end of the institute, I realized that I should not depend on state orders, not because I was originally going to be an anti-Soviet artist, I myself did not know what kind of artist I would be, but in order to develop freely.

All livelihoods were in the hands of the state, there could be no private orders. So, in the painting business, it was necessary to look for another way to earn money, so that he would leave time for my direct work.

And you started doing children's illustration. I know you had a schedule: six months book illustration, half a year - pictures.
- Quite right. Light time, spring - summer, left for painting, and dark, autumn - winter - for books. We worked on books together with Oleg Vasiliev.

- Why with him?
- Oleg and I had close views, we talked all the time and needed each other, so we united in work.

- In Soviet times, for the artist, only the illustration of children's books was a safe haven?
- Some of them performed custom-made decorative works in a picturesque factory. But most went into a children's book. It was the most harmless way of cooperation with the state. Moreover, of all kinds visual arts it was of the highest professional standard.

Many good artists went into a children's book back in the 1930s, when the destruction of painting began. Therefore, culture and traditions have been preserved there.

- Did you have any examples in book illustration?
- Certainly. We watched a lot, I have a whole library of children's books. Our favorite artist was Yuri Vasnetsov. By the way, a student of Malevich. It was pushed out into a children's book. For Russian book great luck that such artists worked in it, but for our art this is certainly a loss.

- What do you like the most from those works of yours?
- Don't even know. Of Perrault's fairy tales, Cinderella, Wild Swans by Andersen, and Grandmother Blizzard by the Brothers Grimm turned out best of all. It was interesting to work on the collection "Journey to a Fairy Tale", which contains European and Asian fairy tales.

- Did you limit your imagination in children's illustration, or did you feel any pressure?
- Working in a publishing house, you have to accept certain requirements. It's like in chess: inside the rules there are a lot of opportunities for imagination, but the knight moves like this, and the rook like that, and nothing can be done.

You don't go back to those books? They can not become a source of inspiration for you? Or is it a closed page?
- Yes, this is a closed page. This is not my and not Vasiliev's work, but a third artist named Bulatov and Vasiliev, now he simply does not exist.

When you start to work, do you already have an idea in your head, or is it born in the process of work, or is it transformed?.. As it usually happens?
- As a rule, it cannot be transformed. I have in my head not an idea, but an image, I must find an adequate form for its expression. This process can be complex and take a long time. Sometimes it took several years, and one picture did not turn out for more than ten years. It didn't look like the original image, I couldn't figure out what was wrong.

- What is this job?
- "Winter". A white snowy field, and a rather terrible black cloud is moving towards us from behind the horizon. I painted a picture, it was even exhibited and sold, but I didn't like the result and I kept thinking about it. It all ended in 1997 and started in 1978.

When I was making books for half a year, and painting for half a year, I didn’t always have time to finish the picture, but here I have to switch to another work that requires a different consciousness and attitude. These transitions have always been difficult.

- You could not return to painting for a while? ..
- No no.

- That is, they closed the door to the other half of life, as if they had cut it off?
- Yes, absolutely. And I developed the ability to conserve this or that image in my mind. For six months it should not have changed, it was necessary to return to the place where I interrupted work. Perhaps this approach was peculiar to me, but it certainly developed due to this way of working.

- Did you record something for yourself, leaving for six months to another job?
- For what?! Everything is in the picture. Drawing was writing.

Over the past thirty years, the transition from painting to illustration and back has always been difficult for you, or did you get used to it over time?
- Always, because one artist painted pictures, another did illustrations. You are included in a different principle of thinking. We made books together, but in painting I am completely free and had to forget the consciousness that I had yesterday. When our book work ended, Oleg and I climbed into the forest. With backpacks, with a tent. They went for two or three days or a week and returned with a mind as pure as a white page. You could start a new life.

- Have you destroyed your work?
- Certainly. I regret that I did not destroy all the unsuccessful ones. The fact that the picture is unsuccessful, you usually understand when it is over.

- And many such works?
- No, I don't have many of them.

- When do you realize that the work was a success?
- The moment I recognize the image. This perfect option. But there are times when the picture seems to be over, but something is not right in it. In this case, you need to set it aside, after some time you make additions to it, and it is finished.

- Years later, can you make changes to your work?
- Very rarely, usually not. And now it is all the more impossible - they are leaving me.

- Do ready-made paintings “release” you?
- The picture does not let go, if it did not work out, something was not expressed in it. And if it worked out, I get rid of it.

In an interview, you said that in Soviet times, art historians did not enter your workshop. Why do you think? Although this question, of course, is not for you.
- You should ask them about it. This is interesting to me. How can a person who considers himself decent behave in such a way? ..

- Did you visit colleagues close to you? Oleg Vasiliev?
- No no. Our workshops with Oleg Vasiliev were nearby, and if someone was at one, then the other was sure to be.

- They were at Kabakov's.
- Undoubtedly. Kabakov, Yankilevsky, Steinberg...

Why didn't they show up for you?
- We knew many art historians and critics, met in companies, had a nice conversation, but none of them ever took an interest in what I was doing. Maybe they were afraid, they thought that this was a political matter and it was better not to get involved, otherwise there would be trouble in the service. I think they wrote me off in the sense that this is not art, but politics. They explained it to themselves, although they did not see what I was doing. Or maybe I came up with an explanation for myself.

- “Now I have gone from social problems to existential ones. Just don't blame it on the fact that I left. Why did this transition happen?
- First of all, it's probably an age thing. Secondly, you try to understand both your consciousness and the world around you. Look beyond the horizon: what is there?.. My interests were limited to social space, then the existential horizon opened up to me, which includes social spaces.

- Your exhibitions are held in different countries. Where do audiences respond best to your films?
- I've been lucky in recent years. Since 2005, there have been several of my exhibitions, and all of them are very successful - the expositions are good, the reaction of the audience ... In Germany, Moscow, Paris, now in Geneva. The Geneva Museum of Modern Art also has a retrospective, but not as big as in Moscow.

- Do you build your personal exhibitions yourself?
- In the Tretyakov Gallery - yes, but in Germany, Paris and Geneva, everything was done without me and somehow very well. They made a wonderful exposition in Geneva, completely different from what I would have done, but clearly better. I see interest in my works, they attract people's attention. Maybe in Russia there was the greatest interest in them ... or maybe not. I don't feel offended either there or here.

- Could you characterize your audience? Is it mostly young people?
Yes, absolutely, young people. I am very pleased that they are interested in it and that they perceive my work not as the past, but as something alive.

- After the opening, do you go to your exhibitions?
- One time is enough. Then they tell me how it goes. If the exhibition is in Paris or Moscow, I can go to it a second or third time if my friends ask me to show it to them.

I am not convinced that it is not necessary to go to the exhibition more than once, but after the first time I have no interest in it. I saw how the works hang, how they are perceived by the audience, thank you, that's enough, I have other things to do.

“For me, looking is work, I get tired quickly. But fatigue can also be associated with very happy experiences. Can you tell me more about this?
“Looking at a painting is almost like doing it for me. In order to understand the artist, to appreciate his work, you have to get into his shoes.

An artist must be judged from his standpoint. The individuality of each is limited, and if it is not limited, then this is a lack of individuality, vague edges, this is not needed or interesting for anyone.

How more talented person, the more obvious its individuality, limitations. Therefore, you need to understand his subjective position, then you can objectively assess what he did and what did not. It takes effort.

There are artists who are close to me, you can study their work without much effort, and there are those who are not close at all, reincarnation in them requires a lot of attention.

Over the years, I stopped wasting energy on those who are not close, I do not presume to judge them, but not because I condemn them. Often, when they say “I don’t understand,” they mean that there is nothing to understand here. When I say “I don’t understand”, there is no negative evaluation.

The picture must be considered and disassembled like architecture. For me, this is an important and serious work. Usually in the museum I look at two or three, maybe four paintings, I don’t have enough for more. It takes about an hour and a half.

- Three years ago you said that there are not so many of your works in Russia. Has anything changed since then?
- Yes, Russian collectors began to buy my works at auctions, so paintings from different periods are returned to Russia. Most recent works are acquired by Western collectors, because I work with German, Swiss, French galleries.

I think it's understandable why it is Russians who buy things from the 1970s and 1980s. The social topics raised in them should be clearer and closer here.
- Pictures on social topics, in which time was expressed, were not in Russia. Maybe you are right and it really is.

In 2007, you said: “In general, for contemporary artist I did atypically little - about 150 works. Has this number increased since then?
- I make about three paintings a year. Maybe four, or five, or two, if you're lucky. If I work on a picture for a long time, no more than two come out a year, but sometimes I easily and quickly make several works. There is no assignment and no rule, I just work slowly.

According to you, you don't have many works, which is atypical for a modern artist, your colleagues usually make works in series. But you also have series.
- Yes, I have. But they arose by themselves, were not conceived as a series. One theme had different variants solutions.

- If you wrote a creative self-description, what would it be?
- I wrote several articles about myself, they are also in the book “I live on”. There I look at my work with different points vision. In the catalog of my exhibition, which was held at the Tretyakov Gallery, there is an article "My painting and mass media production." There I try to speak on this topic. Something like this I tried to write about working with the space of the picture, about what I did for the picture as such. I think I expressed possibilities that were not used before, were unnoticed or unknown.

- What about working with light?
- Light is impossible without space. In recent years, I have been working more and more with light.

- And what would you name your main paintings?
- The main pictures were at each stage, I called them several times: “Horizon”, “Glory to the CPSU”, “I’m going”, “Sunset”, “I live - I see”, “How the clouds go - how things are going”, “I wanted to get dark , well, I didn’t have time”, “Point” ... The paintings that appeared after the show in the Tretyakov Gallery are “Day-night”, “I live on” and the last “O”. For me it is very important. I have two pictures that depict images of sounds - "A" and "O". Of the main works, there are also "Winter", "Window" ...

- Are you developing new themes, or are you playing with what you have already worked with?
- Hard to say. The circle of problems is set, and I do not go out of it all my life. But to say that these are only variations on one theme ... It just seems to me that I have different paintings.

- Does age affect your performance, ideas? ..
- Of course, it does. I have less strength, I get tired much faster. I do not feel the lack of ideas, the intensity of work in in a certain sense even increases. My concentration of attention is now much higher than in my youth, so I can do more in an hour. Experience helps. You know how to control yourself, how to react to a failure that could previously unsettle you for a long time. In terms of age-related changes, I still do not feel anything catastrophic. Of course, I would have more strength, but I'm still able to work. Well, the clarity of consciousness comes.

- your professional life did it work out well in your opinion?
- I think I have a very happy life. What can an artist dream of who does what he thinks is right, and in the way he thinks is right?.. Who has no material problems and nothing interferes with him?..

Natasha, my wife, saves me from everyday and other problems that would be painful for me and which I probably could not cope with. Probably, I paid for today's well-being by the fact that for thirty years I did not even think that I could show my paintings, let alone exhibit them or sell them.

Interviewed by Elena Kalashnikova

The artist Eric Bulatov is considered the founder of several new styles in world art. From under his brush came the works that gave rise to the genres of Russian pop art, photorealism, Sots Art and Moscow Conceptualism. The master's works are among the most expensive paintings in the world. Bulatov, although he lives in two houses - Russian and French, often admits that he returns to his homeland with pleasure in order to be recharged with inspiration and new ideas.

Childhood and youth

The future artist was born on September 5, 1933 in Sverdlovsk (now it is the city of Yekaterinburg). Little Eric was left without a father early - he died at the front in 1944. The boy's mother was an immigrant from Poland, she worked as a stenographer. In an interview, Bulatov later admitted: his father had no doubt that his son would become an artist. And, as it turned out later, he was right.

Erik Bulatov had no doubts about choosing a profession and, after graduating from school, he entered art institute name . In 1958 he graduated from an educational institution. His favorite artists at that moment were and - it was their work that largely influenced the style of Bulatov's early works.

In 1959, the novice brush master got a job at the Detgiz children's literature publishing house, where Oleg Vasiliev became his fellow illustrators, who later, like Bulatov himself, left the country.

Their design of "The Little Mermaid", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Cinderella" still delight both children and adults. Since 1957, Eric Vladimirovich began to arrange the first solo exhibitions. From the same period, it is customary to count his professional work.

Painting

A distinctive feature of the author's style of the artist is the harmonious combination of the poster genre, popular in Soviet times, and the pictorial component. Slogans in the paintings of Eric Vladimirovich side by side with landscapes and portraits. With this technique, according to critics, Bulatov emphasized the absurdity of the surrounding reality, its oversaturation with bombastic speeches and propaganda.

Such Sots Art in the works of Erik Bulatov was side by side with paintings in which the influence of the style of Robert Falk is clearly traced. Unfortunately, this period in Bulatov's artistic career did not gain much popularity among critics and art historians. The artist himself admits that Falk really influenced his professional development in many ways.

In the mid-1960s, Bulatov experimented with styles, combining illustration techniques in one canvas, watercolor painting as well as graphics. The artist paid special attention to the ways of transmitting light and space.

Unfortunately, the works of Erik Vladimirovich in the USSR fell under the influence of censorship, and he could only dream of full-fledged exhibitions. Only in 1965 and 1968 did Eric Bulatov manage to achieve short-term exhibitions of his paintings at the Igor Kurchatov Institute and in a Moscow cafe called Blue Bird.

Since the 1970s, Bulatov’s work began to be dominated by large-scale canvases, in which the author turned to social themes and images that flooded the mass media of that time. In 1972, the artist painted "Horizon" - one of the most famous paintings. At that moment, the work was perceived as a parody.

The same period in the career of Erik Vladimirovich was marked by numerous foreign exhibitions, which brought the master international recognition: Bulatov's paintings traveled to Zurich, Paris, Venice and other European cities, everywhere meeting the favor of art lovers.

Gradually, Eric Vladimirovich gained a reputation as an "artist of perestroika", and in 1988 he was even recognized as the master of the year according to the Venice Biennale. A year after that, Bulatov and his family moved to New York, and then, in 1992, went to Paris, which became his second home.

In the early 1990s, the artist gradually moved away from political themes: in Bulatov's work, new page abstract images and graphic images. And after some time, the master became interested in ceramics, giving the world a number of talented paintings on dishes.

In 2003, Eric Vladimirovich organized an exhibition in Moscow - for the first time after moving. The exposition, presented in the capital's Tretyakov Gallery, won enthusiastic responses in the master's homeland.

Another large-scale exhibition took place ten years later, when the artist's works gave him the title of laureate of the Innovation contest. And in 2015, Bulatov was invited to the opening of the Garage Museum, as well as the Museum named after. Especially for this event, Eric Vladimirovich created the canvas "Freedom".

Bulatov's paintings gradually brought the master the fame of one of the most expensive and sought-after artists of our time. Canvas "Brezhnev. Soviet Cosmos” went off the auction for $1.6 million, and a number of Soviet-themed paintings cost the new owners $1 million each. On this moment most famous works the masters, in addition to those listed, can be called the canvases "Do not lean", "Glory to the CPSU", "Sky - ciel".

Personal life

Eric Bulatov prefers not to share the details of his personal life. It is known that the artist has a wife. The master's wife's name is Natalia.

According to Erik Vladimirovich, she supported him and helped him create. Beloved Bulatova surrounded her husband with care and in many ways saved her from thoughts about household chores that could take time from creativity.

Erik Bulatov now

Now Eric Bulatov lives in two houses - the artist, by his own admission, feels good both in his native Russia and in France. In 2018, Anatoly Malkin prepared the documentary film “I Live and See”, in which, in the form of an interview, he revealed the curious details of the biography of Eric Vladimirovich. In this picture, Bulatov admitted that, due to age, he was no longer able to devote as much time to creativity as before, but he was still devoted to his beloved work.

In addition, books by Russian and foreign art historians are devoted to the artist's work and biography. Bulatov's works can be found in the Georges Pompidou Museum in Paris, as well as in galleries in New Jersey, Cologne, and Basel. In Russia, paintings by Erik Vladimirovich are presented in the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum.

Artworks

• 1972 - "Horizon"
• 1975 - "Glory to the CPSU"
• 1977 - Brezhnev. Soviet space"
• 1987 - "Do not lean"
• 1989 - "Perestroika"
• 2010 - "Sky - ciel"
• 2011 - "Up - Down"
• 2015 - "Freedom"

https://www.site/2016-06-15/hudozhnik_erik_bulatov_o_falshi_ideologii_svobode_i_smysle_zhizni

“Of course we are not better than others. We just have the right to exist on an equal footing.”

Artist Eric Bulatov - about the falsehood of ideology, freedom and the meaning of life

Eric Bulatov Alexander Shcherbak/Kommersant

What will happen to art in the conditions of the idealization of the Soviet era? How to explore ideology through painting? Is it possible to be outside the aggressive social space? The site spoke with a classic about the relationship between art and ideology modern painting Eric Bulatov.

“No matter how aggressive a social space is, it has boundaries”

In your paintings, the social ideologized reality, which became familiar and natural in Soviet times, you "unstick" from the real reality - really natural - and thereby make it visible and oppose one another. This opposition no longer interests you today, but almost your entire life has been given to it. Why was it so important to you?

How else could the falsity of that ideological reality be expressed? It had to be revealed somehow, shown separately, so that a person could suddenly see his life from the outside. How to catch this ideology by the hand. This social problem has long faded into the background for me, because it was connected with Soviet life. But then - the life in which I was immersed, had to be expressed somehow, and not as my opinion about it, but in the form of real reality - the way it objectively was, beyond my desires.

Lev Melikhov

You were immersed in Soviet reality, but in order to fully comprehend it, you had to sort of rise above it, roughly speaking, disconnect from the mass state of being zombified by ideology in order to look at what was happening with different eyes. If so, at what point did this “shutdown” occur?

Not just to rise above reality, but to sort of lean out of it, to be outside. Our social reality is not the whole reality that is given to us: it has its own boundaries, beyond which you can look. To do this, outside the social space, you need to have a foothold. For me it was art. I clearly understood that the space of art is outside the social space. Yes, the fact that art serves social space, is completely nourished by it - all this is true, but still, the fulcrum of art is somewhere outside, and it makes it possible to rest against something that will allow you to lean out of this space and look at him from the side. This is a very important thing, because no matter how aggressive, dangerous, strong the social space is, it still has boundaries, beyond which it has no power, is completely powerless - there, in fact, freedom is possible.

- Can you explain in detail how you used this opportunity to “rest against something”?

I felt this possibility in the properties of the picture itself. After all, what is a picture? This is a combination of two principles - the plane on which we put the paint, and the space into which this plane is able to somehow transform. These two beginnings are in fact directly opposite. But in any classical painting- like Rembrandt or Titian - they come together, into a kind of harmony. I thought that it is not necessary to bring these two beginnings into this harmonious duet, on the contrary - they can be opposed to each other, because initially they already oppose. This conflict will be the content of the picture, which, in fact, gave me the opportunity to consider the problem of freedom and lack of freedom not as literary material, to which you need to make illustrations, but as a spatial problem.

AFP/East News

- Which is what?

It lies in the fact that space is freedom, and the ban on space is unfreedom, that is, a prison. And I always opposed one to the other: "Entrance" - "No entrance", "Glory to the CPSU" - and the sky. Two beginnings that are opposite to each other - a true space, and that which does not let us into it, but depicts itself as a holiday, as a kind of achievement. This made it possible to express the falsity of ideology. She operated on beautiful lofty notions: all the time talking about freedom, about human dignity, about courage, about honesty; but in fact it meant denunciation, betrayal, elementary servility. I tried to express these substitutions.

How strongly do you think the ideological production (for example, posters with slogans) located in the urban space influenced a person?

Very much, our consciousness was completely deformed. If from childhood you are taught that something must be understood this way, and something this way, then in the end you take it for granted, as something familiar and, most importantly, normal. At the same time, you are constantly faced with something that does not correspond to your practical life, stumble upon a lie, but the feeling that all this is normally preserved. I tried to show how this normality is actually abnormal.

Why hasn't this been noticed by many?

It was perceived simply as the slogans of Soviet reality. Yes, “Glory to the CPSU” is written around, the poster is like this - so what? Or vice versa - our philosophizing dissidents attacked me: how could you write these terrible words across our Russian sky? The spatial meaning in my paintings, which I told you about, was simply not noticed. The words themselves were read: "Glory to the CPSU." And more - what else is there to see, and so everything is clear. IN best case everything was perceived as American pop art, made on Soviet material. So thought those who tried to find some kind of irony here. But there was no irony. There was a direct portrait of this reality. True, at that time my attempts to talk about the spatial basis of my paintings were perceived as a bluff: I made a political picture, but fools us. Now it became clear, you see, it took time. When my exhibition was held at the Manezh in 2014, I saw how many young people came, what interest they had in what I was doing. For me, of course, this is very important - my paintings live, they did not die, so everything was right, I caught something alive, the nerve of this life.

In one of the interviews, you say: “I want people not to idealize the Soviet era in any case - it was bad time". In Russia today, do you face this idealization, given the fact that most of the time you live in Paris and come to Moscow several times a year?

Unfortunately, I do it often. Here (at home in Moscow - ed.) TV is all the time, and it is obvious that the idealization of the Soviet era is being implanted. Yes, and politics is based on the fact that today's Russia is the heir to the Soviet system; what happened misfortune - collapsed Soviet Union, but what to do - we will continue the Soviet traditions. It's a terrible situation, of course.

- Why is she terrible?

This is a return to the Soviet system, and the Soviet system is the path to cultural death. The Soviet time is heterogeneous, the nature of Soviet power changed over time, but it manifested itself most fully under Stalin, it was his "flourishing" - last years Stalin. I was already a fairly conscious person (I studied at the institute at that time), so I know these years. It was the death of culture. She was held like this by the throat. It was the absolute death of all living things.

- Personally, how did it interfere with you in those years?

I was lucky that Stalin died when I was still in my first year at the institute. Then I was an unformed artist. And immediately after Stalin's death, there was an incredible relief. Life just exploded. I'm not talking about the fact that people who were innocently convicted returned. Finally, fair words were said about Stalin. A whole world of art opened up for me, which was forbidden, was unknown. Suddenly there were exhibitions, and in Pushkin Museum instead of gifts, Stalin was shown the Impressionists. Discussions, disputes began - some kind of living life. At that time, nothing prevented me from developing as an artist. In general, at that moment it was not clear in which direction everything would go, but it quickly became clear that the party's policy would again be the same, and this stupid defeat of art in the Manezh, which Khrushchev arranged, happened. It immediately became clear that if I really want to be an honest, serious artist (I didn’t consider myself an artist then, I didn’t feel my independence in art, but was influenced by this or that artist), then I should not depend on this state . Because the state was the only customer. True, that time had an advantage compared to Stalin’s: under Stalin, there was no question of any resistance, of any dissenting possibility - at any moment of the day or night they could enter you and find out what you are doing at home. Now it turned out that you can do whatever you want at home, they won’t let you show it, and, of course, they won’t pay you for it, but you’re welcome to do it. At the same time, the state was the only possible customer of art, a collector, a curator, and had the right to order what it needed and pay only for what was done the way it needed. And if you wanted to be an independent artist, you had to make a living doing something else. I started doing children's illustrations. And it turned out to be very interesting for me too. This is how a lot of artists do it. And that was the salvation.

- At the same time, write your paintings directly “on the table”?

Of course, they were in my workshop. But at first I didn’t even think about it: of course, I thought about showing it, but it was impossible, and I didn’t even dream of selling it. It all somehow worked out later.

"What I did, I just didn't like it"

- At what point and how did the paintings begin to leave your studio? How was the first painting sold?

This happened at a rather late time - in the eighties. Although the first painting was sold abroad in 1969. It was my self-portrait on a black background with a white silhouette. He was taken out unofficially, as if on the sly. Then, in the eighties, they began to take them out openly through a salon for foreigners: there they put the seal “no artistic value” on reverse side paintings and they could be exported without taxes.

And the self-portrait was given for money? I know that you gave away some of your paintings almost for free - if only they would leave here.

They paid me for it with a camera. It was a very curious famous lady in Paris, her name was Dina Verney. She was Mayol's model, but then he bequeathed everything to her, she became his heiress. And, apparently, she did business well, because as a result she had her own gallery in Paris and later the Mayol Museum. Anyway, she came here and bought a painting from me.

- That is, she looked at the workshops of artists in Moscow and came to you?

Yes. It so happened that a publication has already been published about me in France. There was such a magazine "L" Art Vivant, otherwise - "Living Art". A number was published dedicated to Soviet art - theater, cinema, literature and painting. How I got there is a question, because in general I was on the sidelines from underground artistic active life. But still, somehow it contained a short publication about me and a reproduction from this self-portrait. This made an impression on Dina, and when she arrived in Moscow, she was specifically looking for me. This changed my position here - they paid attention to me, and then by the end of the seventies more and more foreigners began to come to me. In this regard, here in the Union they began to pull me, to frighten me that they would be expelled from the Union of Artists, and then the workshop would be taken away (it did not belong to me, although I built it with my own money). Therefore, I was glad if someone liked what I was doing, and would at least give away the paintings for free, if only they would leave here. I thought, where am I going to put it all, if the workshop is taken away, it will still die.

- And from the Soviet someone was interested in your work?

No, I was not interested. It so happened that by 1988 almost all of my paintings were already abroad. And then my exhibition was arranged in the Kunsthalle of Zurich from those paintings that were already there. It was a defining moment for me. With colossal difficulty, they nevertheless let me go abroad and I managed to get to my exhibition. She was successful, after that she went to the museums of Europe, then to America. I began to receive offers from gallery owners, and for the first time I had the opportunity to earn a living directly from my main work (Erik Vladimirovich was 55 years old at that time - ed.), which I decided to take advantage of: we went with Natasha, my wife, to live first to America, and then all the same to Europe. Things went very well in New York - we immediately earned quite a lot of money (so much so that we could immediately buy an apartment in Paris), but Natasha was unbearable there, as a result we ended up in Paris, which both were happy about. This is a quiet place where you can work well and where there are many artists from different countries.

I want to clarify, you wondered why in the Soviet Union no one was interested in your work then?

I just didn’t like what I was doing, however, no one really saw what I was doing, there was almost no one in my workshop. When reproductions of my works appeared, a negative attitude towards them was established in a different sense. Our leading art critics, who fought against Soviet standard art, relied in their resistance on the art forbidden by the Soviet system - on our avant-garde of the twenties, on Picasso, on Matisse, and also in general on what was being done in France. It was a modernist aesthetic - very beautiful, to be sure - but it belonged to a different time. Because art always expresses its time, and, naturally, it did not express the Soviet time in any way. And what I do was perceived by these people as a return to Soviet art, against which they fought so courageously. They are suddenly, as it were, again shown something Soviet, but they declare that it is modern Art. I remember such accusations. They did not see the spatial nature of my work, they perceived it directly: "Glory to the CPSU." Yes, I also want to finish what I started talking about - about the Soviet system. After Stalin, its nature actually remained the same, it just weakened. And if she gained strength, she would again become what she was under Stalin. But this system was falling apart, gradually losing ground, but each time with a fight. Take the "Bulldozer Exhibition" - for those who were inside this situation, it was obvious.

“The thought that we are the best is not patriotism”

What do you think is happening with the system that exists today? Does she try to look strong by constantly referring to the Soviet era, directly to Stalin?

Of course, she is trying to be strong, she needs it, it is also imposed by the foreign policy situation. By its nature, it tries to get as close as possible to the Soviet design. This is very dangerous, first of all, culture will suffer, and the consciousness of people as well. You see, this leads to nationalism, which is very bad: the idea that we are the best is not patriotism. In fact, of course, we are not better than others, we just have the right to exist among others on an equal footing, and this is very important, this is our task: we must do a common cultural work with the whole world. And this does not mean that we should oppose and idealize ourselves.

Do you think how easy it is to influence the minds of people who grew up in the nineties, a little earlier or a little later - in general, enough free time, and limit it?

I don't know, it seems to work. There is very important point: the new state arose not as an heir, but as an opponent of the previous one. It opposed itself to the empire that was, and freed everyone who wanted to get freedom. And in this sense, everything started very beautifully. But then it went awry and awry, and as a result it came to what is happening now: people want strong power, they want order, which in principle is understandable and fair, but it turns out that the best order was under Soviet rule, especially under Stalin - there already such an order was that, indeed, you could not move a hand or a foot. But I don't understand anything about politics. I only hear propaganda all the time: I am being agitated all the time - both here, in Russia, and there, in the West and in the same France. On the contrary, they are campaigning against today's Russia. And I do not believe in either one or the other, because since childhood I have gorged myself on this propaganda. But in fact there is no information, there is an instruction: what should I think about this and that - what is from this side, what is from that. Therefore, I do not understand anything and do not presume to judge.

"That's what liberation is all about"

In your latest works, you yourself talk about it, you ask existential questions. Once at some point you switched to them, it means that the former social problems that worried you throughout long period time, somehow let go. This is true?

As if the horizon moved away: there was a social horizon, and outside it there was a space that was not subject to the social, but with its own existential horizon. And age, probably, requires understanding something more fundamental. But nevertheless I somehow try all the time to look back and express and today's life Russian. I painted the paintings "Clouds are growing", "Our time has come" and "Moscow morning". There are other paintings that you have not seen - I made them this year, they were exhibited at my last exhibition in Geneva. I had Chistoprudny Boulevard there: my workshop on Chistoprudny Boulevard, at the end of it there is a monument to Griboedov, and in winter people walk along the boulevard, and it snows. Everything under the snow is ghostly. Such a picture. The local life still attracts me, some images haunt me, but what they mean, I don’t really know myself. May be, time will pass and I will know. In general, I do not start with the fact that I know something. What I am telling you now, about the Soviet, I later began to know, and when I did it, I did not think about it at all. It's just that the images were obvious, and I knew that I caught them very accurately.

- That is, the ideological significance of what was written was comprehended after, after a while?

Yes, for example the picture "Red Horizon". I made it in the House of Creativity in the Crimea. There I got a terrible sciatica. It was in February: there were winds, a storm. I was treated for sciatica in the clinic: I had to lie on my stomach - they warmed my back with some kind of lamp. I lay like that and looked out the window, and outside the window the sea is beauty. But right in front of the window, at my eye level, there was a beam painted red. And she irritated me terribly - she closes everything to me, does not let me go there. And how nice it would be to lie down and look at the sea. And then it hit me: you fool, it’s for sure that they show you your own life. What you want, what you need, is closed to you. This image arose - “my life”, and this picture. And only then - all this ideology, everything can be explained later.

If we talk about liberation from the ideologization of consciousness through art - can you describe this process of liberation that occurs in you in the process of creating a picture and then - picture after picture?

Everything always starts with some kind of image: I see it clearly and very keenly feel the need to materialize this image. As a rule, what I draw right away turns out to be unlike what I have in mind. And here the preliminary work begins (because of which I work so slowly): I try to understand what is wrong and where I went wrong. I must find a way to accurately express the unchanging image that is fixed in my head. I carefully make a drawing - I see what is different, I make another one - I see that this is not it, I make a third one and so on. At some point, I understand that this is what you need, it looks like. So I get the main spatial design and can continue to work with it already on a large canvas. There I bring the image exactly to the image that I have in my head; when they match, I stop working - I caught it, fixed it. At this moment, I get freedom from him, because I separated this image from my consciousness, I found it and gave it a name - now it lives separately from me. This is what liberation is about. And if it really turned out what I had to do, then the opportunity to see something else is sure to open up, on the basis of which I can make another picture - this is how a certain path is built by itself. All these images are about the Soviet era and, as a rule, are connected, therefore, in the end, they make up one big image, which you call ideology.

“By the time of Yeltsin, I still treat with love”

IN Yeltsin Center you reproduced a version of the painting "There is freedom." Was it an order specifically for this painting or did you decide what to do?

There was an order to make an image of freedom, and I proposed such a solution; I made a sketch - I liked it.

In the original version of the word "Freedom is Freedom is" on the plane breaks the space of the sky with the word "Freedom". In the version for the Yeltsin Center, only a fragment with the sky and a single "Freedom" is preserved. Why? Repeated “Freedom exists”, like slogans, like something that exists only in theory, turned out to be out of place in this space?

The phrase “Freedom exists”, repeated endlessly, it is like a slogan, like a declaration, in fact, it is false, of course. All these repetitions are on the plane, on the surface of the picture, and one word "Freedom" is a breakthrough of the surface, through the surface into space, to where true freedom is. This is the opposition of true freedom and false freedom. In the picture for the Yeltsin Center, I rather proceeded from the picture “I am walking”, movement is important in it. Here, after all, the first social space already exists - this is the room itself, in which we are with you. And the movement out of it is an exit into the depth, into space. And this is not an absolutely free movement, because on the way the clouds are like an obstacle, like a resistance to movement. At the same time, there is a feeling that the letters are still able to pass through this barrier.

Is it this feeling that characterizes the time to which the Yeltsin Center is dedicated? And, if you've walked around the exhibition spaces, how accurate are these times?

This time for me is an absolute break with the Soviet system, opposition to it. This is the maximum possible social freedom. At that moment, of course, there was a complete illusion that something wonderful was opening up ahead. Then in our minds it was like this: in general, all the evil in the world is the Soviet ideology, and as it collapses, everyone will be happy. It turned out that not everything is so. And this is what I wanted to express. As for how the Yeltsin Center was made, although I looked, it was somehow a glimpse, because I didn’t think about it, but only about my work. Therefore, I do not presume to say anything about him. I would like it to be done convincingly, well, clearly, because by that time I still treat it with love and remember it with gratitude.

- And why "do not care"?

Because then problems immediately began, difficulties, unexpected and, of course, unpleasant. And a little later there was a rejection of those achievements that were initially established, there was a gradual retreat. But I don’t presume to judge - I don’t understand either economics or politics.

“That’s the whole point: we exist for something”

We started talking about freedom - for you, what is the difference in understanding freedom within the framework of an ideologized society and freedom in general - in an existential sense?

Freedom is a very ambiguous concept in the sense that it can be fixed at different levels. As for social freedoms as such - of course, there are more of them in democratic states than in tyrannical ones, but in the sense of ideology - all are ideologized. I don't think America or Europe is less ideological than the Soviet system. It's just that there is a different ideology - the market. And in a sense, it is more dangerous for our consciousness, because the Soviet ideology was frankly inhuman and therefore it was easy to separate it and see it, to look at it from the outside. And the ideology of the market is not inhuman, on the contrary - it always offers a lot of necessary, useful, well-made things. But the fact is that as a result, again, as in the Soviet era, from childhood you are imperceptibly, but stubbornly inspired that the acquisition of these things is the meaning of your life.

If the consciousness of a person were not clouded by either one or the other ideology that we are talking about, then what true sense life should be spoken?

It is then that one can talk about some meaning of life, when a person lives, doing some business that he loves, in which he puts his soul, and not because the business gives him money or some material things. benefits, but because he loves this business. And it doesn't matter what it will be: art, or science, or religion - whatever. And if a person lives all his life in order to acquire as much as possible, this is some kind of empty, well, or, in any case, false life. And man exists for something. In general - a person, not every specific one. That's the whole point: we exist for something. We do not fit into the animal, this natural world. Our consciousness does not fit into it - it still sticks out of it, wants something else. And it is precisely what distinguishes a person, what takes him beyond the limits of all earthly harmony, where everything is balanced, shows that a person is made for something else.

- How would you answer this question?

There can be no general answer here. But what matters is the role art plays in this. It cannot solve this question, but constantly puts it before our consciousness. We live in the face of this question, I think.

Finally, a few words about Yekaterinburg. At first glance, you have a lot of connections with him: you were born in Sverdlovsk, and you were evacuated here. But, in fact - no, this city does not define you. You were born here only because your father came here on a business trip from Moscow, and your pregnant mother went with him. Then, during the war years, you and your mother were evacuated to Sverdlovsk. Then you were older, a schoolboy, did you have any memories of that time? And how long did you spend in the evacuation?

We got there at the end of the summer of 1942, and in February 1943 we returned to Moscow - we were there for half a year. Unfortunately, I don't have any memories of the city. We lived in a hostel for employees of the Moscow art theater. There was my uncle - an actor, my father's parents - my grandfather and grandmother, and my mother. Actually, we could go separately with her when we were evacuated, but my mother decided to go along with everyone else in order to save the family. We lived in this hostel, we all talked to each other, and I remember that all this happened somewhere in the common yard. Therefore, I do not remember the city itself and the people in it.

Although then I went to school (the first half of the year I studied here), and I even had some acquaintances. Moreover, I won the competition there children's drawing and received his first award. I had to get a live rabbit. Mom was terribly scared. There was a hungry time, and it meant that it could be eaten. But how can you eat a rabbit? Clearly not. So he needs to be fed somehow. Where are we going to put him? There simply was no room: it was a large room where there were beds and some kind of sheets were stretched between them, which separated one family from another. So there was no question of a rabbit here, although I liked it, of course, but not in order to eat it. In general, my mother said that we could not take a rabbit, and they gave me another bonus: a set of Ural semi-precious stones is a wonderful gift. Then I took it to Moscow, and then presented it to the school where I studied. So I have such a memory of Sverdlovsk.

The contemporary Russian artist Erik Bulatov is one of the most expensive, whose works are sold at auctions for millions of dollars. A man whose work was recognized thirty years later. Europe opened it. Thanks to exhibitions held in galleries in Switzerland, Germany, France, they started talking about him in Russia. In this article, we will talk about the paintings of Eric Bulatov and the features of his style.

Parents E.V. Bulatov

Eric Bulatov was born in 1933 on September 5 in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), where the pregnant mother went with her father on a business trip to the Urals. Father - Vladimir Borisovich in 1937 was expelled from the party and everything went to arrest. An enterprising mother rented a dacha near Moscow, and father lived there for more than six months. They forgot about him, or rather, they took another according to the apportionment, the main thing was to put a tick that some enemies of the people had been taken. He went to war in 1941 as a volunteer, and in 1944 he was killed. Bulatov recalls that his father, seeing his drawings, believed that he would become an artist. Eric Bulatov began to write his first paintings as a child.

Mom from Poland. She was a gifted person. She crossed the border from Poland to Russia without knowing a single Russian word. In two years she learned Russian so well that she began working as a stenographer. Mother and father had different views on the line pursued by the party. But, since they loved each other, politics faded into the background.

Education at school and the Surikov Institute

Eric's studies began at an art school, which belonged to the Surikov Institute. He studied so well that at the end of it, Eric Bulatov received a medal, so he did not have to pass the entrance exams to the university. The situation at the institute was difficult, the time was difficult: the 50s, the death of Stalin, the struggle against cosmopolitanism.

Invaluable assistance at this time was provided by Robert Falk and Vladimir Favorsky to the young Eric Bulatov in gaining steadfast independence in relation to the official doctrine pursued in the country. By the end of the institute, the understanding came that a real artist should be free, and not depend on state orders. But in order to develop, funds were needed. Private orders were out of the question. There was only one alternative - illustrating children's books.

This work was out of necessity. The autumn-winter period was allotted for earnings, consisting in the creation of illustrations. Eric Bulatov painted pictures in spring and summer. And in them was what he felt, what he felt.

Bulatov - illustrator of children's books

To start working as an illustrator, it was necessary to learn this, since Erik Vladimirovich had a different education - he was a painter. In the publishing house where Bulatov worked, there were certain requirements that had to be met. Eric Bulatov, in his interviews, recalls his work in a children's publishing house: “When you are illustrating a fairy tale, a completely different principle of thinking turns on - a child's one. The child has his own ideas about this or that hero of the fairy tale. When working on an illustration, you have to show exactly this - a child's vision, not your own. And the work of an artist is a completely free consciousness. It is in the picture that you express your vision, perception, reflection of the world.”

Paintings by Erik Bulatov

A characteristic handwriting, by which Bulatov's paintings can be recognized, is the collision of a large poster text with a landscape component borrowed from the press. This is the absurdity of the reality surrounding the artist and the oversaturation of Soviet symbols shown in the picture. This was Erik Bulatov in the Sots Art theme. His early work based on the interaction of painting and space. But this stage of the artist's work was not appreciated in his homeland.

Illusions about paths stretching into the distance in the paintings of Eric Bulatov are read as dead ends. The pictorial metaphor depicted on the artist's canvases is understandable to the audience. Erik Bulatov depicted these blocks in the paintings titled "Horizon" (red carpet wall), "Krasikov Street" (stand depicting walking Lenin), "Live and See" (Kremlin).

How Erik Bulatov came to Sots Art

The Sots Art trend in Bulatov's painting manifested itself against the background of the American Pop Art, which united the space of art and the layer of the second reality. Bulatov understood that for Soviet people ideology was nothing but their reality. She occupied all their space. But many Soviet artists believed (thanks to the same ideology) that the filth of life should not be shown, the creators should live in perspective. Therefore, his comrades who worked in Sots Art did not share the vision of Bulatov, who tried to express in his paintings the consciousness of people, formed by Soviet ideology.

Bulatov managed to get around the restrictions of the official Soviet art, developing a very personal style.His paintings are mostly iconoclastic collections in which image and language are linked.In landscapes, portraits, city views, he uses both the iconography of the Soviet regime and more traditional representations of nature as his inspiration.choice of colors, geometric compositions and the use of images from films, art history, or advertising define Bulatov's visual language.

As if taken from the magazine "Spark" photo in the painting by Eric Bulatov "Program Time". He portrayed the hopelessness and despair of a lonely old woman listening to the news on TV. Fictitious communication with a talking box and ideological intoxication of the people of the Soviet era is the theme of this picture.

Russian European artist

It so happened that Eric Bulatov and his wife have been living in Paris since 1992. He did not emigrate, but simply went on an invitation to work. It happened after his exhibition, organized by the gallery owner Dina Verny. It was she who organized the vernissage of paintings by Erik Vladimirovich Bulatov, taken out of Russia by private collectors. The works left the country legally, without obstacles, with the seal of the Ministry of Culture "Has no artistic value." Bulatov understood that paintings needed to be given life, they needed to be sold, even if not expensively. And they were exported from the Soviet Union.

The exhibition in Zurich was a success. After her, gallery owners from different countries began to invite Bulatov to Germany, France, and America. Vernissages made it possible to stop making a living by illustrations, and devote themselves entirely to painting. I decided to live with my wife in France. I really liked Paris with its centuries-old culture.

When asked why he went abroad, Bulatov says in his interviews that it was interesting to look beyond the horizon. In the Soviet Union, his interests were limited to social space, which hinders the genuine. In Europe, he discovered an existential horizon that includes social spaces.

About exhibitions and spectators

Exhibitions of works by Erik Vladimirovich abroad are held much more often and not on certain dates and holidays. Gallery owners show the artist's canvases to the public quite often. Throughout his life abroad, Eric Bulatov's paintings were repeatedly exhibited in galleries. As the artist himself says, his last exhibitions, starting from 2005, are quite successful. They took place in Paris, Geneva, Moscow. The artist is pleased with the interest in his works, moreover, people in different countries show a keen interest. Bulatov does not feel offended either abroad or in Russia.

The audience is youth. Many skeptics claim that young generation nothing is needed and it is not interesting that the art is over. No that's not true. Young people perceive the works not as something of the past, but as alive, and this indicates that they understand the artist. After all, you need to judge the work of an artist from his position, to understand his individuality. And, according to Erik Vladimirovich himself, he wanted to express time.

About the paintings of the artist Erik Bulatov of different times

Recently, more and more paintings began to appear at auctions, taken away by Western collectors. They are now purchased by Russian collectors. That is, the paintings began to return to Russia. These are mostly works from the 1970s and 1980s. There were simply no pictures with social themes of that time in Russia. And Bulatov's paintings are like a monument to a bygone era. The fact that these works live and make an impression just says that the artist was able to express, to capture that time.

And here last works more are acquired by collectors in the west. This is due to the fact that Eric Bulanov works mainly with Swiss, German, French galleries.

Gift to the Tretyakov Gallery

One of his works, as Bulatov himself says, which he got very hard, he presented in June 2017 to the Tretyakov Gallery. Eric Bulatov's painting is called "Picture and Spectators".

It is of impressive size - two by two and a half meters. It was done long and meticulously. “The Picture and the Spectators” is the fruit of Bulatov’s reflections on the work of Alexander Ivanov “The Appearance of Christ to the People”. Bulatov organically inscribed modern visitors contemplating their ancestors into the picture, connected eras and styles, connected avant-garde and traditional realism.

The only place for a painting is the Tretyakov Gallery, so the author decides. After all, this is where he spent his life. At Tretyakov Gallery there are three more works by Eric Bulatov from his early period when he was working on abstract forms.