home › Tires and wheels › Eric Bulatov personal life. Which is what? About the paintings of the artist Erik Bulatov of different times

Eric Bulatov personal life. Which is what? About the paintings of the artist Erik Bulatov of different times

Eric Bulatov. Bounce. 1994

He is the only Russian artist whose works were also exhibited in the Louvre, in National Center art and culture named after Pompidou, and at the Museum contemporary art Paris. In 1988, Eric Bulatov was recognized by UNESCO best artist of the year. The master says that he refers to this state of affairs not without irony, meanwhile, he remains the author of paintings that are always a success at leading auctions.

Eric Vladimirovich Bulatov is one of the most famous Russian avant-garde artists. He is considered one of the founders of the so-called Sots Art. Born in Sverdlovsk in 1933. Graduated from the Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov.

Eric Bulatov. Louvre. Gioconda. 2006

Bulatov's paintings are recognizable all over the world. This is due to the unique technique. Sots art or pop art in Russian. His paintings are always saturated with symbolism, which in an encrypted form presents the viewer with his observations of the absurdity of Soviet reality, which is on the verge of a turning point rushing from side to side, looking for a way out, but around there are only dead ends, around there are only officials with their complete arbitrariness and the ubiquitous industry of the West, which is powerful pierces the weakened shell of the culture of the Soviet people like a wedge.

Often these are the words and sentences of the Soviet posters of that time taken out of context, superimposed on the painting itself, confirming, self-deprecating or complementing each other. All this, as dissatisfaction with reality, as mockery, protest and revolutionary mood, is reflected in the art of Eric Bulatov.

Eric Bulatov. Horizon. 1971-1972

In this sense, the artist turned out to be a real talent. There are not many artists in our country who, on the field of avant-garde, were able to earn such popularity all over the world. The point here is not even the anti-Soviet sentiments in some countries of the world, which find support in his paintings, but the very talent of the author, his approach to painting, to symbolism, to a new genre that he nurtured and put on its feet.

E. Bulatov began to make the first inserts in 1957. Then the exhibitions were held exclusively in Russia, which, however, were quite in demand due to the fact that society, in the words of Viktor Tsoi, "waited for changes." Since 1973, the artist began to exhibit abroad. Since 1992 he has been living in Paris. Considered one of the most expensive Russian artists. His work "Soviet Space" was sold for 1.6 million dollars at Philips auction.

Eric Bulatov. Krasikov street. 1977

"I wanted to show Soviet life just the way it is, without expressing any relation to it. There was no obvious protest in my painting, I had no desire to convince the viewer of something: look how terrible it is! I was not a social struggle hero like Oscar Rabin. My task was fundamentally different: I wanted the viewer to see their life as it is, but to see it as if from the outside."

"I wanted to create a distance between this reality and the consciousness of the viewer. This was what the picture served, working as a distance, as an instance of a distant look. I built a work of art as an instance between reality and consciousness. That's what was important to me. To make the viewer think: so she is what my life is... So that he would perceive my paintings not as a lesson, but would also make a discovery himself.

Eric Bulatov. I wanted it to be light, but it didn't work. 2002

Eric Bulatov. All this spring. 1998

Eric Bulatov. Photo for memory

Margaret Rismondo. Boulevard Raspail

firmament

Autumn landscape

"Brezhnev. Soviet space "(1977)

Russian 20th century

Glory to the CPSU

Characteristic and recognizable creative method Bulatov is the collision of the poster text, snatched from the context of Soviet reality, with the figurative (most often landscape, borrowed from the mass press) component. As a result, the artist succeeds in an extremely accessible way to illustrate the absurdity of reality, oversaturated with the symbols of Soviet propaganda.

In addition to the works of the Sots Art theme, even in their early works Bulatov developed a theory of the interaction of the picture and space. In these works of his, the influence of Falk is noticeable. A strong, original stage of his work, invaluable in the context of art history.

Bulatov's works are regularly exhibited at contemporary art auctions. So, at the Philips auction, the work “Soviet Space” went for about $ 1.6 million, two more canvases on the Soviet theme, including “Revolution - Perestroika”, were sold for a million dollars each, which made Bulatov one of the most expensive contemporary Russian artists.

Eric Bulatov "Liberte" 1992 - this picture appeared on the poster of the exhibition "Counterpoint"

On October 14, 2010, the exhibition "Counterpoint: Russian Contemporary Art" was opened at the Louvre. The exhibition features works by more than twenty artists. These are Erik Bulatov, Emilia and Ilya Kabakov, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Valery Koshlyakov, Alexei Kallima, Vladimir Dubossarsky and Alexander Vinogradov, Andrey Monastyrsky, Vadim Zakharov, Yuri Leiderman, Yuri Albert, Avdey Ter-Oganyan, the Blue Noses and AES + F and others. On the eve of the opening day, Yury Kovalenko, Izvestia correspondent in France, met Academician Eric Bulatov in his Paris studio.

Izvestia: None of the Russian artists exhibited in the Louvre during their lifetime. Yes, and Western masters who have received such an honor, once or twice, and counted. In a word, getting into the Louvre is cool!

erik bulatov: Indeed, the Louvre seems to all of us something unattainable. But our exhibition will take place, as it were, in cellars - in the medieval Louvre, where the foundations of the walls and towers of the palace have been excavated. This place for the exhibition is absolutely unsuitable. There, except that you can make installations or show a video. A truly exhibition that would speak of state of the art of our art - especially in the Year of Russia in France, should have been arranged elsewhere. For example, at the Georges Pompidou National Center for Arts and Culture.

and: So, are you offended?

Bulatov: I'm not offended, but I just don't want there to be euphoria, immoderate enthusiasm: "Ah, the Louvre, the Louvre!" But be that as it may, for us Russians, the Louvre is a holy place to which we join. Let somewhere in the corner, in the crack.

and: Does the holding of "Counterpoint" mean the recognition of our contemporary art? Or is it just one of the events within the framework of the Cross Year of Russia and France?

Bulatov: I ask myself this question. There are signs of both. On the one hand, there has long been a belief in the West that Russian art, apart from the avant-garde artists of the 1920s, simply does not exist. Everything else - before and after - is provincial and secondary. Of course, three or four of our artists were recognized, but their success remained personal and did not carry over to Russian art at all. On the other hand, there is - albeit very slowly - the process of establishing Russian art as a whole.

and: To what extent does the current exposition at the Louvre reflect contemporary Russian art?

bulatov: It is mainly based on conceptualism - a direction that will be presented quite convincingly in the Louvre. But this is not all our art. It turns out not an objective picture, but some fragment. Many artists who seem to me very important are absent from this exhibition. I think, for example, Oscar Rabin should have been invited.

and: The public is in for surprises. On the day of the vernissage at the Louvre, artist Yuri Leiderman organizes his performance: two women in Russian national costumes a hundred heads of cabbage are shredded before the eyes of the spectators. For his part, his colleague Yuri Albert will lead the audience through the Louvre blindfolded...

bulatov: This is our conceptualism.

and: Your painting "Liberte" ("Freedom") is reproduced on the poster of the exhibition - a roll call from famous painting Delacroix "Freedom at the Barricades".

Bulatov: There are two of my works on display. In addition to this, there is also the painting "Black Evening - White Snow".

and: "Liberte" is a textbook picture in every sense. Together with your other work - "Soviet Space" - it even entered the French textbooks.

Bulatov: I received this order in 1989, when a big celebration was being prepared in France on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the revolution. They were going to lift an airship into the air, which, on the one hand, was supposed to be painted by a Russian artist, and on the other, by an American. And I had an idea related to our revolutionary situation in the 1980s. There were many freedom-loving illusions then.

and: How does the Western audience perceive Russian art today?

Bulatov: Always with interest. I was convinced of this at the exhibition "Russian Landscape" in National Gallery in London. The museum is free, but the exhibition is paid. And people stood to get on it. The same attention is paid to Russian exhibitions in Paris. The problem arises with criticism - it is not interesting.

I: And on whose side is the truth?

Bulatov: Truth cannot be on the side of those who are trying to lead art. It is also wrong to assume that she is on the side of the audience. The masses, for example, go to Glazunov or Shilov. In any case, one cannot but reckon with the audience, or at least with those who want to understand painting. They need to be educated, you need to work with them. Not just declaring one artist good and another bad, but explaining things about the fundamental foundations of art.

and: There is a French expression "to train the eye."

Bulatov: Not only the eyes, but also the head. The eye, as my teacher Vladimir Andreevich Favorsky said, can be deceived. Consciousness is harder to deceive.

and: Favorsky was not only an artist, but also a philosopher.

Bulatov: He was a philosopher of art. He was associated with Florensky and with our other religious philosophers. I'm not a philosopher, but just an artist. I just try to understand why and why I do it this way and not otherwise.

and: Is it not too much power taken over by the curators, who are called commissars here? Artists in their hands, in your words, like auxiliary material - paints and brushes?

Bulatov: I have the impression that the general situation is now changing. Maybe because among the curators there is a change of generations.

and: Hasn't art lost its moral functions in many respects and has not become part of the entertainment industry?

Bulatov: We cannot objectively judge today's art, because we judge precisely by what we are shown. I don't know how this corresponds to what is happening in art. Moreover, I hope that this is not the case at all. And about what kind of art today, we will learn, maybe in fifty years.

and: The coming victory in the West of mass petty-bourgeois culture was predicted by Herzen. Now it seems to have finally gained the upper hand in Russia.

Bulatov: She cannot win completely. Of course, we do not live in the Renaissance, but art cannot perish. If this happens, human existence will become meaningless. Art asks a question that no one else asks: "Why a man?".

and: You still go to the Louvre to study with the classics. What can a long-established famous artist learn?

Bulatov: In fact, I can do very little. There are many things I can't do.

and: Humiliation more than pride?

Bulatov: No, it's true. Every artist has a path along which he goes. And if you stumble a little, you immediately find yourself in a quagmire in which you do not navigate at all. And each time a new work must be started from scratch, decided anew, because in art all decisions are one-time.

and: Are you still tormented by creative torment?

Bulatov: Along with Favorsky, Falk was my teacher. As a student, I came to show him my work. And he asked me: "What do you think about them?" Then I was in complete despair from my own mediocrity and told him about it. Falk answered me: “It means that you are now in a very good creative state. I will tell you something that will not be a consolation for you, but which will be useful in the future. This state will continue all your life. And if it passes, then you how the artist ended." I have never felt so helpless as now, in my old age, when I start a new still life.

and: Next to the works of which great artists in the Tretyakov Gallery or in the Louvre would you like to exhibit your painting?

Bulatov: In the Louvre - scary to say - with the "Coronation of Our Lady" by Fra Angelico and with Titian's "Country Concert". In the Tretyakov Gallery - with Alexander Ivanov or with Levitan. My favorite Levitan painting is "Lake", which is in the Russian Museum. It was supposed to be called "Rus", but Levitan hesitated to give this name, considering the picture unsuccessful.

and: Why is a reproduction of the Mona Lisa hanging in your Moscow workshop?

Bulatov: I wrote an article about the Mona Lisa. For me, it is important how this picture is arranged, how the problem of the border between art and life is shown. This is what Leonardo worked on more than anyone else.

and: But life is still more important than art?

Bulatov: I really don't know. On the one hand, this is true, but on the other hand, life is the material for art.

and: Having lived for about two decades in France, do you consider yourself a Russian or European artist?

Bulatov: I am a Russian artist by upbringing and education. Therefore, I am a European artist, like all artists living in France, Germany or Italy.

and: Among your favorite masters are Levitan and Savrasov. Can't you understand them with your mind?

Bulatov: Artists do not influence the mind, but the feelings. Their art on you either acts instantly, or does not act at all. I am convinced that if you put together an exhibition of nineteenth-century Russian landscapes well, it will make a huge impression.

and: Once you told me that Levitan and Malevich are not antipodes.

Bulatov: Since they are both rooted in Russian culture, they are certainly not antipodes. They tried to make the viewer a participant in what they are doing. It was very important for Levitan that the viewer - bypassing painting - immediately get into his landscape, into a birch grove.

and: Can a new landscape painter of Levitan's level appear today?

Bulatov: There is such a landscape painter. This is Oleg Vasiliev (a friend and colleague of Bulatov, with whom they have been engaged in book graphics for many years. - Izvestia). He is noticed, but still underestimated.

and: The Brazilian Gil Vicente painted a dozen canvases depicting the supposed assassinations of George W. Bush, Brazilian President Lula da Silva, and the current Pope Benedict XVI. Is everything allowed for artists? Is there any kind of censorship in art?

Bulatov: External censorship is, of course, fatal for art. There must be internal censorship. What it is? Kant said it best: "The starry sky is above us and the moral law is within us." And we all have to follow this law.

Eric Bulatov. Freedom is freedom, 1997-98

Your joint exhibition with Vladimir Logutov is now opening at the NCCA. Logutov is a very young artist, from the generation of 30-year-olds. Do you feel continuity in this artistic generation?

It is in this generation, the generation of 30-year-olds, that I feel an interest in me. Here is the generation of the 90s, "Medgermenevty", Anatoly Osmolovsky, was entirely of Kabakov's orientation - they did not need me and, accordingly, I did not need them either. Interest younger generation I felt when I gave public lectures.

Doesn't it happen to you that you see the work of a young artist - Russian or foreign - and feel your tradition in it?

You know, something like that happened. Although very rare. But I can't say anything definite: I hardly remember names. But I am always pleased when I see some kind of closeness with an artist, and whether he is young or not is not important.

Eric Bulatov. Freedom is freedom II. 2000-200

But the young generation is moving away from painting to new forms - installations, video art, performance. The same Vladimir Logutov shoots video art. And you stubbornly continue to make pictures.

It's a difficult question. What is a painting? This question does not have a definite answer. I think there are a lot contemporary artists works precisely with the picture, simply not realizing it, believing that they abandoned the picture. There are a lot of examples - Cy Twombly, any of our constructivists of the 20s, all American pop art, German artists- Richter, Basel, Kiefer. A picture is space on a plane. But the plane is just a base from which space is built - either on one side of this plane, or on the other. That's all. This space can also be built from three-dimensional objects.

- That is, painting as a method of art can still develop?

Of course, it evolves and shows its new capabilities. The picture has a very great potential, and this is its strength. I'm quite happy with the picture. See What is an installation? If the installation is a space through which the viewer must pass, then it certainly has nothing to do with the painting, because the painting first of all requires a person to have a fixed position in relation to it. But if the installation has a border: on one side there is a viewer, and on the other, a certain process unfolds; Why isn't this a picture? Like Kabakov's installation "A man who flew into space from his room." Video art is essentially a picture too. But my problems are above my head, I will have enough of them until the end of my days, so I will not climb into this territory, make installations or video art. All my problems are quite well resolved through the pictures.

IN Lately, it seems to me that the social element is leaving your paintings, although earlier it played a big role. Many even called you the founder of Sots Art.

I have never been a Sots Art artist. Of course, my paintings, such as "Horizon", played a big role in shaping this trend, that's right. But the artists of Sots Art have fundamental differences from me. The meaning is completely different. My paintings are a confrontation between ideologized reality and natural reality. Two realities oppose each other, and our consciousness is completely blocked by this ideological space. In the same matter. And no one, except me, dealt with this conflict. Then they started doing it when Soviet Union already collapsed.

It seems to me that in modern Russian, even Moscow art, the social and the formal are often separated. Some artists talk only about the social, others forget about it altogether, choosing the “loneliness of the reception”, like the same Logutov.

There shouldn't be such a gap. After all, the space of art must be connected with the space of our existence, which, of course, includes the social space. After all, what should art do? An exploration of the nature of the space we are in, an exploration of our perception of that space. Art tries to express the world in which we exist, which is not actually described or recognized. After all, the world is new every time, and we must find a name and image for it. Here is the work of art. It connects art with life, and I think that's the whole point of art. This is my conviction. Social space plays a role in this world, but it is only a part, and, as I am convinced, not the most important one.

- And in the West, in Paris, for example, are they interested in contemporary Russian art?

Not really. It's just that in the West they firmly know that it does not exist, so there is nothing to be interested in here. There is Russian music, there is Russian literature, maybe Russian theatre, but there was no Russian art and no.

- Why is this happening?

It would be interesting to know the answer to this question, but it is not for me to answer it. This happened in the 1920s and 1930s, and continues to this day. When the name of Chagall thundered here in Paris, it was perceived as his personal success. And so it is with everyone: a Russian artist can become successful in the West, but this success will never be transferred to all Russian art. Chagall was a huge success, and nearby Larionov and Goncharova were dying of hunger, because no one cared about them. By the way, several contemporary Russian artists here also know how to succeed, and I can't complain.

There is arrogance in this inattention to Russian art, but we ourselves are largely to blame, because the Russian exhibitions that take place here are something terrible. They can't prove anything except that there really is no Russian art. It is sad. It seemed to me that this was the business of my generation - to introduce Russian art into a single, global space of art. Unfortunately, we did not succeed: again only separate names. I hope the next generations can do it. Still, the process does not stand still.

- And what about the Russian avant-garde?

You know, in Paris, the Russian avant-garde is perceived as a landing french art into Russian. Our XIX century is considered a provincial branch of German art, and then the French landing, which gave an unexpected result. Then the paratroopers were shot, and it was all over. Although it is in the highest degree not fair. I believe that the 19th century is also worth special attention - this is definitely not a provincial branch, although there were certainly German influences.

You see, it is important that our Russian theorists and art critics finally begin to seriously deal with these issues. Look, in our art history there is Russian art XIX century, it turned out to be between two poles: either it’s the devil knows what (as some of our leading figures, such as Katya Degot, think in the West and after that), or it’s something extraordinary, the most beautiful and the greatest ever created, better than anyone in the world. In fact, both of these positions are harmful. Not just wrong, but harmful. It is necessary to carefully look at how it differs from the art of other countries and schools, what is its essence, what are its shortcomings and merits. Simply stigmatizing or extolling is a road to nowhere.

Again, if we talk about Russian art as such, then you need to understand what the connection between different eras and genres is. Really Russian XIX century and the Russian avant-garde - are they two opposite things that exclude each other? If both are Russian art, then there is some kind of common ground, something unified. But no one analyzes these phenomena. Why do we then want others to think that we have art? After all, we can’t really say anything about him.

You say what could be next generation artists will be able to highlight Russian art on the world stage. But now there is a process of globalization, when the differences between art different countries are increasingly being erased. Maybe now this selection of Russian art does not make sense?

I will tell you that globalization is just a myth, in fact it does not exist. Of course, both Kiefer and Baselitz are completely German artists, it is impossible to imagine a Frenchman the same as Baselitz. Or Andy Warhol. Could he be European? Of course not. Another thing is that there are bright personalities, but there are dull ones. And the bright ones express their national basis very well. Because the national basis is a type of consciousness, it is not a technique and not the nature of the image. They can be anything from figurative to abstract. The type of consciousness cannot be cancelled. It is formed by all national culture- and music, and literature, and philosophy.

Russian art in this sense is no different from others: the type of consciousness remains, it is the least flexible. It dictates its own characteristics for the national perception of art. And Russian art, in this sense, in a certain way, is concretely different from French. Our viewer wants from art not what the Frenchman wants.

- And what does our audience want?

Look, French art is fundamentally hermetic. It does not need a viewer, because it asserts its own significance, and it does not depend on how the viewer reacts to it. This is very important point. This is neither bad nor good, just very characteristic of the French consciousness. "You do not like? Okay, go away! Art will not lose anything from this, and you will lose.” And our art requires a viewer, it cannot exist without a viewer. No art needs an audience to the same extent as Russian art. This applies to any era - and the XIX century, and Malevich, and Tatlin, and our conceptualists, whoever you want. This is at the core of our consciousness.

Diagonal. Incision

Perhaps that is why our art is not perceived in the West? After all, if art needs an audience, then it is defective.

So they are trying to interpret it, as you are now. But this has nothing to do with the usefulness of the art itself. Just a type of consciousness.

The material was prepared by Elena Ishchenko.

Eric Bulatov was born in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) in 1933: “My father went on a business trip to the Urals, my pregnant mother went with him, I was born there, and then they returned” to Moscow.

My father was from Saratov, then moved to Moscow with his parents. IN 1918 father joined the party, immediately after the gymnasium 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.

Mother was a romantic nature and 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 in Kamenetz-Podolsk, then in Moscow...

"Mom was very gifted person and in 1920s for years she even passed an acting exam at a film studio ... She was opposed to the general line of the party, against all power, a typical intelligentsia consciousness. She had to be against her father, their views were in many ways opposite, but they loved each other very much.

When the war began, my father went to the front as a volunteer and did not return - he died. The family left for evacuation - first to Saratov, then to Sverdlovsk. “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 ... "

With the outbreak of war, Eric's happy childhood ended. “The nightmare continued until I entered art school. Then I went normal life. 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.

I studied at the Moscow secondary art school at the Surikov Institute, my profession was chosen at school. 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 he studied in a drawing circle with Alexander Mikhailovich Mikhailov, whom he remembers with love and gratitude. On next year Eric Bulatov tried to enter the second grade of an art school, but did not pass the competition. In 1947 he was admitted to the third grade. After school, "somehow by itself" Bulatov entered the Surikov Institute, the faculty of painting. Since he graduated from school with a medal, he did not have to take entrance exams.

“I was lucky with the teachers at the Moscow Secondary Art School (the famous Moscow Art School), where I studied with Ilya Kabakov and Oleg Vasilyev, ..with whom we are friends all our lives».

“... We were not “guys from the same yard”. Our friendship was professional at first - the commonality of some views that we shared - and only then, as it were, human. Then it was just like air, because around they pretended that we simply did not exist. And of course, such a friendship, mutual support was simply necessary ... Oleg and I had close views, we talked all the time and needed each other, so we teamed up in work.

At the Surikov Institute, he studied with Professor Pyotr Dmitrievich Pokarzhevsky. “In art school, we drew like crazy, worked from morning to night and didn’t think about anything 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, the time was hard - the end 1940s - Start 1950s Death of Stalin...

By the end of the institute, Bulatov realized that he should not depend on state orders 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 direct work.

“After the institute, I felt that I did not understand anything in art, I could not do anything. I need to retrain myself in order to learn real, serious art... After graduating from Surikovka, I fell into despair: there was no consciousness that I was an artist, but there was a feeling that everything we were taught was not true. Out of complete desperation, Oleg Vasiliev and I began to look for a person who could explain something, and accidentally came across Favorsky ....

Falk and Favorsky helped me understand and master my craft, which was invaluable help for me, I could not get this at the institute. I wanted to become a serious, real artist, so I had to retrain. The education received was not enough.”

It took another three years to retrain. And for this it was necessary not to depend on the state, to be financially and spiritually independent. So, it was necessary to look for an opportunity to earn a living not by painting. It was then that it sounded very opportunely useful advice the current classic Ilya Kabakov: “... you need to go into children's illustration. There work is more or less free, and it is quieter there. Earn, and then you will do your own. And so it happened.

Since 1959, Oleg Vasiliev and Eric Bulatov have been working together to create illustrations for children's books for the Detgiz and Malysh publishing houses. "I've tried different ways. The best thing for me was illustrating children's books...We had to somehow earn a living, and Oleg Vasiliev and I really liked drawing pictures for children's books ...And so, together with Oleg Vasiliev, we began to illustrate children's books and have been doing this for thirty years.

Eric Bulatov and Oleg Vasiliev divided the year into two parts: the dark time - autumn and winter - these were children's books that brought in earnings, and in the daytime - spring and summer - there was work for themselves, painting.

“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... And I have 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 thanks to this way of working ... I never mixed these things up.

“We couldn’t do both at the same time. Both jobs demanded full dedication from us. In this sense, Oleg and I are the same. Although I did not understand then why for myself, and now I do not understand. It's a job you do because it feels like you have to do it. And if you try not to do this, then all the time the feeling that you are deceiving, that you are cheating and generally loafing about.

“I can’t say that we were burdened by this. It was interesting. We made children's books just the two of us. We developed an artist who was neither Oleg Vasiliev nor Eric Bulatov. It was someone third. All our books are illustrated by this artist. In total, we have made more than a hundred books in thirty years.

When it came to fairy tales (“Tales of the Peoples of the World”, fairy tales by Charles Perrault, fairy tales by H.K. Andersen), a stormy and bright holiday. Some researchers even grumbled on the sly that young artists work in a too "noisy" manner. But children, as you know, do not read researchers. They are just admiring the Sleeping Beauty, the beautiful Cinderella and, quite likely, they actually hear the noise of a cheerful court ball.

“After all, children intuitively feel where the truth of art is. You can draw a copy of a real medieval castle, and the child will say: I don’t believe it. Because he knows exactly how a real castle should look like, and how a real prince should look like. So we tried to draw everything “in truth”.

Many great artists I started out illustrating children's books. There is the most superficial, worldly explanation for this. In those deaf years of strict censorship, they could neither openly sell their "serious" works, nor openly exhibit them. And the craft of a children's draftsman gave a good income and left time for those activities that they considered the main ones. And here is a very important point: it is easy to think that their forced, wage labor in the field of children's illustration only distracted them from the main path.

In fact, everything was different. No wonder our wise people like to repeat that "there is no evil without good." Because, as the great proletarian writer Gorky said, “you need to write for children the same way as for adults, only better.” It turned out that this supposedly forced, day labor gave these artists the opportunity to go through a wonderful school. Just as in their time the Oberiuts learned unheard-of freedom when they wrote their nursery rhymes, so the artists who went through the school of book design for children, voluntarily or involuntarily, gained freedom that academic training will never give.

Shortly before perestroika, Bulatov was offered a job at the West. He agreed, and he and his wife left. After the exhibition in Zurich in 1988 they moved to the USA.

“We lived in New York, in the artistic district of Soho, where there are many art galleries. This place has a wonderful aura for creativity. However, they keep telling you: “Come on, everything you do is great, you just need to do it even faster, even more!” Under such pressure, the artist’s consciousness does not have time to develop new images and begins to clone his own ideas. I was, in general, lucky that we soon left.

They left for Paris. In 1992, the French Ministry of Culture offered a small grant and cheap housing in Paris. “Once in Paris, Natasha said that she would not go anywhere else. We bought an apartment near the Pompidou Center, made friends and live like that ...

I think I have very happy life. What can an artist dream of who does what he sees fit and in the way he sees fit?.. Who has no material problems and nothing interferes with him?.. Natasha, my wife, saves me from everyday would be painful for me and with which I probably would not have coped. Probably, for today's well-being, I paid with the fact that for thirty years I did not even think that I could show my paintings, let alone exhibit them or sell them.

Great illustrators. Bulatov and Vasiliev. Exactly. As the name of an artist. Maybe even then it was ridiculous for them to paint children's fairy tales with all sorts of fairies and sorceresses, or maybe ... At seventy, even one child's smile is valued differently than at forty. And if everyone is happy with your books? ..

photo: Appendix "Antiques" to the well. "Interior + Design", 2008, No. 1, fotodepartament

Eric Vladimirovich Bulatov (born September 5, 1933 in Sverdlovsk) is one of the most famous contemporary Russian artists. One of the founders of Sots Art.

Born in 1933 in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). Father - Vladimir Borisovich, originally from Saratov, was a party worker (joined the party in 1918), died at the front in 1944, mother Raisa Pavlovna - from the city of Bialystok (Poland), illegally emigrated to Russia at the age of 15; three years later she got a job as a stenographer - despite the fact that upon arrival she did not know Russian (she knew only Polish and Yiddish).

According to Erik Bulatov, for some reason his father believed very much that he would be an artist.

In 1958 he graduated Art Institute named after V. I. Surikov. Since 1959, he worked in the children's publishing house "Detgiz" together with Kabakov and Vasiliev. Exhibition activity in Moscow began in 1957, and since 1973 already abroad.

A characteristic and recognizable creative method of Bulatov is the collision of a poster text, snatched from the context of Soviet reality, with a figurative (most often landscape, borrowed from the mass press) component. As a result, the artist succeeds in an extremely accessible way to illustrate the absurdity of reality, oversaturated with the symbols of Soviet propaganda.

In addition to the works of the Sots-Art theme, even in his early works, Bulatov developed a theory of the interaction of the picture and space. In these works of his, the influence of Falk is noticeable. A strong, original stage of his work, unappreciated in the context of art history.

Bulatov's works are regularly exhibited at contemporary art auctions. So, at the Philips auction, the work “Soviet Space” went for about $ 1.6 million, two more canvases on Soviet themes, including “Revolution - Perestroika”, were sold for a million dollars each, which made Bulatov one of the most expensive contemporary Russian artists.

From 1963 to the end of the 1960s, Erik Bulatov experimented with various modernist styles in painting, discovered his interest in analyzing the spatial, light and color qualities of a painting. In the USSR, the artist could not exhibit for reasons of censorship, only in 1965 and 1968 were short-term shows of his work at the Kurchatov Institute and the Blue Bird cafe in Moscow. In the early 1970s, he began to create large-scale paintings, in which, as a rule, he refers to social themes and mass media images of Soviet reality: depicts slogans, inscriptions, posters. In 1972 he creates the famous "Horizon". During the perestroika period, the painting was perceived as a parody work and was even identified with the Sots Art style. In 1988, after a series of major solo exhibitions - in the Kunsthalle (Zurich), the Georges Pompidou Center (Paris), etc., as well as participation in the Venice Biennale, he rapidly received international recognition: was named "perestroika artist" and recognized by UNESCO as the best artist of the year. Most of the works of Erik Bulatov ended up in Western collections and museums.

Since 1989 he lived in New York, in 1992 he moved to Paris. In 2003, for the first time in his homeland, an exhibition of his graphics was held, and in 2006 - the first retrospective display of his paintings (both exhibitions in Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). In 2013 he became a laureate All-Russian competition in the field of contemporary art "Innovation" in the nomination "For creative contribution to the development of contemporary art." In 2015, the artist was invited to create large-scale canvases at the opening of the new building of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow. In the same year, for the exposition of the Museum of the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin, he created the painting "Freedom".

Lives in Moscow and Paris.

In Russia it is represented by pop/off/art gallery.

This is part of a Wikipedia article used under the CC-BY-SA license. Full text articles here →

Bulatov, Eric Vladimirovich

Eric Bulatov. Louvre. Gioconda. 2006

Eric Bulatov. Horizon. 1971–1972

"Brezhnev. Soviet space "(1977)

Eric Bulatov. Krasikov street. 1977

‘ I wanted to show Soviet life as it is, without expressing any relation to it. There was no obvious protest in my painting, I had no desire to convince the viewer of something: look how terrible it is! I was not a social struggle hero like Oscar Rabin. My task was fundamentally different: I wanted the viewer to see his life as it is, but he saw it as if from the outside.

« I wanted to create a distance between this reality and the consciousness of the viewer. This is what the picture served, working as a distance, as an instance of a distant look. I built a work of art as an instance between reality and consciousness. That's what was important to me. So that the viewer thinks: so this is what my life is like ... So that he perceives my paintings not as a lesson, but would also make a discovery himself.

Eric Bulatov. I wanted it to be light, but it didn't work. 2002

Eric Bulatov. All this spring. 1998

Eric Bulatov. Photo for memory

Russian 20th century

Glory to the CPSU

A characteristic and recognizable creative method of Bulatov is the collision of a poster text, snatched from the context of Soviet reality, with a figurative (most often landscape, borrowed from the mass press) component. As a result the artist manages to illustrate in an extremely accessible way the absurdity of reality, oversaturated with the symbols of Soviet propaganda.

E. Bulatov. SUNSET. 1989

Eric Bulatov "Liberte" 1992 - this picture appeared on the poster of the exhibition "Counterpoint"

On October 14, 2010, the exhibition "Counterpoint: Russian Contemporary Art" was opened at the Louvre. The exhibition features works by more than twenty artists. These are Erik Bulatov, Emilia and Ilya Kabakov, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Valery Koshlyakov, Alexey Kallima, Vladimir Dubossarsky and Alexander Vinogradov, Andrey Monastyrsky, Vadim Zakharov, Yuri Leiderman, Yuri Albert, Avdey Ter-Oganyan, the Blue Noses and AES + F and others. On the eve of the vernissage, Yuri Kovalenko, Izvestia correspondent in France, met Academician Eric Bulatov in his Paris workshop.

Excerpts from 2010 interview

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

erik bulatov: Indeed, the Louvre seems to all of us something unattainable. But our exhibition will take place, as it were, in cellars - in the medieval Louvre, where the foundations of the walls and towers of the palace have been excavated. This place for the exhibition is absolutely unsuitable. There, except that you can make installations or show a video. A real exhibition that would speak about the current state of our art, especially in the Year of Russia in France, should have been arranged elsewhere. For example, at the Georges Pompidou National Center for Arts and Culture.

and: So, are you offended?

Bulatov: I'm not offended, but I just don't want there to be euphoria, immoderate enthusiasm: "Oh, the Louvre, the Louvre!" But be that as it may, for us Russians, the Louvre is a holy place to which we join. Let somewhere in the corner, in the crack ..

…………………………….

and: The public is in for surprises. On the day of the vernissage at the Louvre, artist Yuri Leiderman organizes his own performance: two women in Russian national costumes shred a hundred heads of cabbage in front of the audience. For his part, his colleague Yuri Albert will lead the audience through the Louvre blindfolded ...

bulatov: This is our conceptualism.

and: On the poster of the exhibition, your painting "Liberte" ("Freedom") is reproduced - an echo of Delacroix's famous painting "Liberty on the Barricades".

Bulatov: There are two of my works on display. In addition to this, there is also the painting “Black Evening - White Snow”.

And: "Liberte" is a textbook picture in every sense. Together with your other work - "Soviet Space" - it even entered the French textbooks.

Bulatov: I received this order in 1989, when a big celebration was being prepared in France on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the revolution. They were going to lift an airship into the air, which, on the one hand, was to be painted by a Russian artist, and on the other, by an American. And I had an idea related to our revolutionary situation in the 1980s. There were many freedom-loving illusions then.

and: How does the Western audience perceive Russian art today?

Bulatov: Always with interest. I was convinced of this at the exhibition "Russian Landscape" at the National Gallery in London. The museum is free, but the exhibition is paid. And people stood to get on it. The same attention is paid to Russian exhibitions in Paris. The problem arises with criticism - it is not interesting.

I: And on whose side is the truth?

Bulatov: Truth cannot be on the side of those who are trying to lead art. It is also wrong to assume that she is on the side of the audience. The masses, for example, go to Glazunov or Shilov. Anyway one cannot but reckon with the audience, or at least with those who want to understand painting. They need to be educated, you need to work with them. It's not easy to declare one artist good and another bad, but to explain things concerning the fundamental foundations of art.

and: There is a French expression "to train the eye."

Bulatov: Not only the eyes, but also the head. The eye, as my teacher Vladimir Andreevich Favorsky said, can be deceived. Consciousness is harder to deceive.

and: Favorsky was not only an artist, but also a philosopher.

and: Is it not too much power taken over by the curators, who are called commissars here? Artists in their hands, in your words, like auxiliary material - paints and brushes?

Bulatov: I have the impression that the general situation is now changing. Maybe because among the curators there is a change of generations.

and: Hasn't art lost its moral functions in many respects and has not become part of the entertainment industry?

Bulatov: We cannot objectively judge today's art, because we judge precisely by what we are shown. I don't know how this corresponds to what is happening in art. Moreover, I hope that this is not the case at all. A about what kind of art today, we will know, maybe in fifty years.

and: The coming victory in the West of mass petty-bourgeois culture was predicted by Herzen. Now it seems to have finally gained the upper hand in Russia.

and: You still go to the Louvre to study with the classics. What can a long-established famous artist learn?

Bulatov: In fact, I can do very little. There are many things I can't do.

and: Humiliation more than pride?

and: Are you still tormented by creative torment?

Bulatov: Along with Favorsky, Falk was my teacher. As a student, I came to show him my work. And he asked me: “What do you think about them?” Then I was in complete despair from my own mediocrity and told him about it. Falk answered me: “So you are now in a very good creative state. I will tell you something that will not be a consolation for you, but which will be useful in the future. This state will continue throughout your life. And if it passes, then you as an artist are over. I have never felt so helpless as now, in my old age, when I start a new still life.

and: Next to the works of which great artists in the Tretyakov Gallery or in the Louvre would you like to exhibit your painting?

bulatov: In the Louvre - scary to say - with the "Coronation of Our Lady" by Fra Angelico and with Titian's "Country Concert". In the Tretyakov Gallery - with Alexander Ivanov or with Levitan. My favorite Levitan painting is Lake, which is in the Russian Museum. It was supposed to be called "Rus", but Levitan was too shy to give this name, considering the picture unsuccessful.

and: Why is a reproduction of the Mona Lisa hanging in your Moscow workshop?

Bulatov: I wrote an article about the Mona Lisa. It is important for me how this picture is arranged, how it is shown problem of the boundary between art and life. This is what Leonardo worked on more than anyone else.

and: But life is still more important than art?

Bulatov: I really don't know. On the one hand, this is true, but on the other hand, life is the material for art.

and: Having lived for about two decades in France, do you consider yourself a Russian or European artist?

Bulatov: I am a Russian artist by upbringing and education. Therefore, I am a European artist, like all artists living in France, Germany or Italy.

…………………………………..

and: Can a new landscape painter of Levitan's level appear today?

……………………………………………….— Recently, it seems to me that the social element is leaving your paintings, although earlier it played a big role. Many even called you the founder of Sots Art.

— I have never been a Sots Art artist. Of course, my paintings, such as "Horizon", played a big role in shaping this trend, that's right. But the artists of Sots Art have fundamental differences from me. The meaning is completely different. My paintings are a confrontation between ideologized reality and natural reality. Two realities oppose each other, and our consciousness is completely blocked by this ideological space. In the same matter. And no one, except me, dealt with this conflict. Then they began to study when the Soviet Union had already collapsed.

……………………………………………..

— And in the West, in Paris, for example, are they interested in contemporary Russian art?

- Not really. It's just that in the West they firmly know that it does not exist, so there is nothing to be interested in here. There is Russian music, there is Russian literature, maybe Russian theatre, but there was no Russian art and no.

…………………………………….

— And what about the Russian avant-garde?

— You know, in Paris the Russian avant-garde is perceived as a landing of French art into Russian art. Our XIX century is considered a provincial branch of German art, and then the French landing, which gave an unexpected result. Then the paratroopers were shot, and it was all over. Although this is highly unfair. I believe that the 19th century is also worth special attention - this is definitely not a provincial branch, although there were certainly German influences.

You see, it is important that our Russian theorists and art critics finally begin to seriously deal with these issues. Look, in our art history, Russian art of the 19th century found itself between two poles: either it’s the devil knows what (as some of our leading figures, such as Katya Degot, think in the West and after), or it’s something extraordinary, the most beautiful and the greatest created when Or, the best in the world. In fact, both of these positions are harmful. Not just wrong, but harmful. It is necessary to carefully look at how it differs from the art of other countries and schools, what is its essence, what are its shortcomings and merits. Simply stigmatizing or extolling is a road to nowhere.

Again, if we talk about Russian art as such, then you need to understand what the connection between different eras and genres is. Are the Russian 19th century and the Russian avant-garde really two opposite things that exclude each other? If both are Russian art, then there is some common basis here, something unified. But no one analyzes these phenomena. Why do we then want others to think that we have art? After all, we can’t really say anything about him.

………………………………………………

The material was prepared by Elena Ishchenko.

Publication - http://www.liveinternet.ru/community/camelot_club/post323364700/

*******************************************************

Erik Vladimirovich Bulatov was born on September 5, 1933 in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), a Soviet and Russian artist.

Father - Vladimir Borisovich, originally from Saratov, was a party worker (joined the party in 1918), died at the front in 1944, mother - from the city of Bialystok (Poland), illegally emigrated to Russia at the age of 15; three years later she got a job as a stenographer - despite the fact that upon arrival she did not know Russian (she knew only Polish and Yiddish). According to Erik Bulatov, for some reason his father believed very much that he would be an artist. In 1958 he graduated from the V. I. Surikov Art Institute. Since 1959, he worked in the children's publishing house "Detgiz" together with Kabakov and Vasiliev. Exhibition activity in Moscow began in 1957, and since 1973 already abroad. In his early works in the 1960s, Bulatov explored the principles of interaction between surface and space as a philosophical concept of painting and space. It was milestone his work, in which the influence of Falk, whom Bulatov, along with Favorsky, called his teacher, is noticeable. In the early 1970s, Bulatov began to develop a new original style from his work Horizon, combining standard naturalistic landscapes with large poster symbols and transparent slogans. As a result, the artist succeeds in an extremely accessible way to illustrate the absurdity of reality, oversaturated with the symbols of Soviet propaganda. Bulatov's space is always multi-layered: either the text of the slogan or a recognizable symbol is placed on top of the image. Emphasizing the contrast between propaganda and reality, Bulatov draws closer to Sots Art, but the main goal of the artist remains to explore the boundary between the space of art and social space. Bulatov sees his creative task as “showing and proving that social space, no matter how significant and aggressive it may look, is in fact not unlimited. It has a limit, a border, and human freedom and the meaning of human existence in general are on the other side of the border. The space of art is right there, on the other side of the social boundary.”

"Horizon", 1972

"Portrait of Brezhnev"

"Glory to the CPSU" 2003-2005

Since 1992 he has been living and working mainly in Paris.

“The word in my paintings is a purely visual image. You can see how the air thickens and turns into a word. Of course, it is easier for Russian viewers, they see the point in this. Westerners do not always notice the changes that have taken place in my paintings in recent years.

"Don't exaggerate the importance of my work. Soviet period. After all, there was nothing Soviet or anti-Soviet in the painting “Entrance - there is no entrance”, just red is the most optimistic and Blue colour- the color of prostration. This bundle later turned out to be my tongue. It has always been important for me that the picture should not have an applied character and not illustrate any social thesis, it should itself become a statement. Many critics saw only the Soviet and anti-Soviet when I told them about what I was working on and what ideal I was striving for.

“I worked with the Soviet theme only until 1991. Why chew on the old? When it was - it was a serious matter. Now it's like kicking a dead lion."

“About five years ago I painted the painting “The firmament is the sky”. The impetus was a poem by Vsevolod Nekrasov, this is my favorite contemporary poet which means a lot to me. There, the space turned inside out. And it turned out either a globe, or, on the contrary, depth, such a double game. In general, I worked a lot with the sky, starting in 1975, when I painted the painting “I’m Coming” - it already had movement through the picture, through the image. The sky for me is an image of freedom. In a social space, I am convinced, there can be no freedom. I think that in general for a person the meaning of his life, the meaning of his existence is not in the social space. Here the necessary needs are satisfied, but we do not live for this, we live for something else, it seems to me.

Sources: Wikipedia, RFI - public radio station

Popular in category: