MASTERPIECES

TSELKOV Oleg Nikolaevich (1934) Person with fork. 1983. Oil on canvas. 195 × 130

One of the main and most expensive Russian nonconformists. His name has been heard even by those with little interest in fine art. After all, stories about Tselkov can be found several times in the prose of Sergei Dovlatov. One of the most famous is in “Solo on Underwood” — about how the artist set prices for his paintings. He did it in a very peculiar way. And all because one day the artist severely underestimated his painting. Here is how it was. His friend, the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, brought a buyer to Tselkov — playwright Arthur Miller, the third husband of Marilyn Monroe.

— I want to buy this work. Name the price.
Tselkov sarcastically screwed up his eyes and blurted out a long-prepared tirade:
— When you sew trousers for yourself, you pay twenty rubles per meter of gabardine. And this, by the way, is not gabardine.
Miller said politely:
— And I am fully aware of this.
Then he repeated:
— So name the price.
— Three hundred! — shouted Tselkov.
— Three hundred what? Rubles?
Yevtushenko nervously and soundlessly articulated behind the back of the distinguished guest: “Dollars! Dollars!”
— Rubles? Miller asked.
— Yes, not a penny! — Tselkov answered angrily.
Miller paid and, with a discreet goodbye, left. Yevtushenko called Tselkov a moron...
Since then, Tselkov acted more sensibly. He took the painting. Measured its parameters. Multiplied the width by the height. Thus, he calculated the area. And he announced an invariably fixed price:
— A dollar per square centimeter!

Many people believe that this is just a story — Dovlatov made it up. It turns out not. Tselkov himself told this story to the writer. Dovlatov only confused dollars with rubles, but otherwise it was true.

Tselkov invented his famous aesthetics of the character-muzzle early on, back in the 1960s. At first this form came out by accident. But Tselkov soon realized that this image was evolving and that this mystery would not let him go. At first he called them masks, not muzzles. However, camouflage in a theatrical term did not help him. The Soviet government disliked the muzzle. The first personal exhibition of Tselkov at the Kurchatov Institute in 1965 was closed two days later. And the second exhibition in the House of Architects was closed 15 minutes after the opening — vigilant fighters against dissent did not bother themselves with formalities, and turned off the light. Very soon, creative associates of the “committee members” expelled Tselkov from the Union of Artists. In 1977 he had to leave. Today he lives and works in France.

Now in front of us is the exemplary work of Tselkov, of museum level. His most valuable period, 1983. His signature theme. A convincing two-meter size. And fantastic quality. His friend Chemiakine once said that Tselkov was “a rattling mixture of Rembrandt's light and Rubens' lush flesh multiplied by Russian madness and the power of the barbaric spirit!” It couldn't be said any better. For the sake of curiosity. Our painting “Person with fork” measuring 195 × 130 — according to the Soviet-era Tselkov's “calculator” should have cost 25 350 rubles — that is, $ 36,200 at the hypocritical official rate of 1983. Today, of course, it is more expensive. However, not so dramatic, not at times. It is worth remembering that the auction record for the artist's work is $ 440,000. Also for the two-meter faces of 1980.

ACTUAL ART

AES+F (1995) The Last Rebellion 2. Tondo No. 22. 2006. Canvas, digital printing, acrylic varnish. Diameter 150 cm

AES+F is one of the very rare commercially successful Russian art groups in the world. Absolutely competitive on the international scene. Innovative. Expensive. In short supply.

There are four people in the group: “A” — Tatiana Arzamasova, “E” — Lev Evzovich, “S” — Evgeny Svyatsky and “F” — Vladimir Fridkes.

AES+F works are presented in the genres of sculpture, digital printing, photography. But the mainstays of important exhibition projects are their digital videos. More precisely, what many perceive as films. Technically, they are actually morphings. That is, not video, but thousands, tens of thousands of staged photographs that “flow” into each other through computer graphics algorithms. One of these films is “The Last Rebellion”. This is the first “video” in the trilogy “The Last Rebellion” — “The Feast of Trimalchio” — “Allegoria Sacra”, assembled in the logic of “hell — heaven — purgatory”. That is, today we have before us a scene from hell. True, a very glamorous hell, without blood and suffering. That is how it was meant to be. According to the idea of AES+F, what is happening imitates a computer game in which teenage angels, devoid of other passions, fight each other. And they fight like in computers: without fear of physical violence, without restraining taboos, without unpleasant emotions. There is no blood. No pain. What is there to be afraid of? This is an imaginary reality!

The perfect-looking fighters of the last rebellion are frozen in the poses of characters from Renaissance paintings. One of the participants in the scene is model and artist Danila Polyakov. There is a bloodless battle of beautiful people in a fabulous glamorous hell on the background of fantastic landscapes.

The work has many meanings. There's the cybernetic post-apocalypse. And a new ethic. And a lot of things. But most importantly, it's probably a philosophical look at the conflict of generations. Once again, fathers do not understand their children. And again they are criticized. For online life, for online communication and artificial emotions.

The limited edition of this thing included 5 copies + 3 author's copies. The number in the edition is 4/5. The authenticity of the AES+F work is confirmed by a certificate signed by Evgeny Svyatsky on behalf of the whole group.

KULIK Oleg Borisovich (1961) I bite America. America bites me. 2001. Vinyl, photoprint. 164.5 × 131.5

Before us is a photographic record of one of the legendary performances by Oleg Kulik, the main representative of Moscow actionism. The artist first appeared as a man-dog on November 23, 1994, on the doorstep of Marat Gelman's gallery. A naked man in a collar was held on a chain by a man in shorts — another legendary actionist of the 1990s, Alexander Brener. In the terrible cold (it was November), a biting and growling man jumped on visitors to the gallery on Malaya Yakimanka, not letting them in. The next morning he woke up famous. And what began as a cheeky bold joke quickly acquired a philosophical content. As the author of fables Aesop said: “The more I get to know people, the more I love animals”. But in general, it's another example of how strange life is in principle. And how strangely fate is woven in art. Oleg Kulik is a profound artist, experimenter, innovator, philosopher. He worked for many years as a sculptor, cut glass, developed his own theory of transparency. He made powerful works — I've seen them. So what? Nothing. Almost nothing. No fame, no notoriety. And then, bang, man-dog, and you're in art history. A year later — a world star, with press in Europe and America. Gallerists from all over the world are tearing apart: “Do the same for us!” He increasingly refuses — enough is enough — feels when one goes to the action for the sake of the show, not the meanings. A few years later, the man-dog story transformed into a political “Party of Animals” in general, and Kulik tried to run as a candidate for the Russian presidency on its behalf. They won't let him register, but the project remains in the history of Russian actionism.

This powerful cage shot was taken during the New York performance “I Bite America, America Bites Me”. It was 1997. Kulik arrives in the U.S. wearing a dog collar, goes through passport control and settles into an aviary at the Deitch Projects gallery for a few days. From time to time the human-doggy comes out on all fours, sniffing the public impudently and doing all kinds of nasty things. The average man is not allowed anywhere near it. But a dog can. The audience is delighted, women are trying to pet him, and so on. No one is afraid of the Russian “dog”, because in America a caged artist is not a novelty. Postmodernist Josef Beuys's “Coyote: I Love America, America Loves Me” is well remembered in New York. In 1974, the German artist shared an enclosure with a wild coyote for several days. Our artist went further. And his version came out much more uncompromising.

Twenty-five years have passed since then. The dog-man no longer exists. Kulik long ago parted with this image. Despite the fact that requests to repeat it still came many times. Now the Man-Dog looks at us from the pages of art history monographs and exhibition photographs. In particular, this giant work was on display at the exhibition “IN TOTAL DISORDER. Russian contemporary art. Kandinsky Prize 2007–2012” in Barcelona in 2012.

LATYSHEV Konstantin Eduardovich (1966) Skating on Chistye Prudy. 2007. Canvas, print. 140 × 109

In the late 1980s, Konstantin Latyshev was a member of the group “World Champions” along with Konstantin Zvezdochetov, Giya Abramishvili, Boris Matrosov, and others. They had worked together for only three years, from 1986 to 1988. But they made a splash in the post- stagnant, yet still Soviet art. They used to hooliganize, demanded from the Supreme Soviet to turn the channel of the Volga river — so that it flows not into the Caspian, but into the Baltic Sea. They were as disruptive as they could be. And what were they? Twenty years old, perestroika, the movie “ASSA”, the Soviet Union was cracking at the seams.

Then each went his own way. Konstantin Latyshev became one of the key figures in Moscow conceptualism in the 1990–2000s. The style he developed could be compared to Warhol's Pop Art. Latyshev also tends to mock the brands of the consumer era. Remember at least his canvas «Сука-Сука» (“Bitch-Bitch”), with the inscription in the font Coca-Cola. In his works, the text is even more important than the visual. His slogans sometimes turn into memes. As happened, for example, with the picture “Do you, bitch, love contemporary art the way I love it?” His graphics are sketchy, poster-like, purged of everything superfluous. But there are tougher things. In Latyshev's pictures-posters, steelworkers cast a golden toilet bowl for an oligarch, the police interrogate an anti-globalist, and a doctor of sciences rummages in a garbage can. The reaction to reality gave birth to a new genre that critic Andrei Kovalev aptly called capitalist realism.

Today we have Latyshev ironic, with an explanation. “She whirled, whirled… and whirled out”. It seems simple. But the thing is spectacular, charged. There is sex, glamour, sarcasm, and the spirit of the times — everything you need for a collection.

Konstantin Latyshev's paintings are in the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery, the Georges Pompidou Center, in the collections of Catherine and Vladimir Semenikhin, Peter Aven, Shalva Breus and others.

1960s UNOFFICIAL ART

NEMUKHIN Vladimir Nikolaevich (1925–2016) The Soldier of Diamonds. 2010. Canvas, acrylic, collage. 45 × 35

A small but cool work by non-conformist Vladimir Nemukhin is a godsend for those who have a cozy spot on the wall.

Vladimir Nemukhin is an artist of the Lianozovo group, a participant of the Bulldozer exhibition of 1974, the Izmailovo Exhibition of 1974, the exhibition in the Beekeeping Pavilion of 1975 and one of the organizers of the City Committee of Graphic Artists on Malaya Gruzinskaya.

This is one of his main themes — the soldier of diamonds. Also note that the work was done not on paper mounted on canvas (as Nemukhin loved and often did), but directly on canvas. The authenticity is confirmed by the expertise of Valery Silaev.

STEINBERG Eduard Arkadevich (1937–2012) Composition with a black triangle. 2005. Tempera on cardboard, collage. 70 × 70

Drawing lessons for young Edik Steinberg were given by Boris Sveshnikov, who was recovering after Stalin's camps at Arkady Steinberg's home in Tarusa. Eduard's father was the paramedic who had saved Sveshnikov from death in the camp. Ten years later, Eduard Steinberg would become one of the brightest figures of unofficial art — an innovator working at the intersection of suprematist geometry and metaphysics. The geometric composition in our auction is just a vivid example of geometric Steinberg. Very recognizable, juicy tempera. It looks especially good without glass. There is an expertise of Valery Silaev. And the price — a fairy tale.