Fine art in Odessa experienced its first brush with the ideas of modernism in 1909–1911 thanks to Izdebsky Salons, a series of exhibitions presenting Russian painters alongside the future leading figures of European avant-garde such as Georges Braque, Paul Signac, Pierre Bonnard, Kees Van Dongen, Maurice Vlaminck, Maurice Denis, Henri Rousseau, Henri Matisse, and many others. The arrival of Vladimir Mayakovsky, David Burliuk and Vasily Kamensky in Odessa (1914) provided another important catalyst in the development of a novel, modern look at art: they finally succeeded in breaking the tradition represented by the Fellowship of South Russian Artists, which had defined the style of painting in the Russian South for years. The renewal process was further supported by a number of artistic groups in Odessa that revolved around younger painters.
The beginnings of modernism in Odessa are either directly or indirectly associated with the names of Wassily Kandinsky and the Burliuk brothers, and later, with the members of the Fellowship of Independent Artists (1917—1920) and the students of Mykhaylo Boychuk (the 1900s). The movement didn’t last long: it ended in the mid-1920s under the increasing pressure from traditionalists, and after them, the proponents of the newly-born Socialist realism. Any memories of the burgeoning modern art scene that had existed in Odessa were wiped out for decades, affecting entire generations of artists. Even the immediate participants of those events chose not to remember them, shying away from any recollection of their modernist past for the sake of personal safety. Despite the oblivion, certain names that were associated with the history of modernism in Odessa – such as, for example, Teofil Fraerman and Mykhailo Zhuk – were not forgotten.
This look into the past allows us to better grasp the artistic landscape that existed in the USSR in the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s. It was the time marked by the first 5-year plans and populated mostly by workers and peasants – the Heroes of Socialist Labor, the Red Army soldiers and officers. It seemed like nothing could make anyone doubt the reality of that world. Far behind beyond the horizon remained the art of the Itinerants, concentrated on criticizing the happily-overcome past, and of their South Russian followers, concerned with purely aesthetic aspects of painting. Those born into the «renewed» world order, into the incredible social and spiritual experiment — ruthless, indoctrinating, isolating, without any memories of the past, with no right to compare — had a hard time recognizing the essence of the things that surrounded them.
At the same time, the general public is mostly unaware that in the 1950s, the modernist tradition in Odessa was being reborn, thanks to Oleg Sokolov (1919—1990), the first person to singlehandedly engage in a fight against the prevailing Socialist realist dogma. A follower of abstract art, in 1956 Sokolov managed to organize an invitation-only exhibition of his works in the gallery belonging to the Artists’ Union. His name became quite popular in Odessa thanks to the Ciurlionis Club that he established in 1967 at the Museum of Western and Oriental Art where he had worked as a researcher for many years. Sokolov’s interest in the «music of colors» and the art of the Space Age resulted in a number of abstract graphical works of varying symbolic meanings, complemented by written commentary. Throughout his life the artist stayed away from any groups and remained alone in his aspirations, supported mostly by scientifically-minded engineers and philosophers.
Young people who formed a group pursuing similar artistic goals in the end of the 1950s – Alexander Anufriyev, Vladimir Strelnikov, Valery Basanets, Volodymyr Bulany, Viktor Marynyuk – met during the entrance exams to Grekov State Art College of Odessa, the alma mater to several generations of the town’s artists. They dreamed of becoming artists, yet dreaded the possibility of wasting their talent on painting Heroes of Socialist Labor: their interests lay elsewhere. Something true and sacred that was the very essence of art pushed them, on a subconscious, intuitive level, towards creative work.
The emotional fuel for the process was provided by Alexander Anufriyev. His obvious artistic talent along with his generosity and openness in personal relationships, his passionate spirit and his knack for creative thinking made him an informal leader of the group. His distinctive, intense appearance certainly played a part as well: he had dark eyes, thick black eyebrows, a straight nose, a clear-cut chin and an attractive, even mesmerizing, voice. Vladimir Strelnikov’s face and his slender, somewhat asthenic figure was reminiscent of Van Cliburn, the famous American pianist. A talented, intelligent and ironic painter, he had a critical attitude towards the official ideology even then; finally, in the 1970s he was forced to take an open stand against it and emigrate. Viktor Marynyuk demonstrated exceptional talent for all things visual. Valery Basanets, son of an army officer, was steered towards art by the power of his intuition. Another member of the group, Volodymyr Bulany, a gifted artist who enjoyed philosophy, drifted away from his friends after a while.
This small circle of young men was characterized by intense, electric engagement with the art of painting, and a view of an artist as an almost Messianic figure. This view was persistently cultivated through their conversations, ideas and plans. Historic examples from the lives of other artists, including modern ones (thanks to the «Khrushchov Thaw», some information from the West started to slip through the Iron Curtain), increased their identification with other artists and their confidence in the validity and relevance of their views.
What did they know about art? They obtained their information primarily from Ogonyok, a popular magazine, or, much more rarely, from art books. This made them all the more susceptible to influence. Even though the art college they entered taught solely academic drawing and painting, they somehow managed to catch the virus of modernism. At the time, they were hardly aware that this virus was just a glimpse of the vast, well-developed world of art that was new to them. They had no idea that the school of modern painting that arose in the beginning of the century continued to develop, with new trends emerging and changing all the while; that some of its founding fathers were still alive and working. It’s well known that information and ideas flow like air, moving freely and spreading themselves all around. All it takes is personal sensitivity, keeping your mind and your sensory organs open. Perhaps they will automatically attune themselves to everything new and unexplored, while strong motivation will make them even more perceptive.
In the beginning, the young artists strongly believed that studying at an art institution made sense, and applied themselves enthusiastically. They were quickly disappointed. Anufriyev and Strelnikov left college a year later; others stayed for a while more. I think it was Anufriyev who, at the beginning of our friendship, dropped, in his most convincing voice, a phrase that became our motto: «If you want to become an artist, go ahead and do it».
That phrase was our salvation. The idea sunk in and motivated the group to evolve. Of all others, Anufriyev was the most active proponent of spontaneous creativity and self-learning. Even at the time, he owned a collection of rare reproductions that served as a window into unknown, incredible worlds. Alexander always invited his friends to share his appreciation for their beauty, and he could be very persuasive. His paintings often became an immediate reflection of his fascination with this or that new artist he just discovered. Anufriyev’s works set something of an example for the majority of young artists who, due to circumstances, were unable to familiarize themselves with the legacy of leading modernist artists, especially the ones that worked in the beginning of the 20th century.
That inner «revolution» rested upon the refusal to accept and, therefore, use the local academic, traditionalist approach in favor of ideas, forms and morphology of modern art. The claim for groundbreaking significance of this event half a century ago seems tenacious from the perspective of the information-overloaded present, yet it did, in fact, determine the fates of young painters, as well as Odessa entire artistic landscape, for the final quarter of the 20th century.
The artists were especially keen to become part of the European cultural space which they perceived through the works of European artists and writers, through myths and legends that permeated the cultural landscape of the times, accessible to anyone sensitive enough to grasp them. Their other goal was to revise the local cultural space, to restore the past and discover as much as possible about the phenomena kept under wraps by ideological dogmas.
Several names that were very much a part of the lives of this group of young painters figure particularly prominently in these concise fragments of reminiscences of the beginning of their lives as artists, of their dreams and their attempts to make sense of the present and to imagine the future. These names – Van Gogh, Gauguin, Sezanne – were the ones mentioned most often. Their creative imagination fed from Byzantian, Russian and Ukrainian traditions of icon-painting, from the works of Rembrandt, Zurbarán, El Greco, Uccello and others. In the 1960s films from directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Andrzej Wajda, and Louis Buñuel had a profound impact on their spiritual life. These films presented a convincing and lively proof of the ongoing search for spiritual values in the Western society, demonstrated the directors’ willingness to experiment and the progress of cinematographic language. They watched, for the first time, Dovzhenko’s «Earth» and Eisenstein’s «The Battleship Potemkin». They were enthralled by the names of Sartre and Camus, as well as by certain quotes illustrating their philosophical views, brought up by Soviet reviewers in order to discredit the writers and their works. By the way, quotes from Western writers, utilized in ideologically correct reviews, often served as the only source of information, prompting attempts to reconstruct the whole from a small fragment or to simply use it as a window, a tiny crack allowing a glimpse of a different world. The names of Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khlebnikov, Kazimir Malevich, David Burliuk, El Lissitzky and Rodchenko were the other ones that rose to the surface of recognition, even though they seemed to belong to the long and distant past; we marveled at the freshness and originality of their talent, and their language and choice of subjects seemed more modern than the times we were living in. All of it – painters, writers, poets, composers, even singers of various countries, cultures and times – became a great, ever-growing invigorating fount of names and artworks from which the young artists continuously drank.
The group had no forerunners or immediate sources of inspiration in the painterly circles of their home town, found no friends or appealing role models among the conservative members of the Artists’ Union. After a while they met Yuri Yegorov, an older artist who remained faithful to the tradition of painting from life that never stopped being a source of inspiration for him. Despite his traditionalist approach, it turned out that he was very close in spirit to the young artists, though he kept pursuing a path of his own. The young group looked to contemporary Western art for insights, while each of them strived to develop an individual artistic language, fresh, modern and expressive.
When judging the works of other artists belonging to different schools and currents, as well as their own and friends’ paintings, young artists used the traditional aesthetic criteria such as «beautiful» or «meaningful», while the intuitively perceived meaning of these terms translated as the presence of life; of an active, poetic quality. Remaining within the framework of the classical aesthetic tradition in contemporary art, which had already developed its own tradition and ideology, they were inspired by their search for new, refreshing methods and possibilities. Their own art shared such qualities as clarity, visual appeal and unexpected ways of expression; imbued with the bright light and fresh colors of the South, it seemed at once intimate, decorative, poetic and escapist, yet wholesome. They stayed away from social criticism, highbrow distortion of form, naturalism, dubious hints or riddles; they never confined themselves to a certain subject or demonstrated extreme displays of angst and decadence – the traits that appeared mostly in the works of artists based in the capital. Most of all, the young painters valued casual private time and genuine, stimulating companionship, the right for freedom and freedom from fear. Any contact with even the lowest unit of official administration was perceived as painful and something to avoid at all costs. These characteristics speak volumes of their mindset as well as their grasp of the functioning of power or the atmosphere that prevailed in the society back in the day. Perhaps it was an attempt to preserve their emotional well-being, to hold on to optimistic ideals and hopes of youth.
Memories of the past are bathed in sunlight – fragments of day-to-day life, meeting up with friends, strolling through the streets and talking, constantly talking about everything, more often than not about painting. Starved for information, we always tried to share whatever we saw or read. Talking was the primary means of spreading information; the phenomenon even gave birth to a distinct «conversational culture». The conditions for artistic work were difficult: chances of getting a workshop were so slim that no one even discussed the possibility. Artists painted wherever they could – at home, in their kitchens, outdoors. This was the time when the members of the group held their first exhibitions – if you could call them so. Their first «exhibition space» was set up in Anufriyev’s room in a communal apartment. Throughout the 1960s, the room continuously served as a gallery space for the owner himself, also hosting the first small «personal exhibitions» of Marynyuk and Bulany and works of other artists such as Eduard Pavlov, Valery Basanets, Alexander Stovbur, Lyudmila Yastreb and Volodymyr Tsiupko. They can be considered early examples of «apartment exhibitions», a phenomenon that reached its height in the 1970s. The first «half-official» exhibitions for the members of the group were the ones held in the office of a youth newspaper «Komsomolskaya Iskra», facilitated by journalist friends and the paper’s editor-in-chief. In the second half of the 1970s, some of the artists took part, for the first time, in official «young artists’ shows», which marked the recognition of their talent and skills and, to a certain extent, asserted their social status.
At the time, the young artists were just starting out; they led active, varied lives, despite the lack of any earnings. In a sense – in letter as well as in spirit – their style of life could be characterized as bohemian, if such a thing as a bohemian lifestyle was at all possible in the peculiar Soviet circumstances. Most often, they gathered at either Anufriyev’s or Basanets’ place (Basanets was the only one of them who had an apartment all to himself; as a result, many different events took place there); their other meeting places included a tiny room inhabited by the Yastreb-Marynyuk couple, Yuri Yegorov’s studio and other friends’ apartments. They went out for coffee to the first lonely coffee shops that had just started springing up around town. The streets of Odessa called to them, inspiring them to take long, aimless strolls, especially in summertime. They wandered across old town streets, pausing to admire the examples of various architectural styles and the beautiful buildings. They stopped by to visit friends and acquaintances, or, more often, met them in the streets in the course of their journeys. It goes without saying that their routes often included one or more wine bars, the existence of which was a cause for envy for many guests from the other corners of the country. They went to beaches, which back then looked picturesque and wild, with rocky outcrops jutting out to sea; traveled to the shores of Bolshoi and Malyi Fontan; rode the tram across the great open field all the way to Lustdorf; visited Sychavka, Karolino-Bugaz, or «The Hummocks», and enjoyed painting landscapes of those places.
The geography of their travels wasn’t limited to Odessa and its immediate surroundings. They often went to Moscow to see the most significant exhibitions that took place there. One of them, an exhibition of an Italian artist Renato Guttuso that happened in the beginning of the 1960s, made a great impression on the young artists. Like many Soviet artists, Guttuso explored social issues, yet his uninhibited, intense paintings stood in sharp contrast to the prevailing Soviet aesthetic. The memories of that exhibition inspired them to continue experimenting, to overcome their perceived lack of knowledge and experience and move further.
By the beginning of the 1970s most of the group’s artists have moved into their 30s, and their individual styles became more apparent. Vladimir Strelnikov had passed his stage of fascination with Russian icon-painting and the works of Pavel Filonov, gradually transforming his style into interplay of colorful shapes with his «Walks» series. Alexander Anufriyev, probably as a result of a personal crisis, changed to a radically new subject with «Angels», a series of highly formalized, elegant exercises in tone and color. Among the members of the group, Viktor Marynyuk was perhaps the one who grasped the essence of modernism most coherently. In his paintings, exploration of color and contrast gave way to an extravagant spectacle of light. Lyudmila Yastreb became famous for her early 1970s series of figurative and abstract improvisations – spontaneous, bright and graceful. Her paintings stood quite apart from those of other Odessa artists, and her graphic works were on par with the best artists in the country, perhaps even in the entire world. Valery Basanets had a brief affair with abstract art, which resulted in a series of nominally figurative works conveying an air of of exquisite melancholy.
Several painters – Volodymyr Tsiupko, Oleg Voloshinov, Nikolai Morozov – came back from their studies in St. Petersburg. Volodymyr Tsiupko, who had started out with a series of original minimalist portraits, switched to abstract art characterized by widely varied geometric and organic shapes. Oleg Voloshinov, a graduate of Repin State Academic Institute of Fine Arts and an exceptionally gifted master of the craft, was taken by surprise by the spirit that prevailed among certain artists in Odessa. Growing more and more fascinated with noncomformist art, he began paving his path to «pure painting». Nikolai Morozov had obtained a degree in monumental art from the Vera Mukhina Higher School of Art and Design in St. Petersburg; his experiments focused on monumental and decorative art, with references to available contemporary examples. Alexander Stovbur, too, quickly became a valued member of the group; his talent for refined composition, shapes and lines resulted in nominally figurative and abstract pieces that exhibited subtle influence of graphic design. Valentin Khrushch modernized his approach; Stanislav Sychov, Eduard Pavlov, Lucien Dulfan and Yuri Shurevich refined their artistic styles.
From the 1970s onwards, the nonconformist circle of artists in Odessa widened even more and became increasingly more varied. Younger artists gravitated towards the «founding fathers» at its core; however, they possessed distinct styles of their own and made no attempts to influence the existing artistic climate. They did bring certain new shades and nuances to it, spiced it up and sweetened it at the same time. Among the names whose works attracted the most attention were Ruslan Makoev, Yevgeni Rakhmanin, Vladimir Naumets, Viktor Risovich, Vitali Sazonov, Valentin Matskevich, and Mykola Stepanov – the only sculptor among them.
It was exactly at that period that the most important conflict of the era developed. Official organs banned nonconformist artists from participating in any large-scale cultural events; this gave rise to the phenomenon of apartment exhibitions. Such shows were organized before the 1970s as well, yet back then, they were smaller in scale – typically meant for groups of friends – and didn’t carry a political message. The increasing number of artists and the new quality of their work called for a different approach. Private exhibitions had grown in size and started to attract the attention of general public. Since mid 70s, about ten major exhibitions took place in the apartments of Shevchuk and Gluzman families, at Suslov’s and Zlotin’s places, at the studios of Rysovich, Voloshinov and Yastreb. Soon, a permanent exhibition was opened by a musician Vladimir Asriev, who displayed his private collection and soon became widely known as a collector and promoter of nonconformist art. Apartment exhibitions became important events that shaped the historic and cultural context of modern art in Odessa.
Several artists from Odessa – Anufriyev, Strelnikov, Yastreb, Marynyuk, Basanets, Tsiupko – took part in similar exhibitions in Moscow and St. Petersburg. These events marked the beginning of a nonconformist era in Odessa, as well as in the Ukraine in general. In Odessa, the 1970s were the most memorable decade for it.
It’s worth mentioning that the word «nonconformism» is used here as a provisional term; it has mostly gone out of terminological fashion since mid 20th century when it was at its most popular. The nonconformist era in Odessa is better characterized as a certain unofficial artistic movement that belonged to underground culture and represented experimental, non-commercial art, some of the elite art forms adapted to Soviet realities. Soviet underground art was clandestine by definition, while belonging to underground culture automatically made each of its practitioners a «nonconformist», as opposed to the representants of official Soviet culture.
Unlike many contemporary artists in other countries of the world, «no one remained neo-conformist back then», as correctly noted by Vladimir Yankilevsky, a famous unofficial artist of the Soviet times. The situation in Odessa more or less followed the aforementioned pattern. What made unofficial art scene in Odessa different was its remoteness from Moscow, combined with the soft climate of the South, subdued political and social tension or even a complete lack of interest in politics, together with the purposeful pursuit of aesthetic perfection as a valuable goal. The movement was marked by rare unanimity that bound the artists tightly together.
Even though no direct persecution came from official bodies, the artists knew they were followed closely by the government’s all-seeing eye. In the 1960s, when they were younger, they were mostly unaware of danger and unafraid of it. In the 1970s, things began to change. Apartment exhibitions became more frequent, the numbers of unofficial artists multiplied, and conversations in their favorite cafes, which grew louder and more fearless every day, couldn’t help but attract attention. From time to time, certain people «in the know» warned artists that they were being watched closely, that there was a «security leak» in their midst. It was then that they began to be summoned to KGB offices «to talk»; those who had to pay a visit there rarely divulged any details. It was known that Strelnikov was followed in Moscow, and Stovbur in St. Petersburg. Rebellious artists were kept under surveillance back in their home town as well.
As the artists, one by one, entered their 40s, they each had to face the question of whether to emigrate or not. Now, or never! By the end of the 1970s, emigration had claimed Vladimir Strelnikov; in the beginning of the 1980s, Alexander Anufriyev and the collector Vladimir Asriev followed suit. Other artists – Vladimir Naumets, Vitali Sazonov – left abroad after having moved to Moscow; Valentin Khrushch ended up staying in Moscow. Many close and distant friends emigrated to the US, Israel, or Western Europe. Among those who remained, the degree of creative tension fell off, even though news from abroad helped keep the spirit alive to a certain extent.
In 1979 in Munich, Igor Zubenko, the local publisher of Ukrainian origin, printed, on the insistent advice of Vladimir Strelnikov, a catalogue of Ukrainian nonconformist artists. The event drew a conclusion to the series of travelling exhibitions of Ukrainian artists in Munich, London and New York. It was the first time their works were presented to Western audience. The catalogue was prefaced by an article written by Miroslava Mudrak – a professional Western critic’s insight into the phenomenon of Ukrainian non-official art. Several copies of the catalogue made their way to Odessa. The «all-seeing eye» was on the lookout for it, too.
In the end of the 1970s and in the beginning of the 1980s, first personal exhibitions of Oleg Voloshinov and Valery Basanets took place in the Odessa Museum of Western and Oriental Art. How and why these exhibitions became possible is somewhat of a mystery, yet their official status was unquestionable. These events marked a significant milestone in the history of Odessa underground art; as usual at the time, the exhibitions gave rise to heated and divisive discussion, the echo of which reached Kyiv and even Moscow. Vladimir Kryshtopenko, a thoughtful art critic and an original artist, wrote a comprehensive analysis of the two exhibitions, disregarding certain risks to his future career that this act entailed.
The beginning of the 1980s was characterized by the suffocating atmosphere of the post-Brezhnev era. For the most part, underground artists in Odessa concentrated their creative energies on monumental arts. That period saw an influx of very young, yet rapidly maturing artists – Sergyi Savchenko, Vasily Sad – who explored the non-figurative approach. Other new names included Igor Bozhko and Svetlana Yusim. Strange as it may seem, neo-folklore paintings by Andriy Antonyuk (a former Odessan), Valentin Altanets, and especially Yuri Kovalenko enjoyed special popularity. The list would not be complete without Anatoli Shonin – a captivating painter who remains largely unknown and underresearched.
On to the second half of the 1980s the country is in the turmoil of Perestroika; new ideas and hopes abound. Unofficial art and underground art movements in the Ukraine have become more active. This was reflected in «Impressions», an Ivano-Frankivsk Biennale of Ukrainian contemporary art (1989, 1991, 1993) in which Odessans actively participated, winning awards and prizes. Two other important exhibitions that took place in 1991 were the Lviv Biennale and «Ukrainian art in the 20th century», held in Kyiv. A Kyiv-based gallery, «Soviart», boldly asserted itself by holding a large retrospective of unofficial Ukrainian art in the Danish city of Odense. In London, Vladimir Asriev opened his own gallery, «The Red Square». In «Contemporary Ukrainian Art», an exhibition that took place there in June/July 1990, the British audience could see the works by artists from Odessa including Yuri Yegorov, Valentin Khrushch, Anatoly Shopin, Alexander Anufriyev, Vladimir Strelnikov, Valery Basanets and Stanislav Sychov.
In 1991, the Soviet Union fell apart, and Ukraine became an independent state. The old era was over, and so was the division into official and unofficial art. The former unofficial artists of Odessa joined – perhaps intuitively, so as not to lose their identity – into a collective named «Shlyakh», soon renamed into «Choven». After several exhibitions, it became apparent that «Choven» was dominated by a strikingly strong group of artists who stood at the beginning of the unofficial art scene in Odessa, as well as several artists tighty linked to that group. As a result, other members of «Choven» promptly split off to form yet another nonconformist art collective, «Mamay». At the time, most members of «Mamay» were well in their 60s – an age when most artists usually choose to work alone. However, Odessans had an instinctive wish to continue as members of a collective, the desire to belong to a team that could «compete» against other teams. The members of «Mamay» organized many substantial exhibitions, group as well as personal, and took part in various art events in the Ukraine and abroad. They have certainly fulfilled every dream they had in their youth and realized their creative potential. It seems like fate has smiled upon them at last. Despite that, a shadow of doubt still persists. A question remains that can only be rhetorical: «Can you choose your fate, or is it preordained by the higher power?». Perhaps it’s determined by God. In our heroes’ case, it was the measure of their talent that was their fate. To bring them together, fate gave them a common language and a common place of origin, gave them the willingness and enthusiasm to create something unique, and gifted them with different styles, so they wouldn’t envy each other. What’s more, fate gave them youth and a good sense of humor, trust in themselves and in others, eyes that can see beauty, self-awareness and creative imagination.