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(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov: exhibitions >> • Leningrad 80s >>
Kulturhuset's New Artists project 1987-1988
De Nya från Leningrad / The New from Leningrad, |
Part One: Outlining the festival project |
Chapter 1. The four phases of the Kulturhuset festival project |
Chapter 2. Stockholm’s invitation of Leningrad artists and musicians |
Part Two: Photo documentation and selection of artworks |
Chapter 7. Catalogue reproductions The Kulturhuset catalogue has of forty-eight pages, most printed black and white with some pages inserted for colour reproductions. There are fourteen colour reproductions, that is, one colour picture per artist, except that there are one for Maslov/Kozin and two for Yufit. Taking into account the catalogue cover, E-E- Kozlov also has two, and so does Bugaev with a painting on the reverse of the cover. Additionally, there are some black and white reproductions of works. Artists’ portraits and studio views complete the pictures. Pictures were taken from different sources. The imprint lists seven names, but displays some inaccuracies: it includes Vadim Konradt instead of Dima Konradt, while Kozlov, who contributed with at least one black and white picture, is not in the list. There might be other mistakes, too.
In the already quoted letter from 7 April 1993, Sissi Nilsson writes that the project was finally approved at the end of June 1988 (editor’s note: by the Soviet side), which meant that the curatorial team had to go ahead very fast with everything, including editing the catalogue. Nilsson continues “We sent two persons to St. Petersburg, one curator and one photographer. The photographer Olof Thiel had photocopies with him of all the paintings we wanted to have in the exhibition (this material we selected from our own photos or from photos we got from the Swedish Consulate in St. Petersburg). The other person was curator Monica Jacobson, she met the Pop Mechanica musicians because of the concerts.”[1] Obviously, pictures from the previous year were not suitable for the catalogue, as they had not been taken professionally. In the Kulturhuset archive, Olof Thiel’s pictures shot for the catalogue are not separated from the other ones from 1987. They are nevertheless easily identifiable because of a colour card next to the paintings, a device used for colour balance in offset printing. Except for one of Yufit’s paintings, none of the works in Thiel’s pictures is also in the 1987 Xerox copy selection, which could have been expected if Sissi Nilsson had provided Olof Thiel with this very selection of photocopies. Slide with Vadim Ovchinnikov's painting with a colour card next to it. Five of Thiel’s eleven archival catalogue pictures are actually in the catalogue. These eleven works are by Ovchinnikov (1, not printed) Kozlov (3,[2] 1 printed on p. 37), Yufit (3, 2 printed pp. 16 and 33) Guryanov (1, not printed), Novikov (1, not printed), Bugaev (1, printed on p. 40), and Maslov/ Kozin (1, printed on p. 13). A picture with Timur Novikov’s work on page 37, which is not in the archive, displays the same studio atmosphere as those three of Kozlov’s works: “Portrait of Georgy Guryanov”, “Star” and “Star. 6 Figures”.[3] Olof Thiel might have taken these at Sergei Bugaev’s new studio. Since Novikov’s studio had been closed a year earlier, Bugaev's studio became a collecting point for many or all the works to be taken to Sweden.
Olof Thiel's picture of E-E Kozlov's "Star", taken on the same occasion, shows the painting rotated 90 degrees to the right. Left: Timur Novikov. Standing on the ladder: Magnus Dahnberg, Swedish Consulate, Leningrad. Of the remaining eight catalogue colour reproductions, three or four came from Sara Åkerrén’s archive, as Åkerrén lent some works from her Stockholm collection of Leningrad artists to the exhibition: on p. 12 are works by Andrei Krisanov and Viktor Tsoy, both were displayed at the Kulturhuset. The picture below, part of Gutsevich’s diptych, is also in Åkerrén’s collection, but it was not displayed.[4] Her album has a spot with a missing picture by Ovchinnikov. I assume it’s the reproduction on p. 13. Two colour pictures were added from the 1987 selection: those of Sotnikov (p.36) and Savchenkov (p. 36). The sources of Kotelnikov‘s (p.36) and Guryanov’s works (p.9) are unknown to me. Likewise, I have not been able to locate the picture of Kozlov’s “Timur on Horseback” printed on the catalogue cover, poster and invitation card. However, the same picture was published on the cover of the May 1987 edition of “Uitlaat”, apparently a free Dutch (photo copy) magazine.
By far not all of catalogue works were exhibited. To be precise, none of those printed black and white was exhibited, and even of those sixteen (including the cover front and reverse) documented in colour, only eight could be seen at the exhibition. I already referred to Kozlov “missing” painting “Timur on Horseback”. But this is only the most stunning example. Perhaps just as strange is the fact that the catalogue reproduction of Kozlov’s painting “Star. 6 Figures” was used in the press, although the painting itself was not displayed, and it was not displayed although it arrived together with Kozlov’s other works.
[1] The date of Olof Thiel’s visit can be stated more precisely. One of his slides (no 4940) shows people queuing outside the Winter Stadium on Manege Square. Judging by a huge painting hanging on the façade, this was during the Rock Club festival taking place at the Winter Stadium from 4-10 June 1988. Several other pictures must have been taken during the 12th TEII exhibition at the Palace of Youth, which closed on 5 June: E-E Kozlov’s painting “Anna Karenina 2” (which was actually displayed at the Kulturhuset in August 1988), two paintings by Andrey Krisanov, one by Oleg Kotelnikov and a painting by Igor Verichev. Therefore, the visit, and, accordingly, the approval of the project, must have happened at the beginning of June 1988.
[2] In 1993, Sissi Nilsson sent Kozlov three of Thiel’s slides: “Portrait of Georgy Guryanov”, “Star” and “Star. 6 Figures”. A second, slightly different slide with “Star. 6 Figures” still is in the Kulturhuset archive. [3] An interesting detail is that in order to create an even surface, four people were needed to stretch these paintings; the artist himself is not among them. [4] Gutsevich painted the same motif again in 1989. This painting is in the collection of the Russian Museum. See catalogue "Brushstroke", 2010, p. 209
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