(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). 2024

(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. How did your early visits to the Hermitage Museum shape your approach to art?

The Hermitage and its halls are majestic, but my favourite place was a small room displaying delicate drawings covered with pieces of fabric to protect them from daylight. I remember Jacob Jordaens’ The Rape of Europa, depicting a pleasurable day out rather than an abduction, and Hermann Weyer’s charming Orpheus and Eurydice, both from the seventeenth century. For a little boy, to lift the curtain from these erotic scenes was an irresistible temptation, and the best thing about it was that, as works of art, they were considered suitable even for children. In this way, art became to me a synonym for love and mystery.

I first signed my paintings “E-E” in the early 1980s, and since 2005, it has replaced all other signatures. The double “E”, pronounced “Ye-Ye”, is a reference to the rhythm and musicality of my compositions. They comprise a wide range of stylistic genres, although in essence, I would say they are closer to Bach’s fugues than to John Cage’s minimalism. Towards the end of the 1990s, I decided to enlarge on Albert Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence “E=mc²”, defining my own art as E-E = mc³. In this equation, “m” stands for microphone and the “c” stands for creativity with the “3” of the cubed c standing for “yesterday, today, tomorrow” – “c” is a timeless creative force more >>. I chose E-E = mc³ as the title for my 2015 solo show at London’s Hannah Barry Gallery, which became a mini retrospective of sorts more >>.

3. Can you tell us more about your experience working with the “New Artists” collective and how it influenced your work?

The company of my artist-friends allowed me to exist in a political system that denied me an existence as a professional artist up until the later perestroika years, and in an environment that was anything but receptive to experimental art. And although none of my friends had a direct influence on my style, they did leave a distinct mark on my art – in my portraits and multi-figure compositions, where they appear metamorphosed more >>. The most important work and a modern icon is my Portrait of Timur Novikov with Arms Consisting of Bones, in the collection of the Russian Museum more >>. In 2011, Andrey Erofeev, previously a curator of contemporary art at the Tretyakov Gallery, selected it to represent Russian art of the late 20^th century more >>.

4. What role did your "Russkoee Polee" studios in Leningrad and Berlin play in fostering creativity and collaboration?

In 1989, when I finally had the opportunity to rent a spacious studio in the centre of Leningrad, I immediately started realising a large-scale project on 2 x 3 m canvases, renewing the language of Russian constructivism – the New Classicals cycle, part of which is now in the collections of the Centre Pompidou and Tate Gallery more >>. At the same time, I decided to invite other artists to my studio to challenge them with what was then an unusually large format. In this way, I started building up a unique collection of contemporary Russian art, the Collection 2x3m more >>. In the 1990s, when I moved to Berlin and opened Russkoee Polee 2 together with my companion Hannelore Fobo, I again invited artists, asking them to contribute to the collection, which they did with a large variety of media more >>. With a total of about 50 works, the Collection 2x3m today represents some of Russia’s most important artists from the late twentieth century.

How do you see your work from the "Century XX" cycle fitting into the larger narrative of contemporary art?

I originally conceived Century XX as an artist’s book with collages and applied to the book cover a graphically very appealing cut-out from a journal consisting of five letters, “BEK XX”, pronounced VEK XX – Century XX more >>. Incidentally or not, BEK is also a signature I occasionally used in my twenties (XXs), combining the initials of my name and father’s name. Even if the pages of the book had remained completely white, it would have been a perfect example of contemporary art – as conceptual art. But it so happened that Century XX now consists of almost one thousand interrelated works fusing script and images – not just collages more >>, but also works on paper more >> and canvas more >>. The project has been going on for thirty-five years, and its potential is infinite, as the images reappear in ever-new shapes; in this, it anticipates AI image generators.

What are your thoughts on the connection between chaos and art, as seen in your concept of "Chaose-art

Chaos is what we experience when we cannot link the pieces, and basically, this is how people have perceived the world since the early twentieth century (WWI, October Revolution). To create the missing links has now become our own responsibility. Thus, Chaose art – the “e” is again a reference to my name – is what comes into being without any compositional plan, evolving from element to element, from figure to figure; that is, apparently chaotic and yet creating its own harmony right from the beginning more >>. Chaose art may be abstract, like Kandinsky’s “Compositions”, or figurative, like the works of Basquiat. My Century XX cycle constitutes a perfect example of Chaose art, uniting both approaches.

(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov, 2024