Hannelore Fobo • “Timur Novikov's New Artists Lists” - Chapter 6

Chapter 6 • Neoexpressionists and New Artists

Suppose we date the New Artists emergence to 1982, then It is still difficult to say what exactly happened up to the collective exhibition in summer 1984 at the ASSA gallery I documented in detail (Novikov, Kozlov, Sotnikov, Khazanovich, and Kotelnikov more >>.

The Chronicle lists a first exhibition of the New Artists for November 1982, naming those same five artists. It took place at the Leningrad Institute of Textile and Light Industry named after Kirov (Институт текстильной и легкой промышленности им. М.С. Кирова / Institut tekstilnoi I legkoi promiyshlennosti im. M.S. Kirova; The New Artists, 2012, p. 271). Yet is not at all clear whether all five actually participated. Pictures in Ivan Sotnikov’s photo archive documenting this exhibition, published on the RAAN website, only allow to identify works by Novikov, Sotnikov and Khazanovich External link >>.

On the other hand, the RAAN captions for one of the photos, a group portrait, refer to the following artists: Yuri Krasev (Tsirkul) Evgenij Kozlov (E-E), Timur Novikov, Kirill Khazanovich, Georgy Ustiugov. However, “Evgenij Kozlov” could be someone else; the print is too dark to permit identification.

In his “Happy New Year” catalogue, dedicated to the New Artists exhibition at the Leningrad Rock Club in December 1985 and edited in 1986, Novikov mentions this 1982 exhibition at the “L I T L P named after Kirov” (Л И Т Л П им. Кирова) with only three artists – himself, Sotnikov and Khazanovich, that is, including neither Krasev or Ustiugov, nor New artists Kotelnikov and Kozlov. Furthermore, he mentions this exhibition only on page 6, in his personal biography, and not among the New Artists exhibitions on page 2. Andreeva also speaks of three artists – Novikov Sotnikov, and Khazanovich, but refers to this show as the first New Artists exhibition (Brushstroke, 2010, p. 33). On the other hand, Kozlov indeed remembers having participated at an exhibition at the Leningrad Institute of Textile and Light Industry. Works of these and other artists might have been part of a 1982 TEII exhibition at this venue; the TEII book mentions such an exhibition without giving further specifications (TEII, 2007, p.629). The discrepancy remains: Kozlov and Kotelnikov are listed as participants of a “L I T L P named after Kirov” exhibition in the Chronicle, but do not appear anywhere else in this context.

The Chronicle dates the next New Artists exhibition – called “The Second Exhibition of the New Artists group” – to summer 1983. The lineup is Novikov, Kozlov, Ovchinnikov, Khazanovich, Bugaev and Kotelnikov. It corresponds to Novikov’s list of exhibitions at his “ASSA” flat and gallery in the New Artists Anthology on page 99, listed as “The Second Exhibition of the New”, but without an artists’ lineup. I have not seen any pictures documenting this exhibition, and likewise the origin of the Chronicle lineup is unknown to me.

Ekaterina Andreeva argues that Novikov, in his “Anthology” list, might have implicitly counted as the first exhibition the one at the Leningrad Institute of Textile and Light Industry (Brushstroke, 2010, p. 33). This is a possible explanation and could be the reason why Ksenia Novikova included such a first exhibition in the Chronicle. But it still contradicts Novikov’s entry in the Happy New Year catalogue,

Here is the Novikov’s “Happy New Year” catalogue list of the first exhibitions with a translation:

0. 1. 1983. ГНХ “АССА” / N[ew] A[rtists] G[roup] “ASSA”

1. 2. 1984. ГНxХ “AАСCСAА” / N[ew] a[rtists] A[rtists] G[roup] “AASSSAA” more >>

2. 3.1985. TК81 “Балет трех неразлучников” / T[heatre] C[lub] 81 “The Ballet of the Three Inseparable Ones more >>

3. 4.1985. TК81 “Анна Каренина” / T[heatre] C[lub] 81 “Anna Karenina”

4. 5.1985. ГНХ “АССА” / N[ew] A[rtists] G[roup] “ASSA”

5. 6.1985-1986. “С Новым Годом” / “Happy New Year” more >>

The exhibition from 1983 really seems to have been a zero – non-existing – exhibition, because on the same page, Novikov gets more specific: “The first took place at the ASSA Gallery, just as the fourth, the second and the third during the ‘New Theatre’” (Первая проходила в галерее «АССА», как и четвертая, вторая и третья во время Нового театра more >>.). Novikov dates both New Theatre exhibitions to 1985 and one exhibition to 1984. As I have written above, such an exhibition is documented for the ASSA Gallery in summer 1984 more more >>. Accordingly, it must have been the first.

In other words, 1983 might have seen none, the first or the second New Artists exhibition. Whatever the case, without additional documentation of the 1983 group exhibition at the ASSA Gallery, I remain sceptical that such a zero exhibition actually took place.

This doesn’t mean that at that time, in 1983, the artists mentioned in the lineup – Novikov, Kozlov, Ovchinnikov , Khazanovich, Bugaev and Kotelnikov – weren’t in close contact with each other. We read their names, at least some names – Novikov, Sotnikov, and Ovchinnikov – in Kozlov’s diaries lasting from 1979 until summer 1983 more >>. But Kozlov’s notes (and his pictures of his friends) document them in the company of many other artists, too. The question therefore is to what extent New artists identified themselves with the New Artists group at this early stage.

The so-called “Meeting of the Expressionists”, documented by (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov, sheds some light on the question. It took place at Arkady (Allen) Tager’s studio in 1983. At least, 1983 is the year it is commonly dated, although one of the pictures in Kozlov’s photo archive is dated 1984. The meeting included two representatives from the older generation – Solomon Rossin and Boris Koshelokhov – and seven from the younger generation: Nataliya Batishcheva, Arkady Tager, Timur Novikov, Ivan Sotnikov, Vadim Ovchinnikov, Oleg Kotelnikov and Evgenij Kozlov. The Brushstroke catalogue has one of Kozlov’s pictures on page 33. Note that Kozlov himself isn’t in this picture because he took it. He is, however, present in other pictures taken at this meeting.

Among these nine “expressionists”, seven also participated at the New Artists’ “Happy New Year” exhibition in December 1985, which saw a total of twelve artists (it will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter). Yet of these seven, only Tager actually participated at “Happy New Year” as an expressionist, and Batishcheva as a “primitivist”. The other five, having been named “Expressionists” at Tager‘s studio in 1983 or 1984, were (again) New artists in 1985. Here is the quote from Novikov’s essay “The Celebration of Arts” (text no 3); “Solomon Rossin” is Albert Rozin’s pseudonym.

The situation is now getting confusing. It turns out that at the “Meeting of the Expressionists”, the presence of three expressionists – Tager, Rossin, and Koshelokhov –, turned six others also into expressionists, Batishcheva and five New artists: Novikov, Sotnikov, Kozlov, Kotelnikov, and Ovchninnikov. Let’s assume that Ovchinnikov became a New artist later, but Novikov, Sotnikov, Kozlov, Kotelnikov are considered to have been New Artists founding members in 1982.

On the other hand, Tager didn’t loose his attribute as an “expressionist” in the constellation of the New Artists at the “Happy New Year” exhibition in December 1985, but at least he was a New expressionist. A more difficult question is that of defining Nataliya Batishcheva, as she never showed her works regularly with either group. In “The Celebration of Arts” (text no 3), Novikov calls her a “primitivist“, but in this way she only represented herself. Her position has remained somewhat “loose” or undefined. In his typescript catalogue of the “Happy New Year” exhibition”, Novikov decided to no longer worry about Tager’s and Batishcheva’s position. He was succinct and to the point: “Not only New Artists [new artists] were persuaded to join the exhibition, but two guests, as well”. (К выставке привлечены не только новые художники, но и двое приглашенных more >>.)

One of the reasons Tager published his book on the New Artists in 2010, “V budushchee voz’mut ne vsekh” (В будущее возьмут не всех / Not All Are Taken Into The Future) was to assign to Nataliya Batishcheva her due place in history among the New Artists. Alas, the way he balanced accounts with Novikov was so biased that he achieved the exact opposite more >>.

Yet it cannot be denied that the congruency of so many artists at the “Meeting of Expressionists” and the “Happy New Year” exhibition is anything but accidental.

Novikov felt strongly committed to expressionist Koshelokhov, the founder of the Letopis group, and mentions him in many of his texts. Novikov joined Letopis in 1977 “and experienced Boris Koshelokhov’s quite strong influence” (Timur, 2013, p. 127, text 10). He later “inherited” Letopis from Koshelokhov and continued it until he founded his own group in 1982, the New Artists. According to Ekaterina Andreeva, both Novikov and Ovchinnikov were Koshelokhov’s pupils, and Ovchinnikov also Rossin’s. Likewise, Kotelnikov held Rossin in high esteem (private email from 1 November 2018). In other words, the lineup of participants was not accidental.

In his interview with Arkady Tager on February 27, 2010, Ivan Sotnikov gave an account of the “Meeting” which, as he remembered, was called to decide upon a joint exhibition. He even remembered a poster Evgenij Kozlov designed for this exhibition, executed in ten identical copies and handed to each of the artists; number ten was for neo-expressionist Elena Figurina, also a former Letopis member, who was not present at the meeting (V budushchee, 2010, p. 65). Should Kozlov’s posters ever turn up, we will have more information. However, in Sotnikov’s archive, now at the St. Petersburg branch of the Archive of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, there is a copy of a type-script application to the Department of Culture. Dated 1 September 1983, it asks for permission to organise an exhibition in 1984 with ten artists, listed with their names and addresses. External link >>. The suggested number of exhibits is 150, which would have been a major presentation of their works. Sotnikov very much regretted that the Department of Culture declined their application.

Seen in this light, the first sentence of the “Happy New Year” catalogue text makes sense: “Готовилась Выставка «С НОВЫМ ГОДОМ» три года и является пятой выставкой новых художников.” (The exhibition “Happy New Year” had been prepared for three years and is the fifth exhibition of the New Artists). “Happy New Year” fulfilled, at least in part, the role of a belated “Expressionists” exhibition. But at the end of 1985, when it was finally realised with twelve artists, the five New Artists founding members Khazanovich, Kotelnikov, Kozlov, Novikov, and Sotnikov, showed their works together with some new members (Bugaev, Cherkasov, Krisanov, Ovchinnikov, Yufit), and those two remaining “expressionist/primitivist” participants (Tager, Batisheva) simply became “guests”. In this way, “Happy New Year” became the first public exhibition featuring the New Artists as a group.

It therefore seems logical to consider the period between late 1982 and the end of 1985 as a time of “group building” simultaneously to Novikov's emancipation from Bob Koshelokhov's expressionism. Whether those five New artists present at the “Meeting of the Expressionists” – Novikov, Sotnikov, Ovchinnikov, Kotelnikov and Kozlov – were indeed all committed to expressionism, is a different question.

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