At around 5-7 years of age, Evgenij periodically visited the Hermitage Museum with his father, where he drew off the illustrations of old masters, and then until the age of 11 practised at a drawing club in the Oktyabrskiy district’s Young Pioneer Palace.

In 1970, the family moved to Petrodvorets / Peterhof, the former summer residence of the Russian tsars in the outskirts of Leningrad. Living next to palaces and gardens, but also to nature, fostered Kozlov’s sense of harmony more >>.

In 1978, having been invited by Timur Novkov, he joined “Letopis” founded by Bob Koshelohov in 1977 more >>.

In 1979, he made the acquaintance of Catherine Mannick, a student from Boston, with whom he maintained a friendship and correspondence up to 1990. Kozlovs letters reflect the pre-perestroika and perestroika years and included numerous artworks and vintage prints more >>.

Evgenij Kozlov maintained a series of biographic and artistic journal entries from 1979 to 1983 more >>.

In 1982, Timur Novikov offered him membership in the “New Artists” (Новые Художники / Novye Khudozhniki, 1982-1989) more >>. “The New Artists” became Leningrad’s most versatile avant-garde group, experimenting with painting, collage, mail-art, artist’s books, poetry, fashion, theatre, design, and music – the latter especially on stage with Sergey Kuryokhin’s Popular Mechanics orchestral improvisations more >>.

In 1984 / 1985, Evgenij Kozlov created two LP covers. His photo-collage for Nachalnik Kamchatki / The Head of Kamchatka, the third album of Russia’s legendary KINO band, was first printed in 2021 more >>. In 1987, ARK Records, Liverpool, released Popular Mechanics. Insect Culture with his design from 1985. In 2023, two of Kozlov’s painted vintage prints for this album were identified in the collection of the The Pete Fulwell Archive, Liverpool John Moores University .more >>

In the decade of the 1980s, Kozlov’s art followed a developmental process that led to a new style emerging about every two years, without, however, completely replacing the previous one more >>. By the end of the 1980s, it fused, among others, elements of Russian folk art more >> • more >>, avant-garde art from the early 20^th century more >> • more >> • more >>, classical academic drawing, and graffiti and comic art – B(L)ack art more >> • more >>. In this way, Evgenij Kozlov created his own specific style to portray a metamorphosis of reality (the “E-E” style), often using his own photos for the task (Nachalnik Kamchatk, 1984 more >>, Ne-ew Composers, 1986 ,more >> Portrait of Timur Novikov with Arms Consisting of Bones, 1988 more >> • more >>, Shark, 1988 more >> • more >>) and creating new symbols (ART из CCCP / Art from the USSR, 1988) more >>.

Leningrad / Saint Petersburg ,Fontanka Embankment 145 art squat. Left, third floor: studio Russkoee Pole / the Russian Field Photo: H. Fobo, 1990

The artist’s studio “РУССКОЕЕ ПОЛЕЕ” / Russkoee Polee, located on Fontanka embankment 145, was legendary throughout 1989-1991. The double “E” relates to Kozlov’s “E-E” style, while russkoe pole translates as “The Russian Field”, a reference to a romantic Russian song celebrating the openness and vastness of the Russian landscape more >>. The studio served as a meeting place for artists, journalists (as reported in “Aspects” on German television YouTube external link >>) and gallery experts. It was there that Evgenij Kozlov met Hannelore Fobo in 1990 more >>, a German linguist and specialist on Eastern Europe who became the curator and supporter of his work.

(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov at the First Exhibition on Palace Bridge in St. Petersburg. Photo: H. Fobo, 1990

The year 1990 was notable for the foundation of his “2 x 3 m” collection of modern Russian art more >> – its first exhibition was held that same year on the Palace Bridge in Leningrad (E. Bogdanova, G. Guryanov, V. Gutsevich, O. Kotelnikov, V. Mamyshev-Monro, I. Savchenkov, I. Sotnikov, etc. more >>). On this occasion, Kozlov also showed several works from his important New Classicals cycle (1989-1990), revitalising the language of Soviet constructivism more >>. Each of the six motifs is dedicated to one facet of love – Love for Man, Woman, Cosmos, the Wonderful, Earth, and Work. The seventh motif, Love for God, exists as a sketch more >>.

In 1991, Evgenij Kozlov expanded his artistic talent to video art more >>. The same year he developed his ideas on the nature of creating and understanding art, as exemplified in his statement "Two Cosmic Systems" more >> • more >> and in his theory of the "Art of the Future". The latter was based on the “New Classics” artistic cycle of 1989-1990 and formulated during a conversation with Hannelore Fobo. more >>

In 1993, Evgenij Kozlov moved to Berlin, and in 1994 – with the aid of Hannelore Fobo – opened the “Russkoee Polee 2” studio within the confines of an old factory in central Berlin.

In Berlin, Evgenij Kozlov continued resorting to more sizeable cycles, starting with Miniatures in Paradise (1995), sixteen paintings hoisted on flagpoles around Berlin’s Victory Column more >>.

(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov Russkoee Polee 2 / The Russian Field 2, Berlin. Photo: H. Fobo, 1998

The studio regularly showed Evgenij Kozlov’s own work, such as Lolita (1996), Virtuoso Reality (1996) more >>, and Mister Twister (2001) more >>. It also hosted a number of cultural activities, beginning with the third exhibition of the Collection 2 x 3 m (1994) more >>. In Berlin, Kozlov again invited Russian artists to his studio to contribute to the collection. For the fourth “2 x 3 m” exhibition (1995) more >> • more >>, curators and artists flew in with special flights provided via support from British Airways. Other activities included solo exhibitions of artists from Sankt Petersburg, concerts, and club parties more >>:

- various exhibitions taken part by Oleg Kotelnikov, Oleg Zajka, Andrey Khlobystin, Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya (Gluklya) more >>, Evgenij Kondratev, Andrius Ventslova and others.

- concerts by “New Composers” (1999, 2000 more >>), “Mumiy Troll’” (2001 more >>),  the composer Dmitriy Pavlov, who wrote music for the film “Kukushka”, and Andrey Boreyko, head conductor for the Dusseldorf Symphonic Orchestra (2003). more >>

- club parties: “Russkij Novy God” with Bob Young / Club 90º (1998), “E-E Relax Party” (1999), “Chocoparty” (1999) and “The Next Century is Gøod” (2000)

(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov Russkoee Polee 2 / The Russian Field 2, Berlin Photo: H. Fobo, 2000

In 1997, Evgenij Kozlov became the husband of Hannelore Fobo.

In 1998, per request from the Berlin House of Representatives, Evgenij Kozlov painted the portrait of M. S. Gorbachev for Berlin’s honorary citizen gallery more >> • External link >>.

In 1999, commemorating 10 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Evgenij Kozlov oversaw an event allowing schoolchildren to write upon a chocolate wall 12 metres wide, two metres high and weighing 8 tons. The event was organised by “Eurochocolate” and held on the Marlene Dietrich Platz square at the centre of the city. “The Berlin Chocowall” was destroyed after the event was over and the chocolate dispersed to the children and other viewers present more >>.

The year 2003 saw the release of The Leningrad Album / Leningradskiy Al’bom. These earlier works (1967-1973) were dedicated “to all youth and men in the world throughout the XXI, XXVI, XXXIX and LXIV centuries”. more >>

As of 2005, the artist began signing his works exclusively with the “E-E” symbol.

In 2007, Maurizio Cattelan, Massimilano Gioni and Ali Subotnik included Evgenij Kozlov into a list of 100 “great solitary masters” presented in the “Charley 05” album, making him the only Russian artist in their “gallery of obsessions” External link >>.

After closing his studio in 2008, E-E started concentrating on his Century XX cycle, reworking an artist’s book of collages from the 1990s (Part 1 more >>) and developing the motifs on more than 400 graphic works (Part 2 more /video >>) and the same number of “light boxes”. In order to better describe such a monumental cycle, he implemented the term Chaose art to denote a complex concept for describing art starting at the beginning of the XX century more >>.

In 2009, under the label "E-E films" Evgenij Kozlov & Hannelore Fobo began producing films about the works of Evgenij Kozlov, as well as publishing the video archive with films from the artistic territory of St. Petersburg in the 1990s more >>.

In 2013, Massimiliano Gioni, curator of the 55th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale (la Biennale di Venezia), selected Evgenij Kozlov's Leningrad Album for the main exhibition Il Palazzo enciclopedico / The Encyclopedic Palace more >>.

In 2016 / 2018, E-E Kozlov’s works and artists’ portraits from the 1980s represented the Leningrad section at the exhibition Notes from the Underground. Art and Alternative Music in Eastern Europe 1968–1994. (Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz more >> / Akademie der Künste, Berlin more >>; curators: David Crowley, National College of Art and Design, Dublin, and Daniel Muzyczuk, Muzeum Sztuki ,Lodz.)

In 2018, E-E Kozlov’s solo show USA-CCCP-CHINA – with CCCP being the Russian equivalent of USSR – presented paintings, works on paper, painted photographs, and (textile) objects from the 1980s dedicated to the relationship between these powers (Egbert Baqué Contemporary, Berlin) more >>.

2019 saw the beginning of Part 3 of the “Century XX” cycle with works on canvas up to a 155 x 270 cm format. To date (2024), the artist realised 50 paintings more >>.

In 2019, Love for the Earth from the New Classicals cycle joined the collection of Centre Pompidou, Paris External link >>.

Between 2021 and 2023, Tate Gallery, London, acquired five large-format paintings from the artist, measuring a total of 22 m². Among these works are two paintings from the New Classicals cycle, Love for the Cosmos and Love for Work External link >>.

In 2022, E-E Kozlov’s early diaries (1979-1983) and his correspondence with his American friend Catherine Mannick joined the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies Special Collection at Harvard University more >>. The correspondence, which lasted from 1979 to 1990, is now named “USA-CCCP. Points of Contact” after a painting from 1989. It includes Kozlov’s original artworks and vintage prints and is currently being contextualised by Hannelore Fobo for online research more >>.

for all questions concerning Evgenij Kozlov's art please contact Hannelore Fobo (in English, German or Russian) <art.tomorrow(at)t-online.de>

Exhibitions >>

Last updated 24 October 2024