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This paper was written for the Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Hannelore Fobo (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov “New Classicals” and Timur Novikov “New Russian Classicism” page 1 to page 2 >>
1989 was dated by Timur Novikov retro-actively as the transitional year from his first art group – the “New Artists” – to his second, “Neo-Academism”[1], later described (by Novikov) as the St. Petersburg branch of “New Russian Classicism”.[2]
Kozlov uses the term “harmony” in the way that Novikov used the term “beauty”: as an ideal to be achieved with any specific work of art. However, for Kozlov “new” is a synonym for “unforeseen”, not for a renewal of a canon. If a new work possesses this quality of unforeseen harmony (this depends on the intensity of “art within”), it can immediately become a “new classical”. Such is the title of his large cycle of works from 1989 / 1990: “Новая Классика” / “New Classicals”. In view of this, questions of style are, although not irrelevant to him, of secondary importance. As a matter of fact, the paintings from the “New Classicals” cycle have nothing to do with classicism, but it is interesting to note that in 1989, as the communist regimes of Europe collapsed, both Kozlov and Novikov were independently drawn - in the midst of crucial political, social and spiritual transformations - to this idea of “classical/ classicism”.
If one sticks to the formal definitions for the art of the “New”, as given by Timur Novikov, especially the “punk aspirations”[12] and the technique of “re-composition”,[13] or by Ekaterina Andreeva and her views on “wildness”[14] one might say that Evgenij Kozlov’s art matches this definition to a degree and mostly within the idea of “re-compostion”. Generally speaking, his works of the 1980s, including his graffiti-style paintings, are carefully planned and executed, which becomes manifest, within his work, in a certain elegance and extravagance. This was keenly felt and discussed amongst his fellow artists. We already quoted. E. Andreeva with regard to Timur Novikov. She states the year 1986 / 87 as the turning point: from “wild” to “academic” painting.[15] As an early example for Kozlov’s role in this turn-about she selected several drawings from his “Gulf of Finland” series (1983) for the exhibition “Club of Friends. Timur Novikov’s New artists and the New Academy” at Calvert22, London, 2014.[16] They are drawn with lithographic crayon and show groups of young men and women relaxing on a summer beach. The soft lines of their bodies and the meditative facial expressions create an atmosphere reminiscent of Monet’s dreamy summer scenes though here, the figures are more individual and do not fuse with the background.[17]
The figures of Vladislav Gutsevich, Sergei Bugaev and Rodion Zavernyaev – from one of the pictures taken at a performance of ‘Anna Karenina’ in 1985 – are given a different treatment. In the painting from 1988 later entitled ‘Anna Karenina (2)’, the artist retained the triangular, renaissance-like position of the three figures, but set the figures in space. The Earth appears below them as a distant planet, and the composition now echoes that of Raphael’s Sistine Madonna (albeit mirrored around the latter’s vertical axis). However, while in the Sistine Madonna we look in the direction of Heaven from the perspective of the Earth, in this case the standpoint of the viewer is taken from above the group of figures. The Earth is also present in the globe (the backpack) held by the central figure. This additional vanishing point makes the perspective more complex than in Raphael’s famous painting: the perspective of the viewer is doubled, not only extending from within the cosmos to the earth below, but also projecting towards centre of the cosmos – the globe.
The “Portrait of Timur Novikov with Arms consisting of Bones (Портрет Тимура Новикова с костяными руками)” (1988) is another impressive example of Evgenij Kozlov’s capacity to absorb the masters of religious painting in a work of “classic novelty”. This composition reveals striking parallels with the icon of Christ Pantocrator at Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai – seen in the following ways: in Timur Novikov’s eyes (one looking up, the other down), in his posture, in the gesture of the third (red) hand, in which a book is being held (as indicated by the pages of the book in relief), in the vaulted opening of the gazebo and its intersecting bars – corresponding to the halo of the icon and the cross on the Bible – and last, but not least, in the background, with its architecture and landscape. Likewise, the main feature is the intensity of the gaze.
Such a work of art allows the portrayed to become conscious of their potential or at least sense it intuitively. This is the deeper reason why Evgenij Kozlov’s “portraits” made such an impact on his fellow artists: they are not portraits of persons as they are, but as they may become.
[1] Andreeva, Ekaterina, “Время Тимура. Екатерина Андреева о Тимуре Петровиче Новикове.” (Time of Timur. Ekaterina Andreeva about Timur Petrovich Novikov) Критическая Масса 2 (2006): 4 Журнальный зал. Retrieved 31 Oct. 2014 from http://magazines.russ.ru/km/2006/2/and10.html [2] Novikov, Timur “New Russian Classicism”, 1996. In: Timur Novikov. Ed. New Academy of Fine Arts and Aidan Gallery upon order and with support of Sistema Telecom, 2003, pp 43 - 49, and http://www.timurnovikov.ru/docs/books/40_new_russian_classicism_en.pdf [3] Timur Novikov in his speech on the “New artists” in 2002. “Timur”, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, exhibition catalogue, 2013, p. 123 [4] “Often alluding to the art of primitive peoples, archaica and ethnic art, the modernists did not take along with themselves into the future «classics» [Note by the author: “did not take inspiration from the classics for future works”] ranging from ancient Greece to the late 19th century European «salon». It is precisely this vast cultural stratum that became the source of inspiration for «new Russian classicists.»“ Timur Novikov, 2003, p. 47 “New Russian Classicism, 1996” See the original Russian text: "Модернисты, часто ссылавшиеся на искусство первобытных народов, архаику, этническое искусство, не брали с собой в будущее “классику” в пределах от античной Греции до европейского “салона” конца XIX века. Именно этот широчайший культурный пласт и стал источником вдохновения для “новых русских классицистов”. Тимур Новиков, 2003, p. 44 «Новый Русский Классицизм». 1996 andhttp://www.timurnovikov.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47&Itemid=18&lang=ru first printed: ART-manege`97, М., 1997 [5] See Igor Bezrukov’s movie from 1999 "Красный квадрат, или Золотое сечение" (The Red Square or the Golden Ratio) featuring Timur Novikov, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monro, Irena Kuksenaite, a parody on modern art in general and Malevich in particular. [6] Art of the future. A conversation between Evgenij Kozlov (E-E) and Hannelore Fobo, 1991 Retrieved 31 Oct. 2014 from http://www.e-e.eu/art-of-the-future/index.htm [7] Art of the future, 1991. Retrieved 31 Oct. 2014 from http://www.e-e.eu/art-of-the-future/index4.htm [8] Art of the future, 1991. Retrieved 31 Oct. 2014 from http://www.e-e.eu/art-of-the-future/index.htm [9] Andreeva, Ekaterina “The New Artists”. Moscow Museum of Modern Art, 2012, p. 44 [10] Russian text http://www.e-e.eu/BLACK-ART/BLACK-ART-1.htm German text http://www.e-e.eu/BLACK-ART/index.htm [11] De Nya från Leningrad / "The New from Leningrad", Kulturhuset, Stockholm, August / September 1988. Installation views: http://www.e-e.eu/The-New-From-Leningrad-1988/index.htmThe catalogue of the exhibtion is not congruent with the works exhibited. Among Kozlov’s mulitfigural paintings were ”Anna Karenina 1”, ”Anna Karenina 2”, ”I want HER and I-I“. The latter disappeared from the exhibition. See http://www.e-e.eu/Evgenij-Kozlov-lost-art/Evgenij-Kozlov-lost-painting-E-E-188007.htm [12] “Timur”, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, exhibition catalogue, 2013, p. 123 [13] Ibid, p. 141 [14] “Their painterly practise was ‘wild’; they immersed themselves in an unbounded expressionism”. Ekaterina Andreeva, “The New Artists”. Moscow Museum of Modern Art, 2012, p. 17. [15] Ibid. P. 24 [16] Calvert catalogue, also “The New Artists“, 2012, page 10. [17] Ekaterina Andreeva erroneously assumes that these drawings reflect ”real” scenes with Kozlov’s artists friends. However, the artist himself assured me that they are the result of his artistic imagination and not of “life” or model drawing. [18] “Later he would select from the films single photographs or parts of them that presented a particular harmony of composition, novelty of gesture and expression of faces and figures. Afterwards these photographs would become his “models” for photo-collages and albums, graphics and paintings, where, as a rule, they appeared in a modified form. Since he developed films (monochrome negatives produced by Tasma and Svema) and printed photographs himself, he mastered the entire artistic process, from taking pictures to the final result: the work of art.” Retrieved 31 Oct. 2014 from http://www.e-e.eu/E-E/summaryEE.htm [19] Ibid. [20] It was unclear as to why the painting was not shown in Stockholm and its whereabout remain unknown. [22] For a detailed discussion of this diptych see http://www.e-e.eu/Igor_Valera/Igor_Valera1.htm [23] Evgenij Kozlov on the Leningrad Eighties and the “New Artists”, 2010. Retrieved 31 Oct. 2014 from http://www.e-e.eu/E-E/New_artists/New_Artists_4.htm [24] “скорее, как материал историко-культурного и иконографического плана, характеризующий время и его героев.” From an unpublished letter by A. Borovsky to E. Kozlov on January 17, 1995 N.B.: When Evgenij Kozlov had informed Alexander Borovsky in 1994 that his painting could not have been donated to the Russian museum by Sergei Bugaev simply because Bugaev never acquired it from its author, we discussed with A. Borovsky the question whether this painting should remain in the collection of the Russian museum or be given back to its author. In a meeting in 1996 with myself Alexander Borovsky once again stated that Evgenij Kozlov’s “Portrait of Timur Novikov with bone arms” holds merely iconographic value.
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