The title of the paper refers to the exhibition USA-CCCP-CHINA I curated for the Berlin gallery Egbert Baqué Contemporary in the spring of 2018 more >>.

The picture to the left shows the catalogue cover.

The works I will discuss are all from the decade of the 1980s. At that time, Kozlov – or E-E, his artist name since 2013 – was a leading member of the Leningrad-based group ‘The New Artists’ [Новые художники], founded by Timur Novikov in 1982. Kozlov created these works in Peterhof, in the outskirts of Leningrad, where he lived in his apartment-studio “Galaxy Gallery”. The picture on the reverse of the catalogue presents him in front of his painting CHINA-USSR [КИТАЙ-СССР] in his studio in 1987.

2.

Here is another picture showing the artist and myself at the Egbert Baqué Contemporary in March 2018 in front of Kozlov’s painting Points of Contact [Точки соприкосновения] from 1989. It is a major work from this period, and I will present its main features later.

In other words, “USA-CCCP-CHINA” is not the name of an artist project, but the title I chose retrospectively to designate a significant facet of Kozlov’s early works: approximately 160 works, a fifth of the artist’s works documented for the decade of the 1980s.

These works are dealing with the relation between the USA, Russia, and, in a predictive way, China. CCCP – SSSR in Russian – stands for USSR, the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics or Soviet Union in short. I will pronounce CCCP as Latin letters, as does Kozlov with regard to his works. Likewise, I will not differentiate between Russia and the Soviet Union in the context of this paper.

A number of these works were presented in exhibitions in the late perestroika period – in Leningrad, Stockholm, Liverpool, Los Angeles, Hamburg and other cities.

3.

Here is a picture with the large flag CCCP at the Tate Gallery, Liverpool, in 1989.

Of course, Kozlov was not the only artist reacting to the political situation through his work.

If we take the Earth to be an organism, then we can say that throughout the 20th th century, the rivalry between Russia and America was a factor in world affairs affecting the spiritual state of the Earth, and this was reflected by art. It was particularly felt in the decade of the 1980s which saw a shift from the Cold War to détente, which led to the Fall of the Berlin in 1989.

4.

Here is a work by Timur Novikov from the 1980s with the inscription CCCP and the Soviet flag.

5.

This is the collage “KNOW THE NATO” [ЗНАЙ НАТО] from 1984 by Kirill Khazanovich, another New Artist.

So what is specific about Kozlov’s works? In my understanding, it is their spiritual-religious dimension. I selected seven works for this presentation, relating them to works by other artists. This allows us to detect not only hold “hidden” Christian symbols, but also an element of Chinese philosophy, the Taoist idea of complementary forces.

More than thirty years after these works were created, their message looks prophetic.

6.

To the left is one of Kozlov’s earliest works, This Century’s Dead Caresses, Up Until… [Мертвые Ласки Века, До…] . Its size is about 100 cm by 70 cm, and it is painted gouache on cardboard. Kozlov painted it in 1980, at the age of 25. The composition sees America and Russia deep in discussion, keeping the terrestrial globe in a fragile balance.

The composition uses features of the Russian and Soviet avant-garde: Kasimir Malevich’s interpretation of Russian folk art through suprematism – here with Haymaking [На сенокосе] from 1929. Kozlov’s work also has such a geometrical background-pattern, and likewise the high line of the horizon and the soft gradient from black to white. At the same time, his work is reminiscent of Vladimir Lebedev’s famous ROSTA windows placards from 1917-1922. The example of A workman sweeping the criminal shows parallels in shapes, colours and especially with the diagonal axis of the figure’s movement.

The second title of Kozlov’s work is The Outward Appearance of the Relationship Between the Two World Powers [Внешний облик отношений двух держав]

Both figures are easily identified by their attributes – the USA by the top hat, tailcoat, and striped trousers, and Russia by a huge, balloon-like, red mantle. Russia is the artist’s self-portrait. Paradoxically, Kozlov was inspired by his American-made red raincoat.

7.

The fact that America’s and Russia’s caresses are dead is apparent. But it is only on second glance that the observer sees the angel standing behind them. The angel’s head partly overlaps with that of Russia. His eye could be the eyelashes of the figure of Russia, his mouth Russia’s protruding tongue. The picture to the right has the work in process, and we note that the figure of the angel is already present at this earlier stage. The wing on the right border is quite dominant. We can also see the cross in the background standing in a diagonal position.

8.

I will immediately proceed from 1980 to 1987, because 1987 is the year when Kozlov created his painting CHINA-CCCP [КИТАЙ-СССР], and its counterpart PCCC-ASU.

This is another picture from 1987 with Kozlov in his studio. It shows the artist holding a guitar – China and the USSR are both depicted as guitar players.

Out of the blue, China is seen joining the concert of the world powers USA and Soviet Union.

9.

CHINA-CCCP exhibited at the gallery

10.

(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov: КИТАЙ—СССР / CHINA-CCCP 161 x 213 cm, 1987 Photo: gewis, 2018

Here is a full view of the work.

Stylistically, it is completely different from the first work we discussed. The composition combines realistic painting with graffiti art, for instance, with the rain coming down. Several elements characterise China: the importance of nature, the long bridge representing China’s highly developed culture, and the symbol of a dragon, sending out a lightning towards a blue star. The guitar players, on the other hand, have a European appearance.

11.

It is intriguing to compare this composition with the traditional Chinese dragon in the Flag of the Qing Dynasty which ended in 1912.

Note the erected upper part of the dragon’s body, standing in a 90 degree angle with the rest of the body and the tail which are both reminiscent of the zig-zag lightning in Kozlov’s painting. The tip of the tail is indeed similar to the star. Even the position of the legs corresponds to that of the musicians. But while the dragon’s legs move together harmoniously, each musician plays for himself.

12.

This is its companion piece PCCC-ASU with an accordionist. We see the inscription mirrored – the accordion player is placed in front of what looks like a fence. He is isolating himself from the rest of the world, trying to be self-sufficient. But in this way, he finds himself locked inside a cage, and we are looking from the inside of the cage towards the outside. The accordionist might represent the USA or the Soviet Union. The tendency towards isolationism is present in both countries.

If we take these two paintings as a diptych, we note that artistic intuition addressed in advance something which only today, thirty years on, has fully unfolded – namely the struggle for a tri-polar distribution of forces – America-Russia-China. We see that in the concert of three powers, they are all playing their solo performance.

13.

The next painting is from 1989. It is entitled Terror to the Enemy. The Fires of Petrodvorets. [Страх Врагам. Огни Петродворца.] The picture from 2013 shows it with two other works by (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov left and right to it.

The picture was taken at the exhibition “Blue Velvet“ at the Museum Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova in Turku, Finland, which holds these works in its collection.

14.

The first part of the title, Страх Врагам, is actually quite difficult to translate, because it has a double meaning. It can be either Terror to the Enemy, if we read the full title, or Peace to the Enemy, if we read only the black letters. In this case the Cyrillic letters р а х can be read as Latin pax, peace.
But there is more. It we look at the position of the P or R, we find its vertical line cut by the horizontal line of the red border.

This brings us to the symbol Tau-Rho, the two Greek letters T and R which together form the staurogram, or the Monogrammatic cross. Here the letter Rho stands on top of Tau. In this combination, the Tau is also interpreted as the cross of Christ, and the circle of the letter rho as the head of the crucified. This symbol is one of several Monogrammi Christi.

The double reading of Hate and Love for the enemy corresponds to the paradigm shift in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount “You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.'. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:43, 44)

But this paradigm shift is not unique for the Christian religion. A fundamental text of Taoism, Tao Te Ching  by Lao Tzu from the fourth century BC has he following statement in chapter 49

I am good to people who are good.
I am also good to people who are not good.

http://www.wussu.com/laotzu/laotzu49.html

16.

There is another version of the title in a painting from about the same period, approximately from 1988. This is an old black and white reproduction. I’m afraid there is no better picture because we do not know the whereabouts of this work. The picture to the right sees the artist with this painting at his studio Galaxy Gallery in 1988.

Here the fight against the enemy who, according to Soviet ideology, is “all around”, finds an ironic interpretation. The composition takes up a scene from a New Artists' performance in 1985. To the right we see Timur Novikov, to the left Igor Verichev, and the head in the centre represents the artist himself, E-E.

The colours of the letters are red and black, but the division is different from The Fires of Petrodvorets. Only the first letter of страх, the c, or s in Russian, is separated from the rest – трах, which is phonetically reminiscent of the Russian slang word for sexual intercourse. In other words, “Terror to the enemy” is not being converted into a philosophical or religious message, but into a sarcastic note on sexual aggressiveness.

17.

I finish my lecture with the painting Points of Contact we have already seen displayed at the exhibition.
Left is what can be considered a sketch from 1988, carried out in the style of constructivism. It was completed in a green felt-lined cutlery tray, and the internal divisions were also reproduced in the painting to the right. The USA and the CCCP are portrayed as a couple, a woman and a man, with the question of who represents who being left to the viewer.

Each has a black dot and a red dot on their head and stomach, though in reverse. They symbolise a human being’s most important properties: the brain and the reproductive organs.

18.

These dots, or points, are the “points of contact”. They are distributed in a manner akin to a self-mirroring yin-yang symbol (the “taijitu”), representing complementary forces, such as female and male, earth and heaven. The graphic shows two different possibilities to display such a dual complementarity.

The viewer intuitively joins these points together to form two diagonally-crossing lines – a cross of St Andrew – Crux Decussata, thus creating an equilibrium in the dynamic force of the two poles.

There is yet another hidden Christian symbol

19.

The ‘T-shape’ dividing the figures can be interpreted as representing the tau cross, or St. Anthony’s cross – a staurogram without the letter rho on top.
We find an example of the tau-cross in the Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary and St. John the Theologian. It is from the School Bruges, Circle Memling, from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century.

In both paintings, two figures stand left and right of the cross, only in reversed order: in Kozlov’s painting, the figure of a man is on the left, the woman on the right – in the painting from the Memling circle, St. John is on the right and the Virgin Mary on the left. However, the figures’ positions are identical: the figure to the left is grounded to the earth, the one to the right is pointing upward.

In the absence of a Christ in Kozlov’s painting, it might seem daring to compare these works.

But Christ’s image is indeed present, as Evgenij Kozlov pointed out to me – in what looks like a dripping mark intentionally or unintentionally placed above the man’s head.

20.

A detailed view of this dripping mark reveals the figure of Christ: we recognise the arms stretched out, the head between them, the body and the legs.

We even recognise the loincloth fluttering in the wind. However, it is not an image of a physical body of Jesus Christ. We are speaking about an image referring to the year 1989, not to the year 33.

19.

Christ’s presence is not physical, it is spiritual: when the artist establishes points of contact between antagonistic forces, a third element appears – the Logos – the word that was in the beginning and created everything.

Or Tao, the elementary force containing the trinity of earth and heaven and the human being, the co-creator.


Thank you very much for your attention.