Page 61 - Studio International - February 1973

central artists' organisation took part in them, oldest colleague, Infante, in fact dropped in through the continuous incorporation of the
with the result that new artists from all over the this evening, but he has founded his own group. human element. Lev is full of optimism for
multi-national Soviet Union began coming to I met Nusberg and Infante for the first time in civilization and faith in the power of art: in the
the public's notice. The author of this article a Moscow street : at that time they were almost future, within a few short decades, technology
himself, on an official invitation from the Union completely unknown and absolutely without any and art will come together to create a new
of Soviet Artists, gave a lecture in 1967 at the money. I recall how they chipped in to buy a bag human world. Again the underlying connections :
Moscow Institute for the History of Art on the of cheap gingerbread snaps for lunch, and Lev might be a pupil of Florensky's.
most recent trends in world art, and it was munched them as they walked along. Now At present he and his group are involved in
typical of the new atmosphere that not one of the Nusberg's group has its own flat with a great designing exhibitions, but this is only
participants looked back to Socialist Realism. deal of visual and sound equipment. On the provisional, he tells me, a means of getting
On the contrary, there was eager discussion of walls hang dramatic designs for exhibitions, and established and coming to official notice and in
Fontana, Noland, Dubuffet and Kaprow. Nusberg gives me a quick run-down of the this way getting the chance to do their own work.
The result at present is that modern artists group's activities. Last year there was a hall of Nusberg is both a visionary and a practical man.
in the Soviet Union are not forced to lead any glass at an industrial exhibition, an electronics For ten years he has been carrying around his
kind of illegal existence and do not need to hide exhibit, and also a mixed-media creation in ideas on kineticism or bio-kineticism. He is a
their work. Only ten years ago one well-known Tbilisi for the centennial of the birth of the poet and artist as well as his own theoretician
elderly critic proposed sending these artists to composer Paliashvili; now they are drawing up and publicist, a tireless missionary and
the Virgin Lands, but today some of them plans for the installations in the new Mayakovsky admirable organizer, ready to persuade anyone
already have their studios and almost all can Museum, and for two industrial exhibitions. anytime and to take on any task that presents
make a living as artists from their illustrations, Infante's group is involved in the same kind of itself and can be used to realize at least a small
graphic works, and soon. And it seems that they thing — they are preparing a great kinetic glass part of his ideas. It is not the first time that
no longer experience serious difficulties from installation for the All-Union Exhibition of modern art has sought an accommodation with
having their work published regularly abroad. National Industry. At the front of the room a the contemporary world, has tried to contribute
Long ago they ceased being isolated individuals : shining three-dimensional model is moving to it, to endow it with something of its own
there are a great many of them now, and they around, and on the projection screen a play of excellence, to find a place in it. Thus
belong to a wide range of different movements. colours is being created to reproduce music in Romanticism gave rise to eclectic styles in
Nor are they romantic bohemians : many have some way which I don't understand. There are architecture, Symbolism to Art Nouveau,
several years of systematic work behind them, several other guests, and the visit has somewhat Post-Cubist Abstraction to Lisitsky's
and have had time to develop their real of an official air. But we meet again tomorrow. Productivism and the teachings of the Bauhaus.
personalities. But — they do not exhibit. Two But modern art itself arose out of a dismissal of
kinds of art exist side by side in the Soviet Union Thursday, June 25th the rational and industrial modern world, and
today, hermetically sealed off from each other by out of a conflict with its society: it can only really
the fact that one is public while the other exist in a state of tension with it. If there were
remains private. A few years ago at a symposium The members of Dvizhenie work together in the ever to be a reconciliation and merging of
of Czechoslovak and Soviet artists held under manner of a kind of commune. The room I was modern art with this world and this society, then
the auspices of the Union of Artists in Moscow, in yesterday is really more of a reception room. a basic revision would have to take place : the
there was much discussion of this problem. We Today I am taken into their private area. form and meaning of modern art would have to
expressed the opinion at the time — and it Here too the walls are covered with plans and be separated, the form gradually emptied of its
aroused a great deal of interest — that these two ideas, but of a quite different character. I am in a original meaning, devalued and finally debased.
kinds of art are not in any way exclusive, but in world of science-fiction: plans for fantastic What do the thoughts of Novalis really have in
fact need each other. For just as there is a clear megalopolises, homes floating in space without common with the eclectic facades of the
danger that avant-garde art will lose contact any support, geodesic domes, crystalline and nineteenth century, or Mondrian and Malevich
with the ordinary people of our time and thus cellular structures, city squares in which scents with the tenements and factories of the
become a closed field for specialists, so the main and sounds, temperature and air pressure, can twentieth ? It should be a new style, but always
danger for art that wishes to have a broad social all be regulated, an almost 1,000-metre tall it is only another kind of mannerism.
influence lies in its retreating into its own Museum of the Development of Human Nusberg's futurological projects share nothing
traditions and ceasing to come to terms with the Civilization in the shape of two suspended of the urgency of the futurists' attacks. The
changing world. Under such conditions both spirals, areas reserved for community games, futurists were concerned with the people of the
kinds of art risk becoming sterile. They should parades and mysteries. The date: between 2000 future, but out of this concern they wanted to
be a mutual check and corrective on each other: and 2010. The creators : two men, Lev Nusberg act here and now, in the most present moment,
the 'popular' and the 'avant-garde' are in fact and Alexander Grigoryev, and two women, whereas Nusberg, deferring the action of his art
two poles, and the tension between them can Galina Bitt and Tatiana Bystrova. in a peculiar way from the present into the future,
stimulate the development of modern art. If The boyish-looking Lev — he is in fact moves into the realm of illusion. What he is
they are forced apart and isolated, then the thirty-five — won't let you get a word in creating seems to me, after all is said and done,
`popular' and the 'avant-garde' lose any edgewise. He overwhelms you with theories, rather pompous opera — dazzling perhaps, but
meaning. plans, schemes, designs. He does not speak any devoted ultimately to the unreal. Vast
Or is there still the possibility of some kind of more about simple kineticism. His idea now is exhibitions, and indeed all publicity, aim at
compromise ? In the evening I am the guest of IBKE, which stands for Artificial Bio-Kinetic leading people into a world of fantasy, aim at
Lev Nusberg's well-known group Dvizhenie Environment. Man, who has created the influencing them through illusion, through
(`Movement'). They have changed a great deal technical world, is himself shaped in turn by theatrical effects. The application of Nusberg's
in the last few years. Besides Nusberg, the only this very world, and must concentrate on the (and Infante's) ideas to exhibitions is the logical
one of my old acquaintances here is Galina Bitt, problem of the influence of the artificial outcome of this baroque aesthetic.
whom I met with Nusberg in 1967. Of the nine environment on mankind and vice versa, in But some years ago Nusberg and those
persons who exhibited alongside Nusberg at the order to control this influence and make use of working with him at the time showed me
group's first exhibition in 1965 in Prague, none it. It is an unending process of reciprocal part of the unusually fascinating kinetic
are left. I don't know why this is, and I don't activity, and the mechanization must be performance they were putting on in Moscow,
know what they are doing now. Nusberg's overcome through stochastic organization, in the privacy of the nuclear physicists' club at
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