Page 76 - Studio International - September October 1975

Committee of Graphic Artists (a
Russia trade union organization
operating side by side with the
Union of artists) the paintings of
0. Rabin, V. Nemukhin and
A Year after the Bulldozers L. Masterkov were exhibited for
On 15 September 1974 a piece of the first time. These artists had
waste ground on the outskirts of taken part in the exhibition of
Moscow at the intersection of paintings on the piece of waste
Trade Union and Islander Street ground, and were the most
became part of Russian cultural uncompromising champions of
history and won international freedom of expression. Both in
fame. Here, with the help of Moscow and in Leningrad
bulldozers, dump trucks, water outwardly friendly negotiations
cannon and militiamen disguised were conducted with the
in civilian clothes, an exhibition non-conformists about staging an
by non-conformist artists, trying indoor exhibition in December.
after many years of enforced But at the same time, the Moscow
isolation to exhibit their pictures Evening News published three
in their own native country, albeit consecutive articles sharply
in the open air, was destroyed. criticizing the creative works of
However, the plans of those who these artists. They accused Rabin
master-minded the operation of looking very coldly and
aimed at the destruction of the disparagingly at his surroundings.
exhibition misfired. They did not They said laconically about the
succeed in intimidating the artists, pictures of Nemukhin and
who announced that they would Masterkov that they had nothing
return two weeks later with their to do with art.
pictures to the ill-fated piece of
waste ground. Their courage, A torrent of repression
combined with the deep descended upon the young and the
resentment reflected in world less well-known participants in
public opinion, was such that on the Ismailov exhibition (which
29 September a free uncensored had of course been allowed by the arranged in Rabin's flat, both of a negative attitude to Soviet
exhibition was held for the first authorities). Three of them were Muscovites and Leningraders realism and a narrowminded
time in twenty years in Ismailov sent to a lunatic asylum; two were announced their intention of approach, triteness and neglect of
Park with the permission of the dispatched to the army for three mounting a joint exhibition of everything and everybody except
authorities. More than 10,000 months; from one the militia paintings. At this point, the themselves, but also a lack of
people came to see the exhibition, extracted a written promise not to metropolitan workers of the professional ability. However,
a clear demonstration not only of take part in future exhibitions, 'Cultural front' made a rapid and this usual collection of
the genuine interest of the threatening to send him to a decisive move. On their own conventional phrases did contain
Moscow intelligentsia in the work lunatic asylum if he did; while initiative, they resumed their one original thought which one
of the artists, but also of moral another was compelled to give a negotiations with the artists which hadn't come across before:
support for those who only two written undertaking that he would had been broken off at the end of 'Exhibitions of Avant-Garde work
weeks before had been either not paint any more abstract November and offered to quickly ought to be arranged from time to
chased away or arrested. paintings. On 12 November, the organize an exhibition ... but time.' But why? In order that the
The bulldozers which had been author of this article was taken to only by Muscovites and the more public at large could see for
directed against the pictures the KGB headquarters in well-known artists, amounting to themselves the lack of talent of
thus proved to be too drastic a Lubiyanka and warned that his no more than 20 people (in the those exalted by bourgeois
remedy. The outcome had further participation in the Ismailov exhibition 72 people had propaganda. Then things began to
unexpected consequences, and not organization of provocative exhibited). The intention was move. Previously they had
only in relation to the Ismailov exhibitions and the giving of nothing if not cunning: to announced that people did not
exhibition. Up to that time information about them to separate the Muscovites from the wish to see such paintings and,
non-conformists in the USSR had western correspondents would Leningraders and to break the quick as a flash, the exhibitions
been surrounded by a wall of have serious consequences, such young away from the 'old guard', were closed so that people could
silence. Their existence was as a charge for distributing anti- who had started the not see them. But now people
barely acknowledged. But now, Soviet propaganda. The non-conformists' movement 20 years were invited to see the canvases of
after such a notorious incident, it atmosphere became increasingly before. the formalists and decide for
became impossible to preserve the tense. The Moscow non- The exhibition by the 20 artists themselves whether or not it was
status quo. The Soviet press had to conformists, who had all but did indeed take place in February, art. The non-conformists could
finally acknowledge their received permission from the in the Bee-keeping Pavilion on the not have asked for anything more.
existence. At the same time, the cultural department of the exhibition ground devoted to Criticize, abuse and curse but give
question arose as to what more Moscow Soviet to stage an indoor national economic achievement. the artists the opportunity to
should be done with the rebels. exhibition in December, It did not, however, succeed in exhibit!
First, they went on the offensive immediately announced that they discouraging the artists. On 14 But words are words, actions
and demanded to be given would refuse to mount it in February, four days before the are actions. The critics scribbled
accommodation for a December conditions of persecution and opening, 99 non-conformists went away, and the Minister of Culture
exhibition in both Moscow and intimidation. With this protest, to the Soviet Minister of Culture maintained a menacing silence.
Leningrad. Secondly, the 'Left which came to the ears of the with a letter containing a request Having waited in vain for months
Wing' of the Moscow branch of foreign correspondents, they let it for permission to mount a large, for an answer to their letter the
the Official Union of Artists be known that on the one hand dignified and uncensored artists mounted exhibitions in
activated itself. It was not they were not being allowed to exhibition in which other than their own flats in Moscow at the
sufficient that four members of the show to the West the supposed local artists could take part. The beginning of March. They lasted
Union should have come with liberality of the regime, while on minister pondered over this for a for more than a week and aroused -
their pictures into Ismailov Park. the other hand pressure was being considerable length of time, but such great interest that they were
Many of their colleagues, who had quietly exerted on the recalcitrant meanwhile in the Moscow repeated every other month.
not exhibited their canvases and artists, with the help of the Evening News, on 10 March, there These exhibitions were not only
sculptures for years, could join the militia and the KGB. appeared the next article under occasions for meetings with a
non-conformists at any moment. Perhaps as a result of this the headline 'The Avant-Garde of large number of visitors but were
In the Artists Union exhibition incident, which was so unpleasant Philistinism.' Its author was the also a protest against the silence
hall at Kuznetsov Place in the for the authorities, the four-day editor-in-chief of the magazine of the minister and a prelude to
centre of Moscow, an exhibition exhibition in Leningrad of 50 Creative Art, amd his surname, the artists' exodus with their
of works by a group of artists and local non-conformists, opened on Nekhoposhev, is appropriate for canvases out into the open. The
sculptors, who even the day 20 December in the Palace of such a sordid publication. He artists did not conceal their
before would not have been Culture, passed off quietly. It accused the modernists, whose determination to fight to the end.
allowed, opened in November. At seemed that the time had come for pictures had been repeatedly and One of them speaking to me on
the Central House of Artists, in the bureaucrats to take a rest from successfully exhibited in many the telephone (he was in Moscow,
the regular annual exhibition by art. But in January at a press museums and galleries throughout 1 was in Vienna and our
members of the United Moscow conference for foreign journalists Europe and the USA, not only conversation was, of course,

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