Edward Lucie-Smith
It has now been many years since the fall of the Soviet Union. During that period, Russian visual culture has developed considerably, and has become in many respects unlike that of the previous era – less controlled by the state and much more diverse geographically. Developments in Russian art have been widely misunderstood in the West, although Russian art has been influenced by now more readily available Western sources, in particular younger Russian artists. Western attention has become increasingly focused on so-called dissidents – that is to say, artists who seen to cause trouble with the post Soviet regime.
The new generation of Russian artists is also noteworthy in that their work is extremely varied, covering a wide variety of distant modernist styles. None of them can be described as being in any way academic or conformist. They freely express personal feelings and ideas many other recent international stylistic categories, in addition to pop are represented in contemporary Russian art: abstraction, surrealism, conceptual art, installation. Satires and examples of street art have become increasingly important in recent years in contrast to Western hit-and-run equivalents, they are quite often officially blessed.
A strong feeling continues to exist in Russia the artworks should be publicly accessible statements, rather than being locked away in the salons of the rich. While art collecting continues to exist, with a market for contemporary Russian works provided by a few auction rooms and galleries now based within Russia itself, prices in the salesroom do not reach the giddy heights that are regularly achieved in New York and London.
There are also in addition to artists who are recognisably contemporary but still with some links to the Soviet past, others who belong to categories that in a much broader sense seem particularly Russian for instance, contemporary icon painters. Some other factors also seen especially Russian one is the lingering memory of the Second World War, which devastated Russia more than anywhere else in the world. This conflict and its aftermath – the threat of the atomic bomb – continue to resonate in Russian art but are now largely absent from Western equivalents.
If women are very much present in Russian contemporary art, the racial themes are now so prevalent in Western art, particularly in Britain and also in the United States, are largely absent in Russia. Many nationalities and ethnic minorities are incorporated within Russia, but there is nothing that sharp racial divisions exist in Western societies. Official recognition and promotion of black artists, and compensation for past wrongs, is less relevant in Russia as there is no comparable history of African slave trading. Africans were occasionally present in czarist courts however: the 19th-century poet Alexander Pushkin 1799 to 1837 had an African great-grandfather.
The relationship of Russian contemporary art to the big international auction rooms and to major museums both inside and outside Russia, is also different from Western artist. When Russian contemporary, or near contemporary paintings are offered at auction, the sale is now almost invariably take place domestically of course major auctions, now often conducted online, take place of varying locations in the United States, Europe and increasingly often in China. Russian collectors – usually ex-patriots are not resident in Russia itself – and occasionally present at the sales but not necessarily as buyers of recent Russian art.
Russian contemporary art, like Latin American contemporary material, and also to some extent contemporary art from the Middle East, currently exists as a separate category. It communicates with other art worlds but maintained its independence from those other artistic spheres. Russia being a large country is an artistic universe in itself.
Russian Art in the New Millennium, Edward Lucie-Smith and Sergei Reviakin Unicorn 2022
This is the edited forward.
