Gorbachev became the hero of pop art and conceptualism

Mikhail Gorbachev is not only the first and last president of the USSR, a figure who played a pivotal role in the history of our country. His extraordinary personality found a very unexpected reflection in art, and he himself became the creator of mass culture more than once – he starred in commercials, videos, even won a Grammy (in 2004, the disc “Peter and the Wolf”, recorded with Sophia Loren and Bill Clinton won the award for Best Speech Album for Children). But Gorbachev also became the hero of pop art and Moscow conceptualism. Now that Mikhail Sergeyevich is gone, it’s time to remember these well-known and not so well-known reflections in order to understand how Gorbachev will remain in history.

There are enough classical portraits of Gorbachev, like any other ruler. But it is unlikely that anyone else can boast of so many avant-garde, sometimes shocking images (which, however, is not surprising, because it was under him that the avant-garde came out of the underground and a new page in Russian art began).

Take at least the well-known image of “Gorbachev in the form of an Indian woman”, created by the artist Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe in 1990. The image of the last Secretary General of the USSR with painted eyes and a red dot on his forehead then became a sensation – this image spread all over the world, it was published by Rolling Stone, Figaro Magazine, Stern, Spiegel, Winner.

For the first time in 70 years, a ruler came who could be publicly mocked. Not that for the artist this trick went completely without a trace: he was placed in a hospital, where he was attributed to some kind of psychiatric illness, but then sent home. In other times, he would not have gotten off so easily. The unprecedented case of “free” handling of the portrait of the head of state has become a symbol of perestroika and glasnost. Gorbachev himself saw his portrait by Vlad Monroe – they say he was surprised, and nothing more.

Then, during the turbulent times of perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev became the hero of a series by one of the most famous pop art artists in the world, Peter Max. His “Forty Gorbys” (“Forty Gorby”) are 40 picturesque portraits of the Soviet president in bright colors. The artist created them after a tour of the Union, which was bursting at the seams and saturated with the ideas of democracy. After seeing the series, Gorbachev invited Max to hold a retrospective exhibition in Leningrad in 1991. More than 14,000 people are said to have gathered for the opening. Photographs of Mikhail Sergeyevich and Raisa Maksimovna with the artist against the backdrop of that same large-scale portrait have been preserved – one can read the spirit of the times in their smiling faces.

In the same 1991, perhaps the most intriguing work was born, the main character of which was Mikhail Gorbachev. However, then (and later) it was not presented to the public. We are talking about a series of avant-garde paintings, allegedly the author of which is the only Soviet president. The history of their creation is described in the book “Gray Notebooks” by Viktor Pivovarov, the founder of Moscow conceptualism. Yes, so lively, easy and interesting that you smile and believe …

The artist tells how he met Gorbachev in 1951, how he fascinated him with art, how the future politician, as a student, began to learn to draw, study in an art studio, go to exhibitions and reached certain heights in painting. The story is full of details and tasty details.

Here is one of the most interesting “memories” of how Gorbachev came to Pivovarov with a bunch of his paintings: “What I saw stunned me. It was a completely different artist – fresh, sharp, free, with unexpected mystical breakthroughs, then intimate and helplessly touching, then strong, strong-willed and resolute. Free handling of color, original compositions, unusual, interesting manner!”. The Gray Notebooks published these paintings, signed with the initials MG. However, all this is a witty and original hoax.

“The idea came to me to draw pictures for Mikhail Gorbachev and make such an exhibition,” says Viktor Pivovarov “MK” from Prague, where he moved before perestroika. – The exhibition did not materialize, because events took place in Vilnius – people died during the siege of the television center (on January 13, 1991, the Vilnius television center was stormed by Soviet security forces. – MM.). After that, I decided not to continue. But a few years after I abandoned the project, I was approached by the editors of the Kolokol magazine, from London. One Russian emigrant decided to restore Herzen’s journal, and I was asked to write some memoirs. I sent them a text about Gorbachev. They pecked and published. Then it opened up. I received a call from Moscow from a journalist who asked in a stern voice: “Is this true?” At first I fidgeted, and then I gave up and said that I had invented everything. It turned out that she also asked Gorbachev about this, and he said that he did not know any Pivovarov. I don’t understand why she was angry, because I didn’t appropriate anything – on the contrary, I attributed my work to him. Many took my conceptual hoax at face value, because I intertwined the facts of his biography and my own.

– How do you feel about the figure of Gorbachev? How much do you think he influenced art? It seems to me that he holds the record for the number of non-classical images, do you?

— I can’t say that Gorbachev surpassed anyone in this sense. Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, not to mention the modern ruler – all the leaders were a source of interest for artists. I have a complicated relationship with Gorbachev. This figure changed everything. Thanks to one man, history changed dramatically. It seems to me that he was a prisoner of social communist illusions. But he had an important principle: he did not want to shed blood. And it became decisive. Humanity moved them. He was inconsistent and perhaps unfit for the role that history had chosen for him. But this is a typical example of the chosen one – he got this role. History itself appoints such people.

Mikhail Gorbachev was also painted by other nonconformist artists, among them Eric Bulatov and Semyon Faibisovich. But, perhaps, Viktor Pivovarov’s kind hoax is the most curious and characterizes the attitude towards him in art and the hopes that society placed on him.

Much later, another significant incident occurred. In 2019, a canvas with the original signature of Mikhail Gorbachev and the word “Forgive me” was sold under the hammer. The work of Valery Ivanov was bought for 12 million rubles with a starting price of 100 thousand rubles. It turned out that, as a student at the International University in Moscow, Ivanov talked with Mikhail Sergeevich after a lecture he gave at the university, and the young man asked the politician to draw something on a pre-prepared white canvas. “Mikhail Sergeevich smiled, signed widely and added: “Draw it yourself, you have enough imagination!” On the same day, I put the inscription “SORRY,” Ivanov later described that meeting that happened in 2009.

It turned out that, without knowing it himself, Mikhail Sergeevich asked for forgiveness, as it were, for everything. On the one hand, Gorbachev destroyed the Iron Curtain and ended the Cold War, on the other hand, his reforms led to a severe economic crisis, the collapse of the Soviet Union and launched a chain of difficult events. Gorbachev himself did not comment on that sensational story. But the reaction of many said that this “sorry” was expected. It is significant that it was expressed in the form of an unexpected hoax (the truth about the author of the picture was not immediately revealed). And this case is also a characteristic: many events associated with the name of the only president of the USSR are shrouded in myths and legends that future generations will have to figure out. But it seems that conceptual hoax is part of this personality, which has played an ambiguous role in history and left an extravagant mark on art.