Museum of non-conformism opens in Moscow

“Other” art has reached a new level

On the day when everyone followed the events in Rostov-on-Don, the Museum of Nonconformism modestly opened in Moscow. It is located in the famous house on Myasnitskaya, decorated with tiled decor and recognized as an architectural monument. Once there was a dormitory for artists and apartments for their teachers. A century and a half ago, this place absorbed the “gene” of creative searches and has now been reborn into a museum of the so-called other art. Here they presented not only the sixties, who went their own way, different from the generally accepted in the Soviet era, but also contemporary authors, who can also be called different.

The museum occupied the first and basement floors. Moreover, the first floor is visible through the large windows, so that a casual street passer-by can be fascinated by the extraordinary art of nonconformist artists. Among them are Vladimir Andreenkov, Valentina Apukhtina, Igor Vulokh, Anatoly Zverev, Yuri Zlotnikov, Francisco Infante, Alexey Kamensky, Andrey Krasulin, Mikhail Krunov, Igor Novikov, Boris Otarov, Vladimir Soskiev, Olga and Oleg Tatarintsev, Igor Shelkovsky, Marlene Spindler, Valery Yurlov and Vladimir Yakovlev. “These are artists who have not joined either official art, socialist realism, or the political underground. They followed their own artistic pursuits. They are immersed in the mystery of the conjugation of colors, textures, lines and are focused on the search for their truths and revelations,” says Nadya Brykina, founder of the museum.

She has been helping artists for over 30 years. Not only financially, but also morally: for example, Marlen Spindler, who after a stroke was chained to a wheelchair, drove around the Russian province, which inspired the master all his life. Nadia bought most of the works from the authors, but not for resale, but to save, show, and tell about their artistic searches. These are the tasks set by the museum. The decision to transform the gallery into a museum space was made a year ago, and the long-planned opening took place in a turbulent atmosphere. All this seems symbolic and reflects the mission of the museum.

— When everything collapses, it is important to create and create. Strive for freedom of expression. This is exactly what happens in art: first, an artist receives an academic education, and then resists tradition, looks for his own language, giving birth to something new, independent, – says Brykina.

Each of the presented authors speaks to the audience in their own visual language, and this polyphony is fascinating. Black bronze sculptures by Vladimir Soskiev greet the viewer: the refugees walking along the slope almost merge with the natural relief, almost turning into an abstraction, but still the figures with trunks on their shoulders are guessed. The works of Francisco Infante are multi-colored geometric rectangles, unexpectedly, as if from another dimension, emerging against the backdrop of a winter black and white landscape. Small white sculptures by Igor Shelkovsky are flowers in a vase, turned into a pure geometry of lines. In the basement, you will find fascinating canvases by Igor Vulokh — bright landscapes on the verge of abstraction, virtuoso portraits by Anatoly Zverev, colored reliefs by Vladimir Andreenkov. The paintings of the contemporary artist Igor Novikov, who actively participated in the creation of the museum, are built on antithesis, like the works of many of his predecessors: his characters are turned into symbols, and the background landscape is painted according to the canons of academic art. Most of all, the first exhibition of the museum of nonconformism presents the work of Marlen Spindler, an artist with a difficult fate, who worked on the design of Soviet labels and created many recognizable signs, until he was accidentally convicted. It so happened that he sat three times, but did not harden and continued to write mysterious symbolic pictures on the table.

Art critic Leonid Bazhanov also came to the opening, where mostly the authors and their relatives gathered, and said: “Art should not fall silent when the guns speak, it always lives its own life, it is an independent substance. It would seem that the term “non-conformism” is worn out, but today it acquires new sounds and meaning, which will be studied in this museum.” And the composer Vladimir Martynov performed an excerpt from his “Memories Machine”. Someone described this minimalist work as “an experience of understanding the fluidity of time.” Which is very much in line with the general idea of ​​the museum.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29057 dated June 27, 2023

Newspaper headline:
“Other” art has reached a new level