Heliy Korzhev artist biography

On the one hand - socialist realism and the "harsh style", on the other - avant -garde, conceptualism. Some artists received state awards, others could legally work only in a book illustration or in technical positions in museums. But was this division truly tough? How should the “official” Soviet art of the 20th century should be treated today and can it teach us anything?

About all this, using the example of the outstanding artist Gelia Korzhev, is told by the art critic and author of the channel “Useless Humanitarium” Anastasia Semenovich. To share the division of art into official and unofficial suggests that both directions are flawed, but differently. Some of them were sent for forced psychiatric treatment and squeezed out of the country. So the art environment was loaded into a state in which it was very difficult to develop.

But now it is even more difficult to maintain the legacy of artists who worked in such conditions - whether it be “official” or “unofficial”. In the year, the German film “Work without Authority” was released based on the biography of the artist Gerhard Richter Rod. It shows the contrast between the artist’s work in the GDR and in Germany: in the first case, he is forced to glorify the builders of communism in a realistic style, and then, being in Dusseldorf, he cannot find his language for a long time, understand what he wants to say.

For the hero, being an artist means doing painting, and Western colleagues laugh at this and say that "painting has died." Both approaches exclude the experience of neighbors. True, in the post -war USSR, the main style was not the socialist realism of the X -sample, but the so -called "harsh style." You can recognize him by the monumentality of the characters, the conciseness of funds, the academicity of the productions and a kind of indicative simplicity that the heroes radiate.

If socialist realism was more mobile, the figures were often given in dynamics, and their faces smiled, then the “harsh style” offers more statics. Also, socialist realism is usually painted with a specific Soviet romance, and the “harsh style” avoids major intonations. Sometimes this severity turns into formal dryness, and sometimes looks thoughtfully. The characteristic works of the “harsh style” were written by Tair Salakhov -, Victor Popkov -, Heliy Korzhev - in fact, modern academism in Russia inherits precisely the Soviet harsh style.

He involves in the artist a technical federation, a drawer skills, a monumental-decorative instinct. Tair Salakhov, “at the Caspian” but even such masters as Popkov, Korzhev and Salahs, many today continue to perceive only “official” Soviet artists. In the catalog of the exhibition, Gelia Korzhev, which was held in the Tretyakov Gallery of the year, art critic Alexander Borovsky wrote that although the Soviet officials disappeared earlier than the USSR itself, the division of the “Neofitzils” and “academicians” was preserved in the minds of the artists themselves.

A similar situation has developed in the literature - Borovsky calls it bicamerality, and each of the “parties” “exists on the basis that there is no second party, it can not be noticed, ignored, live without it.” After the collapse of the Soviet system, the “Last Mogikans” of official art only observed how the “Neoficels” became more and more in demand in the international art space.

The two -party system has become one -party - in favor of the "neo -company". About Guryanov, as a large mastere, quite “official” experts discuss, while the exhibition “Non -always. Now what is customary in Russia is called contemporary art is experiencing a decline - some projects were closed, they barely managed to open, and the rest will now first be checked for compliance with the national security strategy.

You can perceive this as a revenge of the “official party”. One way or another, the Russian spectator will now be in the very quotes that not so long ago looked like a metarine stylization, and it's time to conduct an audit of “official” art, ceasing to consider it monolithic and tied strictly to the era. The current situation is not new: you can recall how Nikita Khrushchev came to the Moscow arena for the exhibition in honor of the thirty years of the Moscow Union of Artists and staged a scandal, demanding “to ban everything” on the radio, on television, and in the press of all fans to uproot it.

” “This” meant the non-realistic works of Vladimir Yankilevsky-, Yulo Steers-and other artists. At the same exhibition in the Manege, Geliya Korzhev was presented on the road on the road, but she did not cause Khrushchev’s indignation. Moreover, Korzhev successfully worked in the “official” channel, without oppressing his creative energy, not limiting himself. It is on such masters that it is now worth paying attention.

Helius Korzhev was born in a Moscow family, from childhood he loved to draw and went to the studio at the State Museum of Fine Arts. During the war, the future master, along with students of the Moscow Academic Art Lyceum, was evacuated to Bashkiria. One of the main properties of his painting - plastic flair - is noticeable already in the early works of the 10ths.Heliy Korzhev, “The Boy in the Red Rubach” in the post -war period in Soviet art began the so -called rehabilitation of everyday life - in the works of many artists a lyrical mood, a sense of household warmth, began to prevail.

There was no Soviet romanticism in Korzhev’s heroes, they were as if more adult or more serious. The heroine of his early painting “Morning” looks closed, almost wary compared to characters, for example, Yuri Pimenov, Heli Korzhev, “On the road” probably, therefore, Soviet romance and lyrical images of thaw painting today look like an infantile illusion, and Korzheva wins the “harsh style” next to them.

His characters are self -sufficient and do not depend on the external environment, they always have an internal force. In the painting “On the road”, the very one that was at the exhibition in the arena, a woman with a child at a stalled car is not the most heroic moment and not a very bright image. It is probably difficult for a woman to keep a child, but in her appearance you can’t say this.

There is absolutely no playful coquetry and “female charms” in it, she has massive hands, and she looks past and through the viewer. On the one hand, this is clearly a Soviet heroine, on the other, there is no “public” thought, such as, for example, on the Pimenov “wedding on tomorrow's street” rather, the picture is similar to a frame from the cinema. The universality of Korzhev’s images is also noticeable: time signs can be changed, and a biblical or mythical heroine will turn out.

Helius Korzhev, “Raising the Banner” by the Triptih Korzhev “Communists” “Homer”, “Raising the Banner” and “International” may seem ideologized, however, except for red flags and allusions to the work of colleagues, for example, the sculpture of Ivan Shadra “cobblestones - weapons of the proletariat”, specialists find deep internal energy, willingness to action.

Indeed, there are no flags in Homer at all, only Budenovka, and in the “International” there is a motive for the wind music, which will pour into the grotesque “mournful duet” in the year. This is not a cheers-patriotic communism, and indeed at this deep level of Korzhev’s work, very humanistic, his characters are not superheroes, ordinary people who have a great internal force. In this series there are no large -scale battle scenes, elegant constructions and heroics.

The artist, as always, is interested in the inner essence here, he writes the heroes before the war or after, focusing on “sapness” - consequences. Korzhev himself, arguing about the picture “Lovers,” wrote that, in fact, he was occupied by the same person who “struck me with a positive attitude to his work, conscientiousness and some ability to surrender to him entirely.” Heliy Korzhev, “lovers” “lovers” is a middle -aged man and a woman, both with weathered faces, a “labor” tan.

They do not have a played vigor, invulnerability, which is so often characteristic of the characters of socialist realism. And again, no coquetry - this rectilinear look of the artist today seems to be a superior. These people have a story, it had wars and hard work. Heroes are balancing between the image of a strong, decisive Soviet man and a man who fell into a funnel of the 20th century.

They do not lose individuality, do not become poster images. And completely devoid of sweet "beautifulness". We are used to ideal people of monumental art, and in Korzhev’s heroes this monumentality is also, but it paradoxically combines with injuries. This is possible because the artist focuses on internal experiences, as in the "lovers." His heroes are not strong, harmonious and young, like the physical cultures of Alexander Samokhvalov are strong people “scorched” by the 20th century, and the artist does not embellish them.

Rather, he is looking for a form in which the external expression would correspond to the internal content.

This craving for understanding the inner essence is actually a very individualist thing. Heliy Korzhev, “Old Wounds” in general Korzhev was perfectly able to bring a deeply individual, internal to a monumental panorama. Korzhev was repelled from the image of the Cervantine knight in Russian culture, which accepted his idealism, sacrifice and mercy. The thirst for utopia in combination with the inevitable tragic ending is what the artist sees in Don Quixote, and this image shows his sensation from the 20th century.

Moreover, Korzhev wrote a knight from his father. Helius Korzhev, “Don Quixote and Sancho” traditionally Korzhev praised for realism - because Soviet art appreciated the realistic approach. But the majority of socialist realism, and the same “harsh style” were called realism. Korzhev’s manner of a different properties, he rather combines physical with metaphysical, and this intellectual component makes it one of the main artists of the last century - despite the status of “official”.

Korzhev combined technical skills, rich imagination and mind. Contemporaries recalled that he had such a brilliant visual memory that he remembered even small vessels on the human body, a circulatory system. And it is no accident, discussing his work, they recall sculpture and cinema. Korzhev had a strong plastic flair, a vision of volumes in the imagination, he unmistakably “cried” his things.

And Korzhev’s legacy cannot be determined strictly in the niche of the Soviet realistic school. Heliy Korzhev, “Tutants of the Türliks” Geliy Korzhev, “gluttony” in E and BC he was engaged in a series of “Turliks”, where he wrote fantastic mutants in a “realistic” manner. They hold some meetings, eat, speak in front of each other. The artist wrote that these images came to him intuitively.

They are alien to “official” art, but logical for the master’s internal tasks - the same meeting of the physical with metaphysical led to mutants. Realism ultimately began to look like surrealism. The artist Oleg Kulik in a text dedicated to Gelia Korzhev recalled Boris Groys’s words that a problem surrealist was sitting in every socialist realist. Kulik believes that Korzhev, depicting “dwarfs and disabled people”, “stepped on the throat of his own song,” and did it “quietly”.

But looking at Korzhev’s work, it is difficult to imagine such a bifurcation of the master. After all, honestly, he was never a romantic socialist, and he wrote mutilated people for a very long time. At the same time, with x, he worked on a series of biblical plots, which is especially interesting because Korzhev was not churching. In his interpretations of these stories there is no good light of faith, to which the viewer is accustomed to Korzhev, as usual, is looking for inner essence.

The work of “deprived of paradise” is worth a dignly, which shows the traditional plot of exile from paradise in an unexpected light. Firstly, it is difficult to get rid of the impression that these are all the same Soviet people, and this idea opens up a wide scope for metaphors and interpretations. Secondly, here, unlike many other versions of the plot, there is no hope for God and hope.

In this thing it is easy to see the same “harsh style”, but at the same time - deep humanism. Eve is a woman with worn legs, and Adam is a man with a weathered face, these people will probably be able to pass any trials, as the other heroes of Korzhev passed through the 20th century. Korzhev believes in a person, in his inner strength, and in this sense he, of course, is a humanist.

Heliy Korzhev, “Autumn of the ancestors of Adam and Eve” Geliy Korzhev, “Deprived of Paradise” about his work Korzhev wrote this way: “I always proceeded from the fact that I have the right to do what the soul lies to. This is the main right in life. ”