The City of Artists
The 1970s. "Stagnation" Period and Lviv Artists
Nataliya Kumanovska. Portrait of Engelina Buryakovska
The 1970s and the early 1980s in Soviet Ukraine are characterized as a period of stagnation in many areas of life in society. Cultural policy targeted the development of art only in conditions of ideological regulation when the possibility to represent your own creativity only existed in the spaces legitimized by the authorities. It meant that access to exhibition halls and the "privileges" artists received from the state were only available to those who were members of official unions or recognized organizations. "Independent artists" were not recognized by authorities. That is why they could not be exhibited, their works were not purchased, and they could not get their work studios. In this situation, the art was divided into the "official" and the "unofficial."
Nataliya Kumanovska. Portrait of Mariya Schur
One of the most expressed examples of unofficial art in Lviv was the "Aksinin circle" — a group of graphic artists that included some people like his wife Engelina Buriakovska, the friends Nadia Ponomarenko, Kateryna Suevalova, Halyna Zhehulska, Henrietta Levytska, Mykola and Natalia Kumanovski, Maria Shchur, and others. In the search for supporters, these people established contacts with the creative communities of Tallinn (Tõnis and Mare Vint, Vello Vinn) and Moscow (Illya Kabakov).
In the breaks between the drawing of trademarks, posters, and designs of shoe boxes in the CPDBLI (Central Planning and Design Bureau of Light Industry), Kateryna Suevalova and Oleksandr Aksinin were drawing the comic strips, such as "The City of Artists." The work was created for internal use only, that is why it depicted "insiders" only. In the bureau, Oleksandr and Kateryna worked together with Bohdan Pikulytskyi, Valeriy Demyanyshyn, Yuriy Charyshnikov, Iryna Soboleva. They all also "settled down" in this imaginary and even fantasy city. There was also a place for Lviv high officials and the "Kyiv general secretary." They were drawing it when they did not have the assignments, and they did not have work to do, but the rules demanded they stay at the workplace. In this alternative creativity, we can see the reflections on the time, the city, and the place of personality therein.
According to Kateryna Suevalova, all characters from the "City of Artists" diptych are fictitious, and any coincidence is accidental:
We were staying there and drawing. It was weaving as if when you knit. Like a woman knitting a scarf, and I was knitting a city. [1]
Kateryna Suevalova, Oleksandr Aksinin. City of Artists. Indian ink, collage, 1975.
Kateryna Suevalova, Oleksandr Aksinin. City of Artists. Indian ink, collage, 1975.
There are not only names but also identifiable similarities, such as the High Castle in the right section of the diptych, which seem to instigate you to read and interpret this work in a specific way.
For example, the fashion house "A Shirty with Short Sleeves" resembles a coffee house нагадує "Shkocka" (27 Shevchenka Avenue).
The place is known for hosting the club of mathematicians in the early 20th century. Its co-founder Stefan Banakh would wear a short-sleeved shirt without a tie (not caring about the professor status) — the design was convenient during the financial crisis as it did not have the worn-out cuffs. The myth, as a case of inventiveness, of breaking приклад the rules and of disregarding the code of conduct, is also reflected in this composition.
In the "city of artists," we can also see the personal dreams of Kateryna and Oleksandr — their own studios. The rooms located in the mansards were allocated mostly to "official" or "confidant" artists; the member ID of the Union of Artists was a peculiar ticket to the world of better financial opportunities. Membership in the Union of Artists opened the door to the legitimized exhibition spaces; it gave the chance to get a private studio, a discount to the art materials, and the public procurement was looming on the horizon before the artist.
Lviv had very few places where works of artists had a right to be present in the public space, making the artists visible: the building of the Union of Artists (9 Mitskevycha Square), Lviv Museum of Ukrainian Art (42 Drahomanova Street), Lviv Picture Gallery (3 Stefanyka Street), since 1978 — the exhibition hall of Lviv Picture Gallery (2 Mytna Square).
Solo exhibitions were quite rare, and the group displays were mostly dedicated to various ideological dates. Students were not invited to participate in such exhibitions, the works of young authors were accepted unwillingly. The content of such exhibitions was not very inspiring for young people. Young artists were unhappy about such rules and they dreamt of the private galleries, and also about the museum of contemporary art.
We had no idea we could arrange an exhibition hall. There was one friend of ours, the red-haired curly girl [Maria Shchur is implied], she said if she could she would make a small gallery. It was so funny. You can’t understand that humour. How come? There is a picture gallery, the Lenin Museum, how could it be possible for anyone to start their own gallery? Where? My husband would want to, he would say: and a small restaurant next to it. It sounded even more ridiculous. [1]
The Museum of Western European Art in the diptych of Kateryna Suevalova and Oleksandr Aksinin was possibly viewed as a place where you can see the recent trends and ideas.
With restricted possibilities to publicly exhibit their creative experiments, artists partially compensated for this energy and the need to "be visible" in creating their environment, in discussions, and meeting other people.
"Nectar" café
The works by the "Aksinin circle" collected on the website show the everyday routines and relations of Lviv artists of the late 1970s and early 1980s, as the documentary photos. For example, the work by Natalia Kumanovska "Nectar" (11 Saksahanskoho Street) immediately hints at the elated winged art critic Maria Shchur. Other characters in the composition do not have the wings but seem to be floating in the air, with only one grounded element in the background – the train for Warsaw. The memories about the "Nectar" café keep emerging in the stories of its visitors. The menu was unpretentious: a coffee at 9 kopecks, cognac, sandwiches. The visitors in the place would stand at the high tables. The place had its audiences "rotating" during the day. Later, it was expanded. They opened several more rooms in the basement, where you could take a seat at the table, and the coffee grew in price by 2 kopecks.
Nataliya Kumanovska. "Nectar" café: О. Aksinin and H. Buryakovska riding on Mariya Schur, Kumanovskis (with umbrella); below — О. Burdash, О. Zvir and his Muse, T. Bilinska-Siper (with cross).
They would often come for a coffee with the new works: some friends or their friends could buy the graphic art of small formats for a rouble or two, or three, for how much they could. If a potential buyer wished to buy several pieces, they made an appointment in a certain place, and the profit could be bigger, such as 20 to 30 roubles.
"They went there to learn: who? where? What’s new? To who? First of all, you could see everyone. Secondly, some people would move to another place. Thirdly, there could be a gathering, and an exhibition planned, for example, in an apartment. Fourthly, you could learn some city rumours, everyone’s human. We talked about concerts, about films. No one had a mobile phone, not everyone had a landline at home, either. In any case, when they had the Paradzhanov’s "The Color of the Pomegranate" on in the House of Officers, the entire Lviv showed up there. Who? Wherefrom? How? Those were the "coffee times" and the "word of mouth" — Kateryna Suevalova describes the relations of the intellectual circle. [1]
Nataliya Kumanovska. Promenade at Akademichna str. From left to right: Eva Khomytska, N. Kumanovska, О. Zvir, М. Kumanovskyi, О. Burdash.
Even though meetings were frequent, everyone would thoroughly prepare for them. Both men and women liked the popular hippie image, as they imagined it in Lviv from the black-and-white replicas and descriptions in magazines. They embroidered the flowers on the T-shirts, they wore necklaces made of ashberry (it required the ongoing care and update, as the berries lost their color and freshness), jeans, long skirts. Even the road to this place — "The Promenade along the Akademichna" – depicted in the friendly caricature by Natalia Kumanovska, points out the brightness of the circle.
There was a tradition "to have it large" (lit. – to walk a goat) – to visit several places in one night and to look for adventures and for another drink. The research into the works of the 1970-80s can help make a map of relocations of the art community and try to reconstruct the "City of Artists" which Lviv was for the artists of the times.
For example, the work by Kateryna Suyevalova "A coffee Place at Zhovtneva Street" (Doroshenka Street after 1992) is documentary, to a certain degree.
Most of the depicted characters are imaginary, stylized, and even fictional, but the lady working in the café and cleaning the tables is real. She was only tall enough to reach the table height so that she was not able to see the content of the cups. That is why whenever she approached, the visitors would quickly grab their cups so that the cleaning lady did not collect the unfinished drink, or dip her fingers in it.
The community had their own language, many places were given alternative names. The "Pid Levom" (lit. – Under the Lion) coffee place (20 Rynok Square) was called the "Stoylo" (lit. – The Stable) because you had to be standing there, too. There was a doorkeeper at this place, and he would not let people into the full room. But you could always place a note to the glass door and make an agreement.
In 1979, the "Virmenka" coffee place opened (19 Virmenska Street), and some art audiences started navigating between the "Nectar" and the Virmenska Street. It also gave birth to the peculiar community. "Virmenka" became a place for younger audiences, as there was a study building of the Academy of Arts (23 Virmenska Street).
Ms. Larysa and Ms. Nadia, the café workers, knew all the students. The coffee place was famous for its tasty cakes, such as the Prague cake. It was also a place for Lviv hippies with long hair who immediately found jobs here: Alik Olisevych was a sitter. On the other hand, "Nectar" was a place for more mature artists. However, the tradition of having a coffee as a community formation engine continued.
Zoryana Harbar. Coffee dialogue, 1987
Important elements of the community making were the alternative "exhibition" spaces in private studios or private apartments. Such exhibitions were taking place in the apartment where Oleksandr Aksinin used to live (13 Kolessy Street), and in the studio of Henrietta Levytska (Lepkoho Street). At the exhibition at Levytska’s place, they invented and started the Day of Graphic Art — on December, 22.
The symbolic meaning of the date can be traced, too. In fact, it is the shortest day of the year (while the day belongs to the "official’ job), and the longest night (to be enjoyed among friends).
They also came together in the room of Kateryna Suevalova in the dormitory located far from the city center. You had to walk from the tram depot at Kopernika street or take a taxi, at 30 kopecks. The room was located on the ground floor, at the end of a long corridor, and with a low window – so, visitors found it more convenient to enter or exit through the window. People would get together here to finalize the last diploma pages, to celebrate things, to listen to the vinyl records. They also held exhibitions there, but usually stayed within the central part of the city.
At Iryna Soboleva’s place, they did not hold exhibitions for lack of space, but they would frequently visit. The artist was older than the members of the "Aksinin circle" but she was still called Irisha (courtesy of Oleksandr).
Iryna often invited to go up the spiral stairs to her studio which windows looked out to the Bernardin courtyard. From the Bernardin church, a saint with lilies in his hands was peeping into the window, whom the artist called Vania Bernardyn.
Iryna had a book that she herself called the "Lawn" – visited left there the drawing and the signature. Iryna Soboleva was a mature artist, she had many friends from all over the Soviet Union, so there were quite many prominent signatures in the "Lawn."
One can contemplate the relations of the artist and the place, as the feeling of one's belonging thereto when looking at the self-portrait in the Bernardin courtyard.
Iryna Soboleva. Self-portrait.
Movements of artists within the unofficial exhibition spaces and between the places of creative communities, "walking the goat," and the dynamics of movement can be traced in the graphic art pieces.
In the series of lino prints by Iryna Soboleva, a protagonist is an old city itself – architectural landmarks recorded without people or excessive details.
The Lviv panorama in the graphic art piece of Henrietta Levytska is a peculiar decoration serving as a background for the action.
Henrietta Levytska. ІСОМ Sessions, 1987
The 1980s and the "Perestroika"
The "official" or regulated art of the "developed socialism" represented by socialist realism was no monolith. It can be illustrated by the catalogue of the 1980 exhibition — "Exhibition of Works by Artists from Western Regions of Ukraine Dedicated to the 40th Anniversary of the Reunion of the Ukrainian People." [2] There is a catalogue from the exhibition preserved. The exhibition topic is a sort of oxymoron since the reunion implies the exhibition of works by authors from the west and east. Otherwise, a project representing the Western Ukrainian art could be exhibited somewhere in the East, or Central Ukraine, and treated as an action, as a sign of reunion. The list of participants includes a notable item – for Maria Dolnytska, an enamellist, who had lived almost all of her life abroad, in the emigration, and who was not alive at the time of the exhibition.
Another interesting participant was Margit Reich — a member of the "Artes" avant-garde group active in the interwar Lviv. With her husband, Roman Selskyi, they led a rather isolated lifestyle. They stayed in the "internal emigration." When government officials were imposing certain kinds of art "understandable to the people," the trend that Margit worked in, as raised in the tradition of European Modernism, went beyond the set limits. Her attempt to understand the "socrealism" gave rise to funny stories: during the trip to Kotovsk in the Odesa region, Margit was drawing the landscapes and kept asking: "Is it the socialist realism yet?" [3; 17].
We can also see some young participants among the renowned authors, such as Kateryna Suevalova. She participated as a member of the youth section of the Union of Artists. Not everyone was rushing to join the Union but they accepted the proposal, if any. The works of Henrietta Levytska have not been accepted for some time due to the conflict with the Union, wherefrom she was even expelled, but resumed in 1998.
The Moscow situation described by Illya Kabakov about those times is also relatable to what was happening in Lviv. [4] It goes about the cult of omniscience and inquisitiveness (long discussion "at a coffee," making appointments near the bookstores), a large amount of free time, the need for support ("here, we can add the incredible desire to communicate, and the joy from the time spent together"), knowledge about the West (hippie, collecting the music records, the black market under the counter trading was flourishing in Lviv), apolitical or a-social attitudes, the tradition to offer presents or present send over graphic art pieces of the small format. In addition, there was emigration that changed demographic parameters of the "city of artists" (Svitlana and Ihor Kopystianski, Misha Steinberg, Olha Shamray, Natalka Hurska, Iryna and Platon Silvestrov). Sometime after finishing the studies, artists returned to the native city: Olena Burdash and Natalka Kumanovska to Lutsk, Nadia Ponomarenko to Uzhgorod. It shall also be noted that women traditionally had to take care of children, or sick relatives, which would not infrequently terminate the art career.
The situation started changing with the start of "perestroika" (1986-1991). During this time, Lviv sees a new type of art action — "vernissages in the Bernardine’s" (started functioning since 1987). It was a new way to show your works and a new place for creative communities to socialize. The vernissages also engaged renowned artists, such as Bohdan Soroka, and students, alike. Zoriana Harbar recalls how she brought her posters when still a graduate student.
A prominent "perestroika" event in the city of artists was the exhibition "Invitation for Discussion" running in the then Museum of Photography (a section of the Museum of Ukrainian Fine Art), hosted in the building of the Church of the Saint Mary of the Snows at the time (2 Snizhna Street).
Church of the Saint Mary of the Snows, where the exhibition "Invitation for Discussion" took place in 1987
"A professor at the Lviv Institute of Arts and Crafts Yuriy Sokolov, according to the "Lvovskaya Pravda" newspaper, claimed it was "an opportunity for all artists who are not able to get through to the viewers to test themselves "for evaluation." [5] The key message of the remark is not in hinting at the competitive element, but highlighting a certain category or group of artists who "are not able to get through to the viewers."
A key idea was to show what had not been displayed before. After all, those were still Soviet times. And it shall be mentioned that the exhibition turned out rather diverse, with about a hundred participants. [6]
At the moment of organizing the exhibition, Yuriy Sokolov was a professor at the Department of Interior Design. In addition to the call in the newspaper, he also personally invited young artists to participate, as he had seen their student works. Zoriana Hrabar recalls that Yuriy Sokolov had seen her collages and photographs in the student dormitory where he would be invited with his colleagues from the Department of Interior and Furniture Design, Anatoliy Konsulov. The young generation was inspired to experiment by the Polish magazines Sztuka and Projekt. In the library, they could also view the Domus magazine of architecture and design.
The 1987 exhibition included works by 112 participants, with a certain gender imbalance — as little as 26 men took part. At the same time, there was also room for children’s works (Viktoria Valdemarova (1976) Miki; Concentration camp; Still life — 11 y.o. They also exhibited the childhood paintings by Sylvestrov and Kara-Vasiliev (1973 — 15 y.o.) — children’s drawings, 6 pc). Despite the many participants, the exhibition did not present any cross-section of the contemporary artistic situation. After all, most participants were from 22 to 27 years old. Yuriy Sokolov must have been using his own criteria to select the exhibits. For example, he did not distinguish between the participant’s age or gender. Moreover, the fact that he included children’s paintings into the display could be interpreted as a peculiar curator’s statement: the childlike immature contemporary art; childish simplicity and playfulness as common features of the contemporary art process. The selection of the works displayed does not seem to be random, either. There are grounds to believe certain eligibility criteria had been used. The fact that students had been engaged implies the curator wished to represent a certain group of artists, he had a subjective view of the Lviv art process of the times.
The pictorial art found the broadest representation at the exhibition. But it also contained graphic art, sculpture, photography, and even posters. The works made in different genres and methods were densely displayed. The opening of the exhibition also included performance actions: some participants would lie down on the stairs, and viewers had to step over the performers to get into the exhibition rooms. Instead of the traditional ribbon-cutting, Yuriy Sokolov was cut the red board with the saw. The possibility of physical interaction with viewers was visual for the art process participants. The events have never been reflected upon, thus, they have never been presented as performances. Local media described that the exhibition provoked very different feedback. It was called both a "gulp of fresh air" or a "trash in the temple." Renovators, art critics, professors, artists, and other visitors to the exhibition assessed the very fact of it happening as the definite "finally". [7]
In the late 1980s, Lviv started having the first private galleries. In 1988, a post-graduate student of the Institute of the Veterinary medicine Heorhiy Kosovan opened the first such gallery named "Three dots" (46 Ivana Franka Street). The first exhibition presented the pastel drawings and collages by Alla Yevdokymenko ("88). It also hosted solo exhibitions of Halyna Zhehulska ("89), and Olena Turianska ("91).
The "Three Dots" gallery opened to the viewers the available underground art and presented a new generation of artists, regardless of the aesthetic trend of their works. [8]
The established tradition of private apartment exhibitions continued — Yuriy Sokolov’s private gallery "The Red Chimneys" (24 Yefremova Street), located in the building where he lived, actually functioned within that tradition.
The period is also characterized by the mix of the "official" and the "unofficial" art. "Creative intensity that had to stay in the underground before did finally explode into numerous private initiatives." [8] in addition to private galleries, some associations emerged, an alternative to the state Union of Artists. The artists entered the new decade bursting with hope. Newspapers started having headlines such as "prices are jumping like rabbits" or "prices are jumping as high as the high jump athletes" but despite the depressive economic recession it was the time for big hopes. The facts of stealing artworks from museums and their interception at the borders drew an image of the notorious "wild nineties" but also shaped the awareness that there was an art market on the other side of the border, that played by its own rules, unfamiliar in our space. The intense change required rapid response from all art actors, but not everyone managed to integrate or to adjust to the new conditions. Fewer than all have been welcome in the future.
Sources:
- Розмова Катерини Суєвалової та Олександри Кущенко; 17 серпня 2019; Центр міської історії Центрально-східної Європи
- Каталог: Выставка произведений художников Западних областей Украины, посвященная 40-летию воссоединения украинского народа. Каталог. - Советский художник - Москва - 1980. 62 с + илюстрации
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- "Эти странные семидесятые, или Потеря невинности". Эссе, интервью, воспоминания. Сост. Г. Кизевальтер. — М.: Новое литературное обозрение, 2010.
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- Лук'янець В. Де кураторство / В. Лук’янець, К. Носко. — Харків: IST Publishing, 2017. – 256 с.
- Вдовиченко Г. Приглашение к дискуссии. Львовская правда. 15 июля 1987
- Вишеславський Г. Нові ініціативи у художньому житті Львова наприкінці ХХ століття / Гліб Вишеславський // Fine Art. — 2008. — № 2. — С. 42–45.
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