They say that apostles Peter, Paul, and Lucas, together with the first followers of Christianity in the ancient Rome, were the original non-conformist artist. Odessa modernist artists borrowed their flawless artistic ethics from the first Christians. The forerunners of non-conformists in Odessa were the artists of the Kostandi Fellowship in the 1920s; in their hearts, they carried the belief in pure artistic form and color – artistic purity which, due to class prejudice, was emphatically rejected by dogmatic pagans from the triumphant atheist camp of the modern-age Nero. There was also the Fellowship of Independent Artists, the founding of which was surrounded by controversy – the only way to get an idea of what some of its members’ art was like would be to check the few remaining paintings from the former Peremen collection, purchased at Sotheby’s by the Kyiv-based foundation «Ukrainian Avant-garde» in the spring of 2010. Thus, we can express the conviction that Odessa non-conformists were born out of the nest of protest against dogmatic themes and subjects imposed on them by Socialist Realist pagans.
Following in the footsteps of dogmatic, KGB-brainwashed Moscow and Kyiv, pagan Communist Odessa loathed, scorned, and humiliated non-conformist artists, quoting apocryphal adages of the universe’s largest corn enthusiast and other Communist bonzes whenever opportunity arose… or didn’t.
As we know, pagans crucified Sokolov, the first missionary of free artistic thought, on the cross of insatiable pagan criticism, refusing him the right to free life beyond the bars. Ever hungry for sacrificial Christian blood, pagan criticism, based on «formative antagonism» (according to philosopher S. Krymsky), definitely bore in mind that it was, first and foremost, defending the monadic repressive regime and own denominational/party interests; the alien – therefore, enemy – artistic communication field was categorically and emphatically pronounced «formalistic», «bourgeois», and even, which was yet more difficult to appeal, «nationalist bourgeois».
Yet the young Sych and Khrushchyck weren’t scared by the punitive sword of the modern age pagans: their plot exhibition wedged itself into the lines of official Soviet special task force, between the red slogans with international content and hammer-sickle flags. In the very heart of Odessa, two systems collided: one, freedom-loving; the other, aggressively inhuman. «How dare they!» – screamed every telegraph pole across great distances, from Prymorsky Boulevard in Odessa, to Volodymyrska street in Kyiv, to the ruby-starred towers of Kremlin.
Historical memory conveys the visions of underground art events: the «plot exhibition» and numerous apartment exhibitions in Odessa; the «bulldozer exhibition» in Moscow; a series of «suitcase exhibitions» in Warsaw; one-day events in Kharkiv, Vilnius, and Lviv. At those latest, our Christians in art only managed to hold them open for one day: next day, an official ordinance, prescribing punishment for insubmission, would officially deny them the right to continue exhibiting their works. From the distance, their history is a sacred narrative of hope, a testament to the artists’ silent resistance. The police openly tailing Strelnikov, one by one or in groups… torturing Sazonov… Sychov, Anufriyev and Tsiupko at the apartment exhibition at Asriev’s… Tsiupko and Naumets, sitting together mesmerized at the Odessa apartment exhibition in 1975… The halls of the Artists’ Union in 1971, during the preparations for the first unofficial group exhibition featuring works by Marynyuk. In their conscience, underground artists never moved an inch towards compromise. This is how the boundless field of Odessa modernism was being reborn, like it did so many times before throughout the 20th century!
Through their self-restraint, persistence, fellowship and, most importantly, spirit, Odessa non-conformists have asserted their right to creative freedom and proven how valuable it really is. They were used to stick together, hold their heads high and not bend their backs to anyone. Convinced that their youthful passion and ability to fight for artistic freedom would sooner or later defeat «the other side», year after year they grew more confident in their right to transform faith in the need for its realization.
Nonconformism is the soul of Odessa modernism, the entrance to the very artistic sanctuary which, back in the day, made the proud Gauguin take off his hat when visiting Paris World’s Fair. You can’t say that Odessa modernists aren’t proud, even though it’s impossible to believe that, starting from the end of the 1960s, they never bowed their tufted heads each other in respect. Such is the Odessa brand of knighthood a la Pont-Aven, or the sacred history of Odessa non-conformist art in the ocean of world modernism and its upbeat conviction in its own importance in the general human process of creating valuable art. Isn’t that why the art collective «Mamay» came into being? The communalism of Odessa modernism is obvious. It has uncovered personal efficiency under the wing of pluralistic intentions to discover artistic truth. The tolerance underlying this process puts the vanishing point beyond the dimensions of past and future and in the dimension of concentrated, pivotal artistic ideal. In this sense, Odessa modernists, who launched the creative discourse through the perspective of the Platonic eidolon, remain faithful followers of the classical tradition in culture and art in the Black Sea region. One and the same identical, coincident slice of human artistic value: the Proto-Romantic Cretan Parisienne from Heraclion and the Neo-Romantic female heads painted by Odessa modernists, from Lyudmila Yastreb to the metaphorical synapses of Svetlana Yusim.
Basanets once said that «a charmed worldview changes your perception of the outside world – this is how images are born and become fixed in the mind. «This insight draws from his early works: «Portrait»; «Those Who Walk Towards Us»; «Girl With a Necklace»; «Sleep». Through time, it resonates with Tsiupko’s «Flight of an Arrow», «Noon», «4 Fields». The same insight applies to Savchenko’s interplay of word and image, his enigmatic colorful puzzles. It holds true for Marynyuk’s «Feast of the Virgin Mary» – his artistic vision of the Madonna Eleusa icon, as well as for his color-rich «Couple», «Girl With Ribbons», «Journey…». In the kingdom of Naumets, «everything is part of a game… a game is a journey, it brings meaning and purpose… fulfills a spiritual need… otherwise, it wouldn’t exist». Could it be hidden in the spires of the Cologne Cathedral? Inside a train bearing a chimeric title «Conflict With Language?» Naumets’s signs… Stovbur’s signs, with his gut feeling for the whitest white and the blackest black… Signs of Strelnikov, a Munich-Odessa Agasthenes who created a tune of non-figurative, two-dimensional emblems, fascinating in their colorful muteness… signs of the late Kovalenko and the philosopher de Sade… signs of the late Stepanov and Bozhko… reminiscent of that feeling you have when reading Skovoroda’s «Garden of Divine Songs»: silence, sanctity, deliberation.
Casting a calmly interested look back at the journey made by Odessa modernists, from its starting point to the high spot where they are today, we shouldn’t ignore the neo-Romantic tint in their creations, despite the richness of their artistic intentions and paths traveled by this generally monolithic process, founded on the stout backbone of classical culture.
What’s remarkable is the historic destiny, panoramic borders and varied vocabulary of Odessa modernism which, emerging through this particular artistic community, has foreseen the grandeur of the individual attainments in their future, the doors to which were sketched back then as Plato’s eidolon. I recall Yuri Kovalenko confessing to me in Loza’s workshop: «Painting moves me endlessly…» and thinking I was hearing young Émile Bernard or the eldest among them, Paul Gauguin…
In Mahayana Buddhism, endless numbers of Buddhas exist on the pathways of the endless time. In the same fashion, for neo-Romantics in Odessa, there is an infinite number of pathways towards the knowledge of perfection. Every author has a right, a possibility, a moment of choice, and every one has a place for antagonizing rules of the individual «artistic game», for the «pro» and the «contra», a place for the factor that makes it possible for something to happen on a certain date, with a certain speed (to quote J.-P. Sartre.) In my understanding, the maximalist qualities of Odessa modernism were raised on the rich milk of underground tradition and local artistic legacy, bound by mutual obligations and personal disposition, considering the priorities of the developing movement (in this case, the Odessa school of modern painting.) We often speak of the maximalism of Kyiv, Kharkiv or Transcarpathian schools of modern painting, mentioning their self-sufficiency and valuability, as well as the fact that each of them is oriented towards the European cultural values while stemming from local traditions and unique territorial traits. The Odessa version of metropolitan modernism is original and unique, avant-garde by its very nature just like the «Parisienne» of the Creto-Mycaean meta-past is related to the spirit of avant-garde, non-conformist art of the 1970s and, as likely as not, remains congenial to the spirit of modernity to this very day. Odessa modernism has a flavor of the Black Sea, just as Kyiv modernism is tinged by the Dnieper, and Transcarpathian modernism, by the valleys and hilltops of its native region.
If we indulge ourselves in recounting names, we can quickly drift to the banal listing of talented people, yet I’m not afraid of banality – these are people who I hold dear, my close and personal friends, long-time companions in the creation of potential modern art. My friends and acquaintances, whether alive or on the other side, you will always remain close to me. Allow me to offer you a handshake and a hug, to assure you that I still share your joys and sorrows – L. Yastreb, A. Anufriyev, V. Basanets, I. Bozhko, V. Goncharov, V. Ignatiev, Yu. Kovalenko, E. Pavlov, V. Naumets, A. Stovbur, Ye. Rakhmanin, S. Savchenko, V. Sad, N. Stepanov, V. Strelnikov, S. Sychov, V. Marynyuk, N. Morozov, V. Filipenko, V. Khrushch, V. Tsiupko, S. Yusim, V. Kabachenko. Stars in the infinity of the Odessa sky and in the blueness of its sea...
Odessa modernists have emancipated the right of creative obligation and search for artistic choice. In the era of enthusiasm for symbolist art, back when modernism was barely out of its cradle, the young Kandinsky confessed: «Once again, I have tip my hat to Boecklin» (Arnold Boecklin ruled the art scene of the late 19th–early 20th century.) Once again, I can repeat the words that Gauguin told himself at the same occasion, and this time I’ll allow myself the liberty to address them to Odessa modernists: «Hello, dear Odessans! Today, I tip my hat to you – your passionate contribution to the art of painting has been noteworthy, deserving wildly effusive praise…».
I’m looking right now at «Ragtime» (1997) by talented Odessa artist, Svetlana Yusim. In this abstract painting, color red moves «within the boundaries of the possible» (to quote V. Kandinsky, who adds with gravity: «also, more fairytale-like»); meaning that the chosen color takes over the tune of the gray, providing, as Nadya Podzemska once wrote, «a color counterpoint» or, in the case of our «Ragtime», «basso generate counterpoint» through the intervals of enigmatic signs, whether they originate from Mayan cosmology, Polinesian context or Alaskan Inuit tradition – you choose. What are those sigmas of the immense sums of microsphere, signalling restlessly of the quality product of gray in the lacy pattern of hues, all the while wrapping the bare threads of receptors plugged into the deep meaning of the micro in red? Do they hail back to the age of Cimmeria, to Sarmathians who colored the gray vastness of the steppes with the red glow of boundless fires? The plane where a vertical line moves to a syncopated tune of the «Ragtime?» Red bass line, its essence rocking back and forth, corresponding to our vision of super-real through our micro-experience of the real – such is the musical staff for the emotional behavior of the Other (or the past, the present, the future, happening simultaneously), a warbled note of Armstrong’s saxophone carried off by the wind…
As we admire the deviations of composition and color in the works of Odessa modernists, determined by the deficient «normal» behavior exhibited by the subscribers of minimal artistic tradition, we feel proud for the transcendental experience of the Odessa artists, allowing us a glimpse of the horizons of perfection they have been trying to reach. Modernists of Odessa paint to share the new levels of knowledge, the lands we haven’t yet explored. How enticingly fascinating they are in the creations of their subconsious choice! How accessible for interpretation in borderline cases of «never was – will be!»