Organizer of the "Bulldozer Exhibition", who was expelled from Russia for 30 years: Oscar Rabin

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The history of Russian painting during its existence has gone through different times, including not the best ones. There are also many pages in it that have made fundamental changes in the course of its events and have radically turned the idea of contemporary art upside down. Recall at least the legendary "Bulldozer Exhibition" of non-conformists in 1974 in the Moscow region, one of the organizers of which was an outstanding expressionist and avant-garde artist Oscar Rabin … It was for this underground activity that the informal artist was forcibly expelled from the country and deprived of Russian citizenship for many years.

Bulldozer Exhibition

The unauthorized exhibition of works by unofficial Soviet artists, dispersed within a few minutes with the help of bulldozers, watering machines and people in civilian clothes, received a huge response, thanks to foreign journalists invited to the action in advance. This dispersal gave rise to publications in the Western press that were unpleasant for the Soviet government, and the exhibition itself began to be considered a turning point in the history of Russian unofficial art. It was on that day that it was able to declare its existence and the right to life.

Thus, the artists of the new formation, who were not understood in their Fatherland, who were called the 60s, gained recognition in the West in the late 70s, and the Bulldozer Exhibition itself became an epoch-making and legendary event in the history of avant-garde painting in Russia.

You can read more about this event in the article: "Bulldozer Art": Truth and Myths about the Nonconformist Exhibition, which lasted no more than a minute.

On that autumn day, only one and a half thousand people were able to visit the exhibition, but it allowed further exhibitions of informal artists and was of great importance for Russian contemporary art. After it, they did not even try to disperse the exhibitions with bulldozers.

Stumbling block

But, on that very day - September 15, 1974, on a vacant lot in the Moscow region of Belyaevo for many, this event ended in tears - some artists were arrested, almost all paintings were destroyed, the activists were taken on a pencil by law enforcement agencies, and the audience was dispersed by pouring ice water from irrigation machines. The organizer of the unauthorized event himself, Oscar Rabin, was placed under house arrest.

However, the news of the lawlessness of the Soviet authorities instantly leaked outside the union, and in order to avoid a scandal, the artists who took part in the unauthorized exhibition were dispersed to their homes. And, surprisingly, in an instant, all up to that time forbidden Western directions of painting: abstractionism, expressionism, avant-gardism - were suddenly recognized in the Soviet Union … True, only on paper … In fact, the informals were still heavily pressured.

Point of no return

But be that as it may, underground artists began to be admitted to the Union of Artists, allowed to exhibit. But on Oskar Yakovlevich, as the main organizer of the avant-garde movement in Russia, on the contrary, the pressure increased.

So, several years after the dispersal of the "bulldozer exhibition", Rabin was remembered by literally everything - and the expulsion from the institute "for formalism", and the personal exhibition of works in London, and the sale of paintings abroad … He began to be accused of parasitism, the press loudly criticized the informal for denigrating Soviet reality, for the depressiveness of his works, as well as for the propaganda of Western ideology in art. In January 1977, after presenting all of the above charges, he was placed under house arrest.

This all became a stumbling block, because of which the artist was literally forced with his family to emigrate from the Soviet Union to France in 1978. And after a year, Rabin was completely deprived of Soviet citizenship. Thus, the Soviet authorities cut off all opportunities for an objectionable rebel to return to their homeland …

And this is how it all began once

Oscar Rabin was born in Moscow in 1928 into a family of doctors. As a 5-year-old boy, he was left without a father, and at 13 - without a mother. A gifted teenager becomes a student of the painter Yevgeny Leonidovich Kropivnitsky, and soon a student of the Riga Academy of Arts, where he became interested in the romantic manner in painting. And two years later, the young man will move to Moscow at the Surikov Institute and radically change his view of art, carried away by the avant-garde. In view of what, in less than a year, Oscar will be expelled from the university "for formalism."

And the aspiring artist will return to his first mentor and begin to work on his avant-garde painting, and at the same time earn his living, unloading railway cars, working as a foreman at a construction site, and then decorating as an artist VDNKh. In 1950, Oscar falls in love and marries the artist Valya Kropivnitskaya, the daughter of his teacher, Yevgeny Leonidovich. This woman will worthily walk a long life path with the artist, sharing both sorrow and joy with him.

In the late 50s, Oscar, together with E. L. Kropivnitsky, created the famous Lianozovo group, which included representatives of non-conformism. Thus, having become at the very source of a new trend, which began to develop rapidly during the “Khrushchev thaw,” Rabin chose to fight for free self-expression. His sharp rebellious spirit did not fit into the generally accepted canons of socialist realism, with which he could not come to terms.

His work - very personal and very allegorical - reflected the reverse side of the Soviet glossy reality, its seamy side, namely the life of ordinary people in barracks and on the Moscow outskirts. And as Oskar Yakovlevich himself characterized his work in those years: This was the whole philosophy of his creations.

By the way, the "Lianozovskaya group" in those years gathered in a barrack, which for seven years was practically the center of the capital's cultural life. In the mid-60s, during the notorious "Khrushchev Thaw", Oscar Rabin was fortunate enough to show his works to a foreign public for the first time. This landmark event for the dissident artist took place in London, at an exhibition entitled Aspects of Contemporary Soviet Art. So during the year on this channel the painter presented about 70 of his canvases to foreign audiences for the "iron curtain". Of course, they did not return back to the union, but were snapped up by European collectors.

A unique style that reflects reality

Having forcibly emigrated to Paris in 1978 and freed himself from the yoke of socialist realism, the artist continued to paint for some time, depicting on them the harsh truth of the life of Soviet realities, which left a deep imprint on his soul. The works of the dissident artist, distinguished by their laconicism, meager colors with a predominance of heavy and dark colors, were an extraordinary vision of reality, moreover, not only Soviet, but also French.

As you probably noticed, the stylistics of the artist's works have not changed, but the objects have changed fundamentally: the Eiffel Tower and barges on the Seine have replaced the barracks of the Moscow region and old churches. It was in France that Oscar Yakovlevich found a new breath, freedom in his activities and world recognition.

Regarding the uniqueness in the choice of the genre, experts unanimously argue that the work of Oscar Rabin can be described as "still life and landscape within one canvas." It is in him that he is recognizable, style and author's handwriting, his philosophical approach to life.

The artist in his creations closely intertwined many pictorial techniques and genres, using the techniques of collage and assemblage. And what is noteworthy, he often emphasized the drama of the canvases with various inscriptions, scraps of press and documents, which carry the main semantic load of his works.

And, despite the fact that painting, which became the second life of Oskar Rabin, realistically reflected the distant era of the 60s of Soviet reality, it has not lost its relevance to this day. The uniqueness of the stylistic approach and unusual perception of the world significantly distinguished the artist among the many non-conformists of the sixties of the last century. Therefore, in Russia, Oskar Rabin is considered one of the most influential painters of the post-war Soviet avant-garde. Today, his creations are kept in the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, and they are also included in the collection of the Center Pompidou in Paris and, of course, in the collections of private collectors.

Return of Russian citizenship to the dissident artist

For your information, in 1990, by decree of the President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Russian citizenship of Oskar Yakovlevich was restored. But only in 2006, having received a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation, the artist repeatedly came to Moscow, bringing his works to exhibitions. By the way, Oscar Rabin was awarded the title of Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Arts, and in 2013 he was awarded the Order for Service to Art.

The last refuge and eternal peace was granted to the artist by Paris nevertheless - at the Pere Lachaise cemetery on November 15, 2018.

Continuing the topic of informal artists, read: Forbidden canvases of the best illustrator of the children's magazine "Vesyolye Kartinki": How an artist Pivovarov combined the incompatible.