By Sergey Kovalskiy

dedicated to the 25th anniversary
of the biggest apartment exhibition «In Bronnitskaya»,
which was organized by the artists-nonconformists of Leningrad
(for the installation of an apartment exhibition
«The Space of Freedom: Apartment Exhibitions in Leningrad: 1965-1984″,
University of Richmond, USA)

When people feel bad
they gather together…

A hole, a cave, a house, or an apartment are examples of man’s habitats which he can establish and own. Accordingly, he can use them as he wishes, hidden from the eyes of evil-wishers. One’s lodgings must be private property, and the right and freedom to use them as one wishes must be sacred.

In Soviet Russia in the second half of the twentieth century, «unofficial» artists decided to use this right to paint and to show their paintings in their own apartments. They were not officially recognized as artists because they refused to adhere to the government ideology in art and as a result they were deprived of leading the normal lives professional artists are used to. They were not affiliated with the Artists Union, and lacked the right to have their own studios or to exhibit their paintings publicly, and so were unable to earn a living from their profession. Their names were put on so-called «black-lists» which were kept by a special KGB department dealing with ideologically subversive activities. Thus, an exhibition in one’s home was considered to be a subversive activity, and an «unofficial» artist referred to a subversive member of society, even though it was the authorities that had made him so. Independent artists could not agree with this.

The degree to which they disagreed was determined by their need to insist on their own opinions in the face of official doctrines. This, precisely, is nonconformism, the main principle of which is to establish the absolute value of a human being.

The need for this was so great that the actions of artists, who in their daily lives were as a rule, not social activists, became such in protest against unacceptable life circumstances. A heightened sense of justice prompted these activities, such as the organization of apartment exhibitions, outdoor happenings and events, artistic protests in public places, and the direct reflection of injustice in their art.

Adherence to principles of nonconformism defines the social temperament of a person. The conceptual demonstration organized by Yuly Rybakov and Oleg Volkov during the night of August 2 to August 3, 1976 can be seen as an example of this. The artists wrote graffiti on the walls of Sts. Peter and Paul Fortress. They were protesting a ban on exhibitions near the fortress, and in memory of Leningrad nonconformist leader Evgeny Ruhin who perished in a fire in his apartment. The KGB was suspected of arson and considered responsible for Ruhin’s death. Rybakov and Volkov wrote: «You crucify freedom, but freedom knows no boundaries.» The letters were one and a half meters in height and easily visible to everyone on the opposite bank of the Neva; the artists were imprisoned for six and seven years, respectively.

However, while they did unite unofficial artists, one cannot say that the apartment exhibitions held between 1950-1980 – a difficult period for Russian culture – were conceived as acts of protest. In their own right, they did become acts of civil disobedience against an authoritarian system that suppressed work of individual creativity. The very existence of nonconformist art as a phenomenon was evidence that culture was still alive.

Of course, not everyone is born to be a nonconformist. One famous Petersburg artist said: «Wherever nature leads me I should go …» It is difficult to disagree with that. However, Soviet ideology was so short-sighted that by preventing people from responding to their true nature, it made dissidents out of obedient people. Nature, especially one’s creative nature, demands the absolute independence of the artistic personality.

Nonconformist art appeared in contrast to Socialist Realism, the latter having been ordered by Soviet ideologists. They did not understand the Russian avant-garde which had supported the fledgling revolutionaries for some time by creating a progressive image of Soviet Russia. They were afraid of what they didn’t understand, so they turned to the more serene style of the «Peredvizhniki.» These were Russian painters at the end of the nineteenth century who realistically portrayed the patriarchal landowner way of life. In addition to this, they were not recognized by the Petersburg Arts Academy patronized by the Tsar, His Sovereign Majesty of All Russia, who was subsequently shot by the Bolsheviks. The Peredvizhniki movement, therefore, suited the builders of socialism.

Nevertheless, for the nonconformists of the 1950s-1980s, the development of creative thought was, as earlier in its history, connected with trends native to Russian art. The avant-garde movements such as Suprematism and Cosmism in the early twentieth century were based on an understanding of the sacredness of art.

Before 1924 (prior to the closing of the iron curtain between the Russia and the rest of the world), Russian vanguard art was able to find its niche amongst the diverse movements of Western art going on at the time. It added its own particular tone to the movements only to fall into a deep sleep for the following fifty years. Its renaissance began in the last quarter of the twentieth century, and was marked by the impetuous shows of «unofficial» painters in private apartments and at such famous exhibitions as the «Gaza» House of Culture and the Neva House of Culture and others between 1965-1986. The subsequent mass emigration of cultural leaders and artists to the West was the beginning of Russia’s return into the international art world. Russian art was also the guardian of traditions from the early twentieth century.

The development of other art trends that appeared under the influence of Western art of the twentieth century was reflected in the nonconformists search for new abstract, Neo-expressionist, Modernist, and Neoclassical styles. All of these trends were equally represented at apartment exhibitions, with the exception of Socialist Realism.

The series of exhibitions organized by writer Vadim Nechaev is of special interest, because he proclaimed his flat in Leningrad to be a Museum of Contemporary Art and himself as its director. One of these exhibitions coincided with the Venice Biennial of 1977, where Russian unofficial art had been presented for the first time outside of the USSR. Nechaev’s exhibition was supported by the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights and by Andrei Sakharov, prior to his exile. The authorities attempted to burn down the flat, and Nechaev and his family were forced to emigrate soon after.

Nonconformist art collector George Mikhailov also supported Nechaev’s «Biennial» exhibition. He had previously converted his apartment into a gallery where such exhibitions regularly took place, and had provided painters with free advertising. During the course of Nechaev’s exhibition, Mikhailov informed the Biennial organization committee in Venice as well as western reporters about the event via telephone. He was later imprisoned for his activities.

Valentin Maria Samarin, nicknamed «Til», was a photographer and chronicler of unofficial exhibitions. Samarin also suffered a complex fate. He also offered his apartment for the expansion of the Venice Biennial in Leningrad. As a result of his activities, his citizenship was revoked and he was expelled from the USSR.

«Unofficial» art was ignored by museums in Leningrad (in general there were no art galleries during the Soviet era), and found its fans and collectors among the scientific and technological intelligentsia. Dozens of collectors appeared and devoted their lives to their collections. From floor to ceiling the walls of their apartments were filled with paintings, sometimes in two or three rows where one painting covered another. Several collectors arranged exhibitions which were open to the public. Many such exhibitions were held in the apartments of I. and R. Loginovs, S. Sigitov and others.

Petersburg nonconformist art is a remarkable thing in itself. If one searches for analogies in art history, one might draw a comparison with the art of the ancient Greeks made a thousand years B. C.E., which can be understood only by devotees of it.

The smooth beauty of lines and harmoniously balanced forms contain religious symbols of a universe imagined by its creators, who were closely identified with nature. The mystery of perfect Hellenic art has attracted many generations. It has served either as a model for imitation or as a basis for contrast with other styles.

Just as one must understand the philosophy of the people to gain a sense of ancient Greek art, so one must also understand the unofficial artists to gain a sense of Petersburg’s nonconformism in the second half of the twentieth century. Like the Greeks, the nonconformist artists were creating all the basic laws to construct a new world, as if for the first time, leaving the game of discovery to the scientists.

It was the nonconformist painters who remained in the Motherland who imagined and created the world anew, a world governed by natural laws. It was a world with its own gods like the ancient Greeks: Kandinsky, Malevich, Cezanne, Dali, Dushan, Jasper Jons, Filonov, and Falk. Pablo Picasso undoubtedly played the role of Zeus. The two Picasso exhibitions in Leningrad’s Hermitage in 1956 and 1964 impressed painters with a freshness and novelty never before seen in the USSR.

These «gods» were known only from rare western albums which artists sometimes found in the rare bookstores called «Bukinist.» For example, the so-called «Golden» Dali album could only be looked at behind the counter if you were acquainted with the shop assistant, because it was banned. It was necessary to plan to see it. The rare works of Cezanne that appeared in the Hermitage after the Picasso show were poorly exhibited without the necessary lighting. It was impossible to appreciate the scale of the phenomenon in all of its depth. I remember how, many years later, I was able to visit a huge Cezanne exhibit in Washington, D.C. The marvelous display of both familiar and unfamiliar paintings greatly changed my opinion about the painter. It turned out that we were not mistaken in what we had imagined him to be. Cezanne was and still is a god!

Like the ancient Greeks, the nonconformists created the laws of their own worldview and constructed their own language, form and style. If they had imagined the earth flat with two suns revolving around it, they would not have been able to renounce their convictions, even if they were burned at the stake.

In time, nonconformist art may become as important to Russian culture as ancient Greek art has become to world culture.

Nonconformist art harbors deeply within the form of its own existence the paradoxical formula of love-hate. In order to experience the fullness of this paradox one must delve into Petersburg mythology. Apartment exhibitions and the dramatic stories of those who created them and became its main characters are a part of that mythology.

Speaking of the beginning of the apartment exhibitions, one must recall the first exhibition of the «INAKI» group in 1973, as well as the exhibitions organized during the following years leading up to the largest apartment exhibition «On Bronnitskaya Street,» which was held in St. Petersburg in 1981. That period was the peak of the apartment exhibitions.

One day my grandmother became ill, and one of the rooms in our apartment on Baskov Lane stood vacant for a long time. So there, three of us: Victor Bogorad, Boris Mitavsky, and I, decided to show our paintings to some friends and acquaintances. Bogorad said that even if only thirty people visited the exhibition, it would be great. To shake up the public, we chose the name «INAKI» and wrote a manifesto at the beginning of the guestbook. A phrase by Flaubert was used as the epigraph: «A fool is someone whose ideas are different from anyone else’s.» For a special touch, we chose pseudonyms like Brago-Mitavsky-Kalinovich, and invited visitors to the exhibit by telephone.

The eleven square meter room was hung with paintings and graphic arts from floor to ceiling. At first some of our friends came, then our friends’ friends came, and during the second month absolute strangers visited the exhibit.

The guests found it interesting to talk with us, and it was no accident that teachers, engineers, mathematicians, and psychologists came. Although it was the first time most of them had ever done such a thing, just as it was for us, they were all people who were not satisfied with the smorgasbord of Soviet culture. They were curious and critical, and sometimes during our conversations we discovered that our views on contemporary art were quite different. Yet we had much in common with mathematicians and physicists regarding the freedom in allowing this or that form of artistic expression and the degrees of variation.

Every spring I left the city to join the topographic expeditions working in remote parts of Russia. It was time for me to leave, but we could not close the exhibition because people continued to call and call. More than 120 people had already visited us. It was a great success! One day when I returned home I found a policeman in the hall of my apartment asking my mother something and writing it down.
«What’s the matter?» I asked.
«Well, you caused a hell of a mess here. People are coming endlessly to see you,» barked the policeman. I tried to explain that only my friends came to see the paintings. «Your neighbors have complained, and you must cease immediately,» he responded. Of course, I bristled, but in general, I did not understand the real reason then. My mother was upset and frightened. When Bogorad and Mitavsky came that evening we decided to close the exhibit. The last visitor came at about 10 p.m. and turned out to be a painter. He looked at our paintings for a long time and then said that he knew of one other apartment exhibition in the city. We were really surprised and interested, so, even though it was late at night, we traveled to another district. The owners of the apartment did not want us to let in because it was so late, but I pleaded with them. Thus, we saw paintings that were similar in spirit to ours by some painters we did not yet know: Ovchinnikov, Putilin, and Ross, who were the future «Gaza-Nevsky» painters.

Many years later it became obvious that our groups had been following different roads but our goal was the same. At some point our paths had to cross.

After I visited this exhibition I came back to my apartment very excited, but sad. In a couple of days I had to leave on an expedition. As I was departing I looked back, but my soul leapt forwards.

In the 1970s we were constantly occupied looking for jobs called 24/3′s (24 working hours and three days off) which gave us more time for our art. We also looked for a studio where we could paint, or an apartment where we could arrange an exhibition. If we saw an attic as we walked through the city, we automatically wondered whether it was empty or not. Noticing the dark windows of an apartment we wondered if the owners might be moving, and whether we might be able to hold an exhibition there. It seemed to me that the air in the city was being compressed into these city blocks, which made breathing difficult.

My soul was excited with the atmosphere of Woodstock, a thing I could hardly imagine as I listened to the «Voice of America» and the BBC. Jimi Hendrix burning guitar, Janis Joplin’s indecent voice, hippies, flower children…I felt a part of everything happening «THERE» – so far away!! A bit later, I was ecstatic to find underground rock groups in Leningrad such as the «Woods Brothers», «Argonauts», «St. Petersburg», and «Time Machine». I remember climbing up a drainpipe to the second floor of a House of Culture somewhere in the town of Pushkin to get into a concert of «Time Machine». When I managed to reach the hall I discovered that the concert had been shut down after the second verse of the first song in the program.

We «unofficial» painters and musicians, who lived outside the administrative controls sought an uncontrolled space where we could breathe freely, live free of endless paperwork and create our art. After spending several years working on expeditions, I had earned enough money to buy a cooperative apartment in a neighborhood called Piskarevskaya. My first idea was to transform the flat into an exhibition space. By that time the «INAKI» group had undergone certain changes. Bogorad had given up painting in oil and had begun to work in «cartoon» (graphic arts) professionally. He attracted the attention of different artists; this led to the organization of a club of caricaturists and cartoonists. During that time Alexander Lotsman and Natalia Balashova joined Boris Mitavsky and myself in our group.

The new two-room flat was filled with paintings and graphic arts. Only a few people visited us. We had agreed with George Mikhailov to advertise each other’s exhibitions. The people who visited Mikhailov’s exhibition came, sometimes accompanied by Mitavsky or Lotsman, from his apartment on Revolution Square to ours at Piskaryovskaya, or vice versa. The arrangement suited us all well, so we decided to organize a permanent exhibition open on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 18.00 to 22.00.

Visitors had to leave an hour before the noise ordinance took effect. After that hour the police didn’t have the right to enter private apartments.

By then I had realized it was impossible to combine an apartment exhibition, my professional painting, and my work on expeditions. Something had to be sacrificed, so I left my interesting and well-paid job in order to devote myself fully to the art which, in our circumstance, was inseparably connected with the social and, as one might surmise in Russia, political problems.

The music of the rock group Pink Floyd on their album «The Wall» was especially relevant to someone like me who did not want to flee from his native country, but who also did not want to continue to live there with the feeling of having his hands tied. We used to tell each other that the «INAKI» might be forced to emigrate, but only if they gave us an ultimatum: «Go to West or to prison in the North» (fortunately, that didn’t happen.)

The first serious doubts about the advantages of the Soviet political system arose during the «Czech events» of 1968. Our position was formed somewhere between the hawkish patriotic articles in the Soviet press and the radio reports broadcast by such «hostile radio voices» as «Voice of America,» «Radio Free Europe,» and the «BBC.» From the words of eyewitnesses who were as young as myself and served in the divisions of the Red Army that were sent to Czechoslovakia, their presence for the Czechs and the Slovaks seemed a strange way of demonstrating international friendship. Some of those soldiers of the most considerate Soviet Army were particularly not taught to think. If they had been ordered to shoot the population of a friendly country, they would have done it!

What really did it for me was a song that sounded like a requiem for freedom, sung by Martha Kubishina, the exiled Czech singer. The song was broadcast on all radio stations except Soviet ones and the emotions it conveyed were so strong and sincere that they made me believe in «the injustice of good» (as Yury Shevchuk of the rock group «DDT» later sang) which had been brought by the Soviet soldiers.

Later I discovered that, even earlier, similar events had happened in Hungary as well as other places in the USSR. These events and some other messes in the USSR were incomprehensible to me because of the complete lack of information.

Placing my ear directly on the loud speaker of my radio (a VEF-206), I listened through the crackles from the jamming to the wonderful stories of people who had managed to cross the Berlin Wall in different ways. For example, one man was carried in two small suitcases which seemed to be attached to each other, although it was in fact one long suitcase. Someone else managed to fly noiselessly over the wall during the night using a glider he had invented. People were looking for freedom, and either they got it or they died trying. It made me think. Thus, the music from «The Wall» I understood only as a call to overcome any walls that might prevent people from living freely. I could not know how many invisible walls all of us would have to overcome.

Rather soon I was attacked by the local community in my apartment on Piskarevskoye. In spite of meticulously following all the rules and closing the exhibition exactly at 22.00 to avoid disturbing anyone, and never having any noisy parties, I was visited by various housing commissions which were a kind of court whose judges were the very housewives who, according to Lenin, had to know how to run the government. They looked at the paintings on the walls and when I naively tried to involve them in art, they said: «You’re not doing anything here to make this a decent place to live. And this wild music… Once my neighbor told me that two men in civilian clothes called on me when I wasn’t at home, and left in a black Volga. It could have only been the KGB. I began to get depressed.

My depression deepened, but the exhibition continued.

Doctor Jazz saved me. I didn’t stop listening to Louie Armstrong’s famous «Bible» («Louis and the Good Book»; L. Armstrong, Decca – MCA – MCAD 1300, 1958-1980). «Down by the riverside…» I sang, looking through the window and waiting for something new to happen. Ella Fitzgerald would respond to me singing «Tenderly». «Sing, sing, sing –» in his pulsating swing Gene Krupa made my blood run faster. My friend Duke Ellington performed the second concert of spiritual music («Second Concert of Spirituals»; Duke Ellington, Prestige – PCD – 24045-2, 1968), and when he sang the word «freedom» in Russian, I began to realize that I wasn’t alone in my desire to change things with my own two hands.

I was working as an electrician in a semi-secure office on 24-hour shifts. During the day being at work was boring, but at night I was busy as hell. I needed to make some ads for our exhibition that could be distributed from hand to hand, something like a business card.

During my night shift I printed the coded text onto paper tape, then copied it back to front. At night during my two-hour break I put the paper into teletype devices that printed the code onto rolls of paper. In the morning I cut the paper into the right size and brought the invitations home. Later, when the Experimental Fine-Arts Association (EFAA) was formed, such technology was of great value for copying texts, since leaflets were impossible to print in English. For those who do not understand this process, I would like to add that in those days there were no Xerox machines, computers or any other kinds of copiers available to the general public. Such machines as «Era» and «REM» were located only in secret offices, and it was strictly forbidden to use them illegally. I knew a man who was imprisoned for three years for being in possession of a book by Solzhenitsyn that was copied in such a way. The person who printed it must have been imprisoned for a longer period.

The unification of the «unofficial» groups of painters from all generations was proceeding inevitability.

I remember an excited Mitavsky calling and saying: «Hey guys! We’ve been invited to an exhibition. We have to be there at 10.00.» We took our paintings and went to Zhelyabov Street. The exhibition was supposed to have taken place in Tolya Maslov’s apartment, but when we went up to the apartment the police were already there. They forbade the exhibition on the premise that only one room in the empty communal apartment belonged to Tolya and he was not allowed to use any of the others.

The painters slowly removed their works from the walls and went outside. Armen Avetisyan had the idea to display the paintings on the street benches as if we had failed to wrap them so people would be able to see them. And that’s what happened, people had a chance to see them. Then, after some time, some undercover agents began to sit down near us on the benches as if they were strangers. They pretended not to be looking at us but it was obvious that they were listening carefully to our conversations. We were afraid of any provocation on their part, so in order to protect ourselves Volodya Ovchinnikov went to call his acquaintances in the American Consulate. His call was probably listened to by the party officials. Thirty or forty minutes later the consulate’s car and another car of Americans could be seen moving slowly along the boulevard from Nevsky Prospect. They were closely followed by a black Volga from which a KGB officer was filming our «stand» through an open window. The procession passed by without stopping. We were entertained by the «film plot», so we began to wave to the passing cars. Only there were no flags, neither American nor Soviet. However, the culmination of this story for me and Boris happened a little bit later. When it got colder, everyone left.

Mitavsky and I turned off of Zhelyabov Street and ran into a company bus without any indication of which organization it belonged to. There were twenty civilians inside with Billy clubs. We casually continued to walk towards the vehicle, and passing by it we were scared, expecting to be attacked or arrested. However, the passengers on the bus were jolly and smiled at us ironically – their shift was probably over. We even heard them say «That’s it? Finally you’re going home? !!»

In any case, not long after this a large exhibition was held and the «old timers» who organized it invited «the young» artists. It took place in the apartment of Alla Osipenko and John Markovsky, two soloists in a ballet troupe. The next apartment exhibition, the largest in history, «On Bronnitskaya Street,» was organized by the «young», and «the old» were invited. Finally, nonconformists of different generations had begun to trust each other.

It was 1981, a time when the KGB department that dealt with ideologically subversive activities was being reorganized. The new chief of the department pursued quite a different policy towards the representatives of «unofficial» culture. Musicians, writers and painters were allowed to organize groups. However, it was clear that he only wanted to expose all of us and then keep us under his control.

Because they were already experienced in publishing the journal «Clock» in the underground press and had established a literary club, unofficial writers decided to deceive the KGB. They pretended to have «unionized» a group called «Club 81″ in order to procure a worn out apartment in Lavrov Street # 5 for their literary meetings. This apartment was also used by us painters for large meetings, as well as for examining the works of younger painters who were eager to join us.

Once, in the large apartment of the artist Afonichev on Zhkovsky Street there were between thirty and thirty-five people. There were mainly «young» painters though there were several «old timers». Igor Ivanov and Slava Afonichev were particularly active and seemed to be the transitional link between the «older’ and the «younger» generations. We spoke about the need for an apartment exhibition. Then, Yury Novikov, an art historian who had been expelled from the Russian Museum, suggested that we write a letter to feel out the cultural department of the Central Committee and the Minister of Culture of the USSR.

The letter contained an analysis of the situation in Russian/Soviet fine arts, beginning in the 1920s. It ended with the proposal to discuss the necessity of establishing an alternative organization to the Union of Artists.

The typing of the letter fell to me because I was the only person who owned a typewriter. I edited the letter together with B.I. Ivanov, editor of the samizdat (underground) journal «The Clock.» Even now I recall the heated discussions regarding the main points of the letter, but most of all I remember how I had to type twenty pages using two and a half fingers, then retype them six times over the course of several months. It was hellish work!

Mitavsky, Lotsman and myself (the members of «INAKI») were designated as messengers to Moscow. This was probably because our illegal studio was located near the Moscow Railway Station. So, we were really in for it. We decided not to tell anyone when we were going, because we were afraid of informers, being tailed, and that our letter would be confiscated. The endeavor was planned as follows: several copies of the letter were prepared. One copy was left with Yury Novikov, I hid another in someone’s apartment, and the third copy had to be delivered to Moscow by Mityavsky and Lotsman. I had to stealthily follow my friends until they left for Moscow and await their phone call telling me that the letter had been delivered to the Central Committee. If they were arrested I was to leave for Moscow with the fourth copy of the letter and try to do my best. But everything went smoothly from the very beginning.

At the same time we had begun searching for an apartment for an exhibition.

These were the requirements for the apartment and its owners:
1. The rooms had to be large with high walls and the least possible amount of windows and furniture;
2. It could be either a private apartment or an apartment with neighbors who had moved out;
3. A back door was desirable (a second exit);
4. The owners should be people who wanted to emigrate but had not been allowed to; as a result, they would be interested in attracting the attention of the authorities in order to be evicted from the country;
5. The owners needed to be experienced in legal matters and not afraid of any negative consequences.

Different groups of us examined about ten apartments, but something was wrong with each of them. At the same time, we spread a rumor in the city about an apartment exhibition that was being prepared for some yet unknown time in order to distract the KGB. To support this rumor, we began to bring some paintings to Miller’s apartment on Mayakovsky Street in August, as if the exhibition was going to be held there, just so the officers would spy on us.

One evening Garic Yukhvets and B. Mitavsky were invited to an attic to look at one more apartment which met stipulations 1, 2, 3, and 5. Together with Natasha Kononenko, the owner of the apartment, we decided to go ahead and set a date for the exhibition.

Suspecting that the militia might block the entrance to the apartment in advance, we decided to inform the painters and visitors about the exhibition only late in the evening before its opening on Friday evening November 13. At that time there were only the desk officers were on duty and the department heads were at home for the weekend. We thought that if the desk officers on duty were the only ones who found out about it, a decision to close it could be made by the authorities only on Monday.

During the night the organizers (I was out of town) delivered all the paintings stored in Miller’s apartment to Kononenko’s apartment on Bronnitskaya by truck. Other painters were informed about it later. In the morning, all the while checking to see if we were being «tailed,» we went to arrange the exposition. Overall, our plan was successful.

The first policeman appeared only on Sunday evening. He stood in the kitchen examining our and our visitors’ documents. Some agents in uniform were watching the entrance outside. Then the electricity was switched off. Alexander Lotsman and Boris Mitavski went to buy some candles in the Frunze supermarket. People continued to view exhibition by candlelight. However, Lotsman, our «expert» in electricity, rigged something to get the lights back on, and humorously remarked «Like hell you’ll turn our lights off.» We had a lot of visitors, and were on duty all night guarding it. Once, when I was out of town from Saturday to Sunday, the Hermitage art historians visited the exhibition incognito!

The exhibition lasted for four days. During the night between Tuesday and Wednesday we returned the paintings to Miller’s apartment to give them back to the artists. The men watching the apartment didn’t expect this, and slept through it. The owner of the flat left as well. When the militia appeared in the morning there was nothing to speak about and no one to speak to. This was done to defuse the difficult circumstances around the exhibition and to spare the owner any unpleasantness.

Thus, the word (our letter to the Central Committee) and the deed (the exhibition «On Bronnitskaya») were combined in the single action of the unofficial artists. The letter ended with the statement that if our demands to recognize the Association and legalize its exhibitions were not accepted, we would consider it (TEII: The Association of Experimental Fine Arts) to exist de facto and would continue our work on its behalf.

At the closing ceremony of the exhibition, Yury Novikov proposed a draft of the TEII charter, and long discussions began in Afonichev’s and Novikov’s apartments.

The charter was adopted at a meeting of the painters. We decided to consider the participants of the exhibition «On Bronnitskaya» the charter members of TEII. This was, of course, based on the condition that they agreed. In order to continue its work an initial group of directors was elected which included Novikov, Grigorev, and myself. Several months passed but there was still no answer to our letter. In order to clarify the matter and determine if it was possible to get an answer, Lotsman and Mitavsky were sent to Moscow again with a new letter. However, they came back with nothing. But literally after a couple of days an answer was delivered to Afonichev’s address. «Our» visit to the central Committee had not been in vain.

Never before had anything like this taken place in the history of relations between unofficial artists and the authorities! Nevertheless, it was clear from their reply that the authorities had no intention of recognizing us as professional artists or to recognize TEII itself, although they did not formally ban our organization. The initial group began to prepare a request to the Department of Culture for an official exhibition to be held under the auspices of TEII.

At the same time, to increase the pressure on the authorities and to give them no peace, it was decided to continue with the organization of apartment exhibitions. But we fumbled the next exhibition at Igor Smirnov’s apartment on 3rd Sovietskaya street in the spring after our triumph «On Bronnitskaya.»

We weren’t about to get caught up in some conspiracy; the entrance to the apartment was closed by the police long before the exhibit’s opening. The authorities said «We have no intention of bothering you, but we’re not letting any visitors in.» Even when one of the painters started to leave the apartment, they wouldn’t let him. A policeman told him: «You can leave the apartment safely only if you take your painting and go home. Only on that condition.»

The situation was absolutely stupid. That time, the KGB won on each point. However, there were no problems for the participants or the apartment’s owners. Soon after that Igor Smirnov immigrated to America.

It was 1982. Of the many apartment exhibitions held, it is worth mentioning three which became landmarks in determining the organization of artists who represented Leningrad-St. Petersburg nonconformist art.
1. On «Kustarny Lane» – one of the first unofficial exhibitions that was the impetus for a whole series of apartment exhibitions that exerted pressure on the authorities (1970-1971).
2. At ballerina A. Osipenko’s apartment, where essentially a new group of unofficial painters took shape (both «old» and «young»); December, 1980.
3. «On Bronnitskaya», where the independent organization of nonconformists of the 1980s began and formed the basis for TEII (The Association of Experimental Fine Arts); 1981.

The last apartment exhibitions were organized by TEII in 1986. Those were the «days of open doors» in the apartments of painters wishing to participate. The exhibitions were held to protest the stupid censorship of the official exhibition of TEII. The artists decided to close down that exhibition because of their disagreements with the demands of the authorities. It was the first time such a thing had ever happened!

The city committee which had to approve officially sanctioned exhibitions consisted of representatives from the Communist Party, the Komsomol, the KGB, the Department of Culture, and the official Union of Painters. Altogether there were about ten to fifteen people.

The paintings at the exposition were examined with three criteria in view: 1) whether there was any anti-Soviet propaganda in the subject matter; 2) whether the subject could be considered as religious propaganda; 3) and whether any of the images were pornographic.

It’s worth mentioning that the members of the commission must have had very vivid imaginations, as forty-four paintings by twenty-five artists (out of one hundred and eighty-six) were banned from the exhibition. One thought that a fantastic old man flying on a bird resembled the writer and dissident Solzhenitsyn. Someone else demanded that a cross be removed from an image of a church and that a halo over a character’s head be removed. Any naked body that differed from the academic style was considered pornography. After four days of negotiations everything ended with the «self-removal» of the paintings from the exhibition hall, and a letter written by the painters to Mikhail Gorbachev, the new leader of the USSR and perestroika. The painters demanded that their union be recognized. There was no reply to their letter.

TEII was the second union formed of unofficial Leningrad artists. It determined the cultural landscape in Leningrad during the 1980s, along with the unofficial literary clubs «Club 81″ and «Rock Club.»

Over the course of those ten years TEII held thirteen large l exhibitions of nonconformists in Leningrad, in which about three hundred painters participated. Hundreds of thousands of visitors came to those exhibitions. This proved that they were interested in native vanguard art. It was how we made our stand in the Motherland because we did not want to immigrate to other countries.

It was only in 1991 that the Association of Free Culture (FCA) became officially registered. This was the third incarnation of the professional creative union of independent modern artists from various professions. It happened at the very same time when the city regained its original name of St. Petersburg.

It is possible that Petersburg nonconformist art as a phenomenon is now in the past. But the philosophy of nonconformism will continue to exist as long as man’s consciousness aspires to the self perfection of the personality.

The painters association has continued its activities. Its main goal remains to establish conditions where professional artists could work and to guarantee them a place in society. The independent figures contemporary art were united around the idea of a «New Utopia.»

One day in the spring of 1989 we (Yuly Rybakov, Zhenya Orlov and myself) were coming back from an exhibition. We were a little depressed, and found ourselves in the little square on Pushkin Street where there is a monument to Alexander Pushkin. We were discussing the concept of a cultural center, with which I was obsessed at the time. I had already visited half of America trying to find sponsors for our project, while at the same time becoming acquainted with how such centers are organized abroad. We were considering how to establish something similar but in our own style. We examined the area around Apraksin Dvor, and thought about locating it in New Holland. There were certain advantages and disadvantages everywhere, but we could not reach an agreement.

Just as our heated discussion had led us once more to a dead end, the clock in the bell tower of Vladimir Cathedral struck midnight. A shadow moved above us, and we heard Pushkin curse and utter: «Here is a house for you! What more do you want?» We looked up, and saw the poet’s finger pointing to Pushkin Street #10.

Upon entering the courtyard of that mysterious building, we immediately realized that it was the very place we needed. It looked like the Ark. It was floating slowly on waves of time. We felt as if we were embarking for the future.

Many years have passed, but the ship is still sailing.

To memorialize the tradition of apartment exhibitions we decided to occupy the huge complex, which city authorities had long planned to renovate. The project was completed in seven years. And that is how the Art Center «Pushkin 10″ came to be.

In the apartments of the building today there are studios for painters, musicians, and actors, as well as galleries, the Museums of Nonconformist Art, concert halls, publishing companies, and book and music stores. The atmosphere we created at «Pushkin 10″ is rather harmonious and helps put into motion the potential energy of an artist. Here one can find everything necessary for a painter living within a finite time – from self-expression to self-actualization.

«Pushkin 10″ is, itself, a work of art. It is a syntopia created by painters along the lines of the organization of apartment exhibitions: of individual self-developing kinetic objects of modern culture. It represents the perfect model of the apartment existence in which an independent Petersburg culture created by nonconformist artists lived during the second half of the twentieth century. The reality in which «Pushkin 10″ exists is not virtual, but it is parallel to the reality in which the government lives. Sometimes, when it is necessary, they intersect.

Our Art-Center is a Parallelosphere that is an important part of the intellectual space of St. Petersburg.

PUSHKINSKAYA-10 – PARALLELOSPHERE

Moving along the banks of the Markizov Pond
From Kronstadt’s sea level marker…..
That measures the water’s level for home’s return
To the mouth of the Neva and farther,

We enter the river, stealthfully passing the bastions of the fortress
Under the sharp gazes of Peter and Paul,
And sailed against the tide from the 20th century to the 21st
In search of the lost Earth where our ark,
As Nostradamus foretold, had to return.

We found the earth in that very place
Where the tunnel of the metro opens up onto Ligovsky;
As new generations with different, new ideas we returned
From the underground to shout from the rooftops.

And the bronze god of speech,
A generation of Aethiopian warriors and of Russian bureaucrats
Blessed us to build a temple of art on the ruins of a century.
And there the bricks of one hundred year old walls
Began to radiate warmth
And there the music of freedom began to resound.

Above the roof of the Petersburg ark
We raised into a flag the cosmos
Joining the past, present and future
As they enwrap the lost planet earth
With endless possibilites of intersecting horizons,
Each now passing over the house on «Pushkin Ten»
Forming a Parallelosphere of Peace
In which we continue to work
Preserving everything that is living.