The last romantics of the Soviet Union

The last romantics of the Soviet Union

The first exhibition of the archive series "The Last Romantics of the Soviet Union" took place in Zverev Center of Contemporary art. The exposition of 50 archive photographs and a slide show of the 1000 photos was accompanied by a photo exhibition of selected shots from Sergey Borisov, a showing of Harry Assy painting collection, and a film program consisting of movies, "Just you want to know " by Oleg Flyangolts, "Ay da lyuli" by Miriam Van Wellen (The Netherlands), "Sielun Veljet in Moscow" (Finland).

In the mid-seventies - early eighties, in the Soviet Union is formed a new youth wing of unofficial artists, musicians and writers. Its main centers - Moscow and St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg, the main events were associated with the names of Boris Koshelokhov and Kirill Miller, Timur Novikov and Sergey Kuryokhin, Eugenia Yufit and Andrey Panov. In Moscow actively developed a creative group "Mukhomory" (The Fly Agarics), music was portrayed by artists ("The Midrussian Heights"), the musicians dressed as supermodels and fashion designers "brightened" the whole party. In this avant-garde synthesis of all kinds of arts, the author image clearly spoke of the creative preferences of the person who was wearing it. St. Petersburg's "new artists" and Moscow's "new wavers" were always identified by the clothes - bright, crazy, trendy dressed "artists" stood out in the grey faceless crowd of both capitals.

A huge role in this process played Garik "Assa" (also known as Garik Gorilla, aka Oleg Kolomiychuk) - according to Nikita Alekseev, "one of the first Moscow dandies of the 80s, modern equivalent of Beau Brummel", who was expelled from his native Khabarovsk for informal activities such as the emancipation of consciousness in locals. To date, Garik gathered not only a huge wardrobe of clothes from different periods, but also unique works of his fellow artists, which formed the basis of the exhibition "The Last Romantics of the Soviet Union."

With his phenomenal sense of style "Assa" became a pioneer and revealed the Tishinsky market for the informal youth environment. He also introduced a new ironic style "dead spy," as elegant and attractive as a well cultivated among dandies and black marketers "dolce vita", but with a light addition of avant-garde. In the style of "Assa," dominated chic costumes of the 30s that were really once worn by members of the Soviet spies and the diplomatic corps, and the costumes were called “dandy”, “knocked down parachute-jumper”, “dead Chinese spy”.

In the early 80s in Moscow and Leningrad (ex-St.Petersburg) some creative squats began to appear. In Leningrad, after a series of scandalous exhibitions in people’s flats and recognition of non-conformists doings were formed squats on Pushkin 10, and a creative environment around the home galleries of Kirill Miller and "Assa" galleries of Timur Novikov. In Moscow, the first was the "Kindergarten" - in 1984 there lived and worked German Vinogradov, Nikolay Filatov, Andrey Roiter, and in the neighborhood worked Vladimir Naumets. A two-story mansion, surrounded by a garden, quickly became one of the main secret addresses in Moscow. All sorts of people spent time here. Artists, writers, musicians, philosophers and city madmen, western journalists, diplomats and other scum. At the same table could be seen Aguzarova (then still called Yvonne Anders) and the successful Soviet pop musician Matetskiy, conceptualist Ilya Kabakov and culture expert Victor Meziano. For short visits from St. Petersburg came  "Assa", Sergey Kuryokhin, Timur Novikov, Africa, the musicians of the "Kino", Mike Naumenko, artist and musician Oleg Kotelnikov. Moscow's "ayda-lyulisti" actively participated in the St. Petersburg "Assa" based on "Popular Mechanics" and Moscow’s informals fraternized with the Leningrad’s at the opening of the "NCHVCH" squat.

The circle of the like-minded expanded and relocated to new multiple squats, groups and associations. In '87 came the remarkable tandem of female fashion designers La-re and Alexander Petlyura, who were then working in the genre of necro-romance. The most important for the country's history of modern art in Moscow of that period were Furmanniy and Petrovsky Boulevard (headed by Alexander Petliura), uniting different groups of experienced avant-garde with a new generation of fashion designers and artists (Tanya Morozova, Arkady Nasonov, Kirill Rubtsov, Pavel Leela and many others). In St. Petersburg "New Artists" transformed into the "New Academy" (to whom the group of Sterligov gave the leadership of the world avant-garde and Garik was appointed as Minister of fashion), and "School Art Engineers" led by Inal Savchenkov (Franz Rotvald, Sergey Enkov, Gregory Strelnikov and many others), whose work was first presented at the Moscow exhibition.

Photo from exhibition