RUSSIA: One of Russia's key 20th century painters re-emerges in a Moscow exhibit after decades of official banishment.

For the first time, Russians have the chance to see an exhibition by an artist considered to be one of the top five in modern Russian history who was marginalised during the communist era. Moscow art lovers in their droves have been heading to the Museum of Private Collections, a branch of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, which is holding the Russian capital's first exhibit on the life and work of avant-garde artist Pavel Filonov (1888-1941). While the exhibit was scheduled to close early February, the unexpected popularity has prompted the Pushkin Museum to extend it by one month to the middle of March. Decades of Soviet repression relegated Filonov to oblivion, and his name is not well known to either Russian or international audiences. A small group of art experts and collectors, however, consider Filonov to be one of the top five Russian artists of the 20th century. The current exhibit seeks to correct this historical injustice and introduce Filonov's long-forgotten artistic genius to the wider public. About 90 percent of the approximate 100 art works in the exhibit are from the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg; a few are from Moscow museums. In general, nearly all of Filonov's art works are in museums. As a committed communist, he never sold his art, and willingly lived in poverty. After his death, his sister donated most of his art to the Russian Museum. In recent years, a few of his art works have mysteriously surfaced and been sold. One Filonov painting, "Adoration of the Magi'' sold for 1.8 million US dollars at auction in London at the end of November 2006. Filonov was born in Moscow in 1883, but was soon orphaned. Relatives in the Russian imperial capital, St. Petersburg, adopted him. In 1908, he entered the Imperial Academy of Arts, a bastion of traditional art skills, only to be expelled two years later for his non-traditional ideas. In 1912, however, Filonov set down his own ideas on art. He penned an article elaborating his theory on what is now referred to as Analytical Art. This theory was born out of Filonov's objections to Cubism, which was then all the rage in Europe, most notably espoused by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. According to Filonov, Cubism represents objects using elements of their surface geometry, but "analytical realists" should represent objects using elements of their inner soul. These ideas continued to guide his art until his death in 1941. Even though Filonov was developing his avant-garde art ideas, he still proved himself to be a talented realist painter. The exhibit has two exquisite portraits executed before the Russian Revolution in 1917. Filonov fought in World War I and witnessed all its horrors. When the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) in November 1917, Filonov welcomed the revolution and became a communist party official. His radical ideas on art were embraced by the communists, and along with the rest of the avant-garde became a smash artistic fashion that suited the ideological goals of the new regime to create a utopian society. In 1919, Filonov had his first major exhibit, of all places, in the Hermitage, the former czarist residence. In 1919-22, however, Russia was in the midst of a civil war. Communist terror and famine killed millions. Widespread disillusionment with the revolution began to set in. "Filonov, more than any other avant-garde painter, felt the cataclysmic events of his epoch,'' said Alla Lukanov, deputy director of the Museum of Private Collections. "He lived in a difficult period --- well, we also live in a difficult period --- but the early 20th century, with its wars and revolutions, was a difficult period for the mind to comprehend. Filonov felt and expressed this epoch through his paintings, poetry, prose, poetic performance, futuristic poetry. He foresaw a lot and tried to express it.'' Filonov painted by starting with the particular and then moved on to the bigger picture. He believed that objects and fields should be built up from small details. He worked with very small brushes. As Stalin consolidated power at the end of the 1920s, Filonov and his avant-garde art fell out of favour. His works were banned from public viewing, and he spent the remainder of his life forgotten and impoverished. When Filonov died in December 1941 during the Siege of Leningrad, his ideas died with him. "We can say that Filonov is a special phenomenon in Russian art, as well as world art. He's the only major artist who never had his own school,'' said Alla Lukanov, deputy director of the Museum of Private Collections. "Well, he had his school, but it never had a prolongation. Compare this to [Kazemir] Malevich, whose school developed and continued under his influence. Other artists have been fortunate as far as continuation of their art. But Filonov remained alone and solitary.'' Most of Filonov's works were saved by his sister Yevdokia Glebova. She stored the paintings in the Russian Museum's archives and eventually donated them. Exhibitions of Filonov's work were forbidden throughout the Soviet period. "He's a philosophical artist, and each person has to understand him from his internal feelings, almost intuitively, and with an understanding of the history of the early 20th century,'' said Moscow resident, Nina Tyurina. In 1988, during perestroika and glasnost when freedom slowly appeared in Russia, a handful of Filonov's works were displayed in the Russian Museum. In 1989-90 the first international exhibition of Filonov's work was held in Paris. But Russian audiences still didn't have a chance to see the great master's works. Only now, more than 15 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union do Moscow audiences have a chance to appreciate Filonov's unusual genius.

ITN Source | February 10, 2007

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