ARTICLES
Russian-Israeli Art Interaction (for the catalog of Russian-Israeli art collection of Christiaan de Boks)
Marina Genkin
art critic
The creativity of the artists listed in this catalogue may with good reason be classified as an uncommon art appearance that has only recently begun to attract attention of critics and art historians: transformation of the Russian art school in Israeli reality. The whole subject of contemporary Russian artists abroad is yet understudied. Although there are plenty of publications regarding individual artists, the general phenomenon has never received scholars’ attention, both from the viewpoint of art market, and as an art history issue. Hopefully the critique of this collection will pave the way to systematic research in this field.
A meeting of different cultures always yields remarkable fruit. The blending of Russian artistic and cultural traditions with the intense, multivariate and multilevel space of contemporary Israel is no exception.
Israel’s sharp, blinding light, that "devours" color and casts deep, contrasted shadows, has changed color perception of even abstract artists; it forces painters to search for new means of expression. The Israeli landscape itself seems to demand clarity and unambiguity from the artist. But Israeli environment doesn’t reduce its impact to visual impressions, albeit important they might be; it militates for certainty in vital matters, such as philosophical and religious issues, problems of self-identification. You cannot maintain “neutrality” even if you wish.
At first, nearly all artists pay tribute to the power of first impressions by searching for archetypal forms, by turning to eternal themes in their work. But when the initial shock has passed, the new realities merged in the artists’ work with their previous experiences and the language that pre-existed in their artistic arsenal. The result is what we call “The Russian-Israeli Interaction..” What is meant is not a frozen stylistic format but a vivid, constantly evolving artistic reality.
Russia, by the fact of its geographical position, is a natural link between West and East. Its art tradition, however, has always leaned to West Europe, both in academic, modernist, and postmodernist contexts. Still, distinctive features define it as peculiarly Russian: the intense search for meaning, the creative work - as a philosophical process. This accounts for the tendency towards icon symbolism in Nataly Goncharova and Licka Brakhovsky, the discovery of other worlds by Victor Shtivelberg, or the direct quotation of profound texts by Evgeny Abesgauz characteristic of the Moscow conceptualism of the 1970’s.
All the artists in this catalogue have either been born into the nonconformist generation or had experienced its immediate influence. The spiritual atmosphere of Israel is a catalyst that reveals things implanted
by previous experiences. However, unlike nonconformist artists who had been forcibly involved in external conflict, our artists found in Israel freedom of internal dialogue, both with themselves and with this land and its mystery that reveals itself to one and all according to their own capacity to grasp. To some extent, this is genuine revelation that yields true meaning, even immersion in it.
The artwork of contemporary artists from the former USSR essentially bears the same stamp of romanticism as the works of old Israeli painters from other countries who have already become history. It is not an intentional manner or style but a state of mind that arises from beyond of consciousness and stems from the attitude to this ancient soil, with the entire network of associations with the land. In Soviet reality, these true artists had avoided pathos because they were fully aware of its falseness; but Jerusalem imbued them with the spirit of its genuine greatness, what is clear in Alexander Adonin’s art; the postmodernist irony in Victor Shtivelberg’s works remains nothing but a device, a pretext for expressing deep philosophical generalizations. In fact, eternal values newly acquired in Israel become deeply personal experiences to each artist in this catalogue, linking as they do the mystical with the profane and past with present. This interactional influence puts all the artists in the same class – regardless of all their distinctions of formal expressive means and traditions, like Russian avantgarde or Western modernism at the beginning of the 20th century in case of Nataly Goncharova and Alexander Adonin. The powerful, intrinsic impact of Israel has fused and transformed everything, not even by its art but mainly through its existential media. Eventually, such ingredients as the West European cultural tradition, the solid foundation of the academic school, the Russian experience of non-conformism and being masters in variety of the modern language of art were activated. But we shall repeat: the accent on the external conflict was replaced by internal dialogue, any displays of fear, premeditated bias and opposition disappeared resulting in non-aggression, profundity, diversity, freedom, emotional authenticity. Inevitably emerging as consequence of Israeli light and indispensable presence of a philosophical or mystical component.
Russian Israel has deliberately declined a way of imitation; and this art, neither Russian, Israeli, nor Western, though merging features of each of them in the process of intense interaction, has brought into the world a unique artistic trend. Not as a formal synthesis but as an original, never before existed phenomenon.