Part one of Passport's guide to Moscow's favorite - Passport magazine

stagnation, but only knots of nerves. He
choice fell on Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan
has always been a popular place for
artists wishing to sacrifice philistine welfare
for the change and adventure of an
exotic land. Ufimtsev and his friend Mamontov
appeared in the East as counter
Kulturträgers looking not for their daily
bread, but dying to quench the lust of
life. Reading his diaries one inevitably
has associations with the followers of
futurism – the beatniks, hippies, hitch-
hikers and punks, whose anarchic rhetoric
opposes bourgeois values.
If one compares the texts of Ufimtsev’s
reminiscences with his diaries one
is inclined to think that they are written
by two different persons. His reminiscences
are all about being in a traveler’s
club with an Asian slant – uriyk (dry
“Pieces of Life” series. Album
13. Nov 1924-Feb 1925
apricot), aryk (a well), verblyud (a camel),
ishak (a donkey)... while his dairies disclose
the difficulties of adapting to local
conditions and give away the author’s
sincere nostalgia for Omsk. Another example
is his visit to an exhibition of Alexander
Volkov in Tashkent. His dairies
show his active inacceptance of Volkov’s
style while the memoirs sing praises to
Volkov, the innovator.
By the end of the 1950s Ufimtsev, a
successful representative of official art
fighting against so-called “formalism”
and blessed by the powers to be, began
to imitate his own style of the 1920s. We
find collages in his archive done in the
style of constructivist photo editing. He
consciously did not put a date on them,
thus trying to mislead future researchers.
The only hint of the time are fragments
of newspapers revealing the year
of 1958. In this art of slogans, Vladimir
Mayakovsky was the clear genius, but
Ufimtsev also tried his hand at it.
From “The Photo Edit”.
The Falling Minaret, 1958
By the 1950s, Ufimtsev acquired two
models of expression: his official exhibitions,
whose content was Soviet patriotic
pathos, and his lyrical diaries as an
experimenter. For example, his gouaches
were inspired by his impressions of
trips to India, Tunisia and Afghanistan.
They are so simple and laconic that they
bring associations with his series of the
1920s-1930s called “Turksib”, which is
now part of two Uzbek museums – the
Nukus and the Tashkent.
Another interesting part of his archive
is his famous series “Pieces of Life”. Small
water color sketches which date back to
1923, to the times of his first Turkestan
expedition. The artist drew the events
of his life and wrote short explanations
right on the pictures. The text in them
plays a special role becoming part of art.
There are at least 13 albums in the series
called “Pieces of Life”, each of which has
several dozen pictures.
Before his trip to Turkestan, Ufimtsev
had managed to go to Moscow where
he became well acquainted with modern
art, poetry and theater. That experience
became a driving force for the
young artist. We learn from his diary
that Ufimtsev was familiar with the originals
of Kandinsky, Rozanova and Malevich.
The Revolution brought a variety
of choices into art. Although Ufimtsev
Art
had mastered all the ‘isms’ by that time
– starting with impressionism and ending
up with the shift of form and the
ironic paradox of David Burliuk – his
art was domineered by the folk style
of lubok. Unfortunately, the “Pieces of
Life” series has never been displayed.
It was the artist’s inner monologue, his
family chronicle. Ufimtsev was afraid to
show the series to anyone, because it revealed
his naked lyricism bordering on
lack of patriotism.
The 1940s-1950s became his inner drama,
which resulted in the limitation of his
practice both as a painter and a drawer
and this all told on his health. He often
involved assistants to paint huge patriotic
canvases. In the chronicles of his life
he mentions his epic canvases saying that
he “destroyed them later”. In the 1920s
he was part of the artistic process of his
generation however by the 1940s and
1950s he could only repeat whatever had
already been invented in art in the 1920s.
One cannot make out his attitude to
the then-tragic pages of Soviet history.
He might have taken such a strategy for
the sake of self-security or maybe just
because he was sick and tired of ideology
in general. He was racked between
the duty of a people’s Socialist artist
and his awareness of the impossibility
of achieving freedom of expression. He
died in 1964, and with him died the era
of artists-experimenters in the East.
Ufimtsev used to experiment in photography
too. He photographed his
trips to Tunisia, Afghanistan and India as
well as members of his family and colleagues
in art. The historic value of his
photos is indeed high.
Tribute must be paid to Ildar Galeev,
owner of the gallery hosting this exhibition.
Ufimtsev’s archive is displayed with
love, care and professionalism. During
the opening, lucky visitors enjoyed not
only the oriental fragrance of Ufimtsev’s
art, but also Uzbek plov (meat and rice).
An art album, published for the opening
by Ildar Galeev, carefully introduces
Ufimtsev’s archive to the reader revealing
not only a unique insight into the
artist’s world, but into that era of Soviet
life and art. The display and the album
“Ufimtsev: Archive” marks the 110th anniversary
of the artist’s birth and will be
presented in the Omsk Art Museum in
October 2009. P
July 2009
15