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NEWS: Opening of Russian Art Week and Boris Chetkov exhibition Posted in: Art, Russian art- Nov 28, 2013 Comments Off on NEWS: Opening of Russian Art Week and Boris Chetkov exhibition

Theodora Clarke and Kenneth Pushkin

Last Friday evening at the Westbury Hotel Russian Art Week was launched in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition Re-Imagining Russia: The Landscape and Genre Painting of Boris Chetkov. The Pushkin Gallery, in collaboration with Russian Art and Culture, presented the first UK exhibition of works by major Russian contemporary artist Boris Chetkov. Curated by Theodora Clarke, the exhibition looked specifically at Chetkov’s highly personal depiction of life in twentieth century rural Russia. In addition, the exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue containing a number of previously unpublished works by the artists and an academic essay by Theodora Clarke, who analysed Chetkov’s works within the context of modernism in the twentieth century and the rise of abstract painting. The book takes a biographical approach to introduce Chetkov to a new audience and includes previously unseen archival material. The publication also features a number of early works dating from 1955-1973.

Theodora Clarke with her publication Re-Imagining Russia: The Landscape and Genre Painting of Boris Chetkov

The Russian Art Week and Boris Chetkov launch party was attended by 250 guests from the Russian art world, including Russian art professionals, Russian art collectors, museum and gallery directors, curators, and Russian embassy representatives. Kenneth Pushkin, founder of The Pushkin Gallery in Santa Fe, welcomed and thanked everybody for attending, introduced Chetkov’s work, and shared some anecdotes about working with the artist before his death in 2010. Theodora introduced the theme of the exhibition and the work of Boris Chetkov to the audience. Counsellor Artyom Kozhin, the Cultural Attache for the Russian Embassy, reminded everyone that 2014 is the UK-Russia Year of Culture, and that Russian Art Week is great warm up event for the year.

A key theme throughout the work of Chetkov is the communication of a raw and emotional response to the natural and physical world. Be it a still life, landscape, portrait or genre painting, Chetkov strove to capture the emotional and dynamic essence of his subject. Mixing hints of folk art and primitivism, spirituality and the prewar avant-garde, Chetkov’s style is visually and thematically reminiscent of the early works of Wassily Kandinsky, Natalia Goncharova and Aristarkh Lentulov. His landscape paintings, showing the rivers, forests and historic churches of Russia transform the local countryside through gestural brush sweeps and vibrant colours, engaging with the environment on a conscious and subconscious level.

Image courtesy of Russian Art and Culture

Image courtesy of Russian Art and Culture

This exhibition also celebrated of Chetkov’s life and work in light of the artist’s death in 2010. Born during the most oppressive years of the Soviet Union, Chetkov spent his early life on communal farms before being imprisoned in the infamous Gulag Archipelago during his late teens. After combat in the Second World War and his subsequent release from detention, Chetkov studied the art of glass making and began to paint in isolation from established artistic groups and schools. For the duration of his career Chetkov followed his own vision apart from any conscious trend or political movement, separated from the work of Nonconformist and conceptual contemporaries such as Ilya Kabakov, Vladimir Yankilevsky and Oskar Rabin, Chetkov’s works display a quiet, personal and very different type of rebellion against the imposed norm. He never sought out the acceptance of these other underground artists and was never recognized by them or accepted by the establishment of ‘Soviet’ artists. Chetkov was a bold experimenter who took artistic risks which resulted in the creation of original and stunning images. This exhibition explored the unique development of Chetkov’s career and feature works ranging from his earliest compositions in the late 1950s and 1960s to those executed in the final decade of his life.

To buy a copy of Theodora’s book, see The Pushkin Gallery website: http://www.pushkingallery.com/ To download a copy of the 2014 UK-Russia Year of Culture: http://issuu.com/rm_people/docs/web-new– russianmind_special_issue_