Bulldozer exhibition
The bulldozer exhibition / bulldozer exhibition (Russian Бульдозерная выставка) was one of the most famous and important public actions of unofficial art in the USSR .
Organized by Moscow and Leningrad avant-garde artists, it took place on September 15, 1974 in the Moscow outskirts of Belyayevo, at the intersection of Profsoyuznaya and Ostrovityanov streets.
Artists who disregarded the official doctrine of socialist realism took part in the exhibition .
The initiators were the art collector Alexander Gleser and Moscow and Leningrad painters: Oskar Rabin and his son Alexander, Youri Jarki (Jarkikh), Valentin Vorobjow, Vitaly Komar , Alexander Melamid , Lidja Mastjerkowa, Vladimir Njemuchin, Yevgeny Ruchin, Borassilij Sitnikow, Igor Cholin, Borassily Sitnikow, Igor Cholin, Boron Schtejnberg and Nadjeschda Elskaja. Other painters joined later.
The pictures were placed on makeshift easels made from scrap wood. In addition to the Moscow audience, journalists from Western news agencies also appeared.
The authorities reacted violently: Within half an hour, a hundred militiamen in civilian clothes, three bulldozers and a water cannon appeared. A spontaneous protest action was staged by a group of indignant workers who spoke out against the illegal exhibition. The attackers destroyed the pictures and beat up participants, visitors and journalists. Many were arrested.
After news about the destruction of the exhibition appeared in the world press, the authorities were forced to make concessions and allowed a similar exhibition two weeks later on September 29, 1974 in Izmailovo. The exhibition lasted four hours and was visited by about 1500 people. In the foreign media this exhibition was described as "half a day of freedom".
The bulldozer exhibition is considered the most important performance of Russian avant-garde art since 1962, when Nikita Sergejewitsch Khrushchev closed the exhibition "New Reality" in the Moscow Manege .
Socialist realism as an official doctrine dominated Soviet art until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Coordinates: 55 ° 38 ′ 3.6 ″ N , 37 ° 31 ′ 13.5 ″ E
literature
- Alexander Gleser: Art against bulldozers. Memoirs of a Russian collector. Ullstein, Frankfurt / M. 1982, ISBN 3-548-38034-4 .
- Isaak Kuschnir: "Наши Ниши. Газаневщина." ООО Издательство ДЕАН, Saint-Petersburg / 2015, www.deanbook.ru
- Isaak Kuschnir: "Ленинградский Андеграунд" ООО Издательство ДЕАН, Saint-Petersburg / 2015, www.deanbook.ru