Vitali Stesin

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Vitali Stesin ( Russian Виталий Львович Стесин (Witali Lwowitsch Stessin); born November 22, 1940 in Moscow , † December 15, 2012 in Vienna ) was a Russian painter .

Life

Vitali Stesin was born in Moscow in 1940. Both of his parents came from Jewish families. His father Lev was a general in the Soviet armed forces, later he was part of the management of a magazine for military technology .

Vitali Stesin began studying chemistry in Moscow , but dropped out. At first he tried his hand at a cabaret before traveling to the Soviet province with a puppet theater . In the early 1960s he began to paint intensely. He officially earned his living there a. a. as head of the cultural center of a village near Moscow and unofficially as a restorer of icons . During this time he joined the “Young Moscow Avant-garde”, the scene made up of artists and writers outside the state art scene who had no chance of showing their works in a gallery or publishing them in a publishing house. Erik Bulatow , Ilya Kabakow and Ernst Neiswestny were among his studio neighbors .

The writers Wenedikt Erofejew and Eduard Limonow were among his circle of friends in the "Moscow Underground" . Erofejew referred to Stesin in an interview during perestroika when he was finally allowed to publish. Limonov called him a friend who was a “half-crazy guy” ( полубезумный тип ). Limonov also mentioned him in his autobiographical prose.

Through the poet and former camp inmate Wladimir Gerschuni, Stesin made contacts in the dissident scene . Because of the increasing pressure of the KGB on the alternative art scene, he applied to emigrate to Israel . In 1973 he was able to leave the Soviet Union. His pictures were confiscated by Soviet customs. He first settled in Tel Aviv .

In 1975 he accepted the offer to move to Cologne , in the Ehrenfeld district he was able to rent a cheap apartment with a studio. But he soon fell out with his gallery owner Kenda Bargera . He increasingly dealt with the major religions, he studied the Bible particularly intensively .

On a trip to Vienna he met his future wife Iris, who also came from a Jewish family. Until the end of his life, Stesin commuted between Cologne and Vienna.

Artistic creation

Stesin is assigned to the Russian neo-avant-garde, also known as the "second Russian avant-garde" or, at the time, "Moscow young avant-garde". He was considered one of the heads of the "Moscow Underground".

His abstract and utopian scenes are strongly influenced by Cubism and Futurism , especially by Wassily Kandinsky and Pawel Filonow , whose works were not exhibited in the Soviet Union at the time and were frowned upon. It called its pictures "cosmic landscapes". Most of the names Stesin gave them themselves come from the world of mathematics or the Bible . Because of the religious references he was also seen as a "nonconformist mystic".

Most of them are colored pencil drawings and oil paintings characterized by balls of color and geometric shapes, under “renunciation of hierarchical image structures” (tire sheath). Because they “do not have a central perspective”, they look like “aerial photographs and maps”, which not only show the surface, but also the structures underneath (Spielmann).

He also repeatedly painted forks of branches, root wood and everyday objects made of wood in a way that is reminiscent of Indian masks and the art of the Aztecs . (Schlott) Some of these painted root sculptures were shown in an exhibition for young talents in 1970, the magazine Sputnik printed six photos of these works (issue 2/1970).

Exhibitions

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Stesin took part in group exhibitions in Moscow's private apartments with his pictures.

Since his departure from the Soviet Union, solo exhibitions have been dedicated to him. a.

literature

  • Vitali Stesin. Oil, drawings. Exhibition in memory of Margalit Sela. Weizman Institute of Science, Jerusalem 1975.
  • Vitali Stesin. Edition Jensen. Heidelberg 1977 (exhibition catalog, texts: Peter Hölzle and Peter Spielmann).
  • Non-conformists. The second Russian avant-garde 1955–1988. Bar-Gera collection. Edited by Hans-Peter Riese. Bonn 1996, pp. 234-236.
  • Vitali Stesin. Measuring space and time. Edited by Beate Reifenscheid. Silvani Editoriale Milano 2010 (bilingual exhibition catalog, texts: Beate Reifenscheid, Peter Spielmann, Wolfgang Schlott and Lydia Vegler) ISBN 8836617921

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Peter Hölzle, Vitali Stesin, in: Vitali Stesin. Ed. Jensen. Heidelberg 1975, p. 9 f.
  2. ↑ Lydia Vegler, Life and Work of Vitali Stesin / Vitali Stesin's Life and Work, in: Vitali Stesin. Measuring space and time. Milan 2010, p. 46.
  3. ↑ Interv'ju: Sumašedšim možna byt 'v ljuboe vremja , in: Kontinent , No. 65 (1990).
  4. ↑ Limonov protiv Žirinovskogo ( Memento of the original from November 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Moscow 1994. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.litmir.co
  5. ↑ Čužoj v neznakomom gorode , Moscow 1995.
  6. ↑ Lydia Vegler, Life and Work of Vitali Stesin / Vitali Stesin's Life and Work, in: Vitali Stesin. Measuring space and time. Milan 2010, p. 48.
  7. ↑ Lydia Vegler, Life and Work of Vitali Stesin / Vitali Stesin's Life and Work, in: Vitali Stesin. Measuring space and time. Milan 2010, pp. 54-56.
  8. ↑ Non-conformists. The second Russian avant-garde 1955–1988. Bar-Gera collection. Edited by Hans-Peter Riese. Bonn 1996, p. 236.
  9. ↑ Mark Uralskiy: Nebesnyj zalog. Portret chudožnika v stile kollaža. Moscow 2013, p. 343.
  10. ↑ Peter Spielmann, My Encounter with Vitali Stesin and his Work / My Encounter with Vitali Stesin and his Work, in: Vitali Stesin. Measuring space and time. Milan 2010, p. 14.
  11. ↑ Peter Spielmann, Vitali Stesin, in: Vitali Stesin. Heidelberg 1975, p. 5.
  12. ^ Ludwig Museum, exhibitions, September 12, 2010
  13. ↑ Beate Reifenscheid, Outside the Order Zones / Where Few Have Ventured, in: Vitali Stesin. Measuring space and time. Milan 2010, pp. 8-10.
  14. ↑ Peter Spielmann, My Encounter with Vitali Stesin and his Work / My Encounter with Vitali Stesin and his Work, in: Vitali Stesin. Measuring space and time. Milan 2010, p. 16.
  15. ↑ Wolfgang Schlott, Im Mahlstrom bizarrer Welten / In the Maelstrom of Bizarre Worlds, in: Vitali Stesin. Measuring space and time. Milan 2010, p. 24.
  16. ↑ Lydia Vegler, Life and Work of Vitali Stesin / Vitali Stesin's Life and Work, in: Vitali Stesin. Measuring space and time. Milan 2010, p. 50.
  17. ↑ Non-conformists. The second Russian avant-garde 1955–1988. Bar-Gera collection. Edited by Hans-Peter Riese. Bonn 1996, p. 25.
personal data
SURNAME Stesin, Vitali
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Стесин, Виталий Львович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian painter and emigrant
DATE OF BIRTH November 22, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow
DATE OF DEATH December 15, 2012
Place of death Vienna