Foundation for Free Russian Contemporary Art

It all started in 1972 in Leningrad with unofficial exhibitions in the apartment of Georgy Mikhailov, a physics teacher and a collector of contemporary informal art. Since 1974, these exhibitions have been held weekly.

In 1979, Georgy Mikhailov was sentenced to imprisonment and sent to Kolyma camps, and the paintings seized during the arrest of the collector were sentenced to destruction by the same court. Upon learning of this verdict, on the same day, September 18, 1979, artists participating in apartment exhibitions, public figures and just people who helped Mikhailov organize and conduct apartment exhibitions, made an appeal to the international community and announced the creation of the “Fund for Saving the Collection of George Mikhailov” . Thanks to the assistance of the journalist Irina Baskina, the trial of Georgy Mikhailov gained wide resonance. The verdict became known abroad. The intervention of French President Giscard d'Estaing , US President Jimmy Carter and many public figures, among whom there were 67 Nobel laureates , did not allow the execution of the verdict on the destruction of paintings. However, George Mikhailov was sent to the camps.

In 1987, George Mikhailov was expelled from the USSR. In 1989 he returned to his homeland. Fully rehabilitated for the lack of events and corpus delicti. On October 24, 1987, the Foundation for Free Russian Contemporary Art was registered in Munich as an expatriate organization, in cooperation with the “Return” cooperative in Leningrad, in order to facilitate the return of artistic values ​​to Russia. The foundation's charter was based on a 1979 declaration of appeal.

In 1990, the Fund was officially registered in Leningrad. The paintings saved from destruction made up the memorial part of the Foundation’s collection, which also includes the works of artists who became members of the Foundation during its future work. Today, the Foundation’s collection is the largest collection of non-conformist art in Russia in the late 20th century - more than 14,000 items.

The fund is constantly the subject of theft - about 3,000 works have been stolen and still not found), have repeatedly attempted the life of G. Mikhailov and his staff, and are experiencing administrative harassment. The Fund is being harassed by former KGB officers. A unique collection threatened with complete looting. In this regard, the issue of terminating the Fund in Russia and the establishment of this Fund abroad in exile is being considered.

The collection of the Fund is unique both from an artistic and historical point of view. This is a phenomenon of unofficial culture of the late Soviet and post-Soviet period.

Works of the 70s and 80s

The motivation for the work of non-conformist artists of that period was a protest against the dictates of Soviet quasi-cultural officialdom. Due to the rigid framework of ideological censorship, many young artists were not able to work freely and exhibit freely, even after becoming officially recognized, artists were often forced to “work at the table,” as the current trends in contemporary world art were a closed topic in the USSR. The only opportunity to show their work and communicate with other artists remained apartment exhibitions. However, impenetrable in those years were not only representatives of avant-garde, surrealism and other "non-Soviet trends", but also those artists who worked completely independently, finding their own unique artistic style, such as Irina Tikhomirova. True, unadorned paintings of Soviet life, performed in a deliberate form of popular popular print: “Beer is over”, “Station Shuvalovo”, fell into the category of protest art by themselves - the reality of the stagnation era was so unsightly. Could not be approved by censorship and the work of Alexander Isachev, penetrated by deep mystical experiences. The artworks are striking in historical - symbolic authenticity. The portrait of the Apostle Peter became a symbol of the Foundation. Of great interest and considerable value are the paintings of Evgeny Rukhin, watercolors of Igor Mayorov, Anatoly Zverev, Marina Timme-Blok, the works of M. Shemyakin, K. Miller, G. Bogomolov, Yu. Zharkikh, the Pozin brothers, Yu. Lagusker, P. Lesnykh, B. Mitavsky, S. Liu-Ko, A. Taziev and others.

Works of the 90s and 2000s

In the late 80s, ideological censorship in art was abolished. The boom of Russian unofficial art has begun. The collection of the Fund began to be replenished with the works of authors who are no longer protesting, but are fully expressing themselves in conditions of creative freedom. Artists began to choose any style, having complete information about them. One of the most striking authors of this period, Igor Konakov, working in line with symbolic neo-modernism, has more than 3,000 of his works in the collection of the Fund. Towards the end of the 90s, artists came to the Foundation who made their creative choices not only in modern areas, but also in the cultural layers of past eras, skillfully using the principles of traditionalism in combination with their own visual vocabulary that is unique to them. Here, the paintings and graphics of Sergei Frolakov are noteworthy, his work in the St. Petersburg cycle reveals the world through the world of mirrors, the second essence, the fantasics of St. Petersburg. His paintings reflect the carnival of ghosts in the scenery, as if torn walls, which set in motion the urban structure. And the artist depicts this with realistic certainty, as a pressing objective reality. Vitaly Panayev’s paintings are very similar in mood, but their style direction more closely matches surrealism. In the same period, the Fund’s collection was replenished with the works of Alexander Zanin with his clearly detailed composition structure, Alexander Luffer (neo-impressionism), Ksenia Thrull with her unique world of Petersburg images, Igor Geko , Gennady Mironov, Andrei Gennadyev, Yuri Galetsky, and many others. The paintings of artists, members of the Fund of different years, are stored in many museums around the world: the Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Yerevan Museum, the Norton Dodge Museum (Norton Dodge, New York), the Gruyere Castle Museum (Gruyeres, Switzerland), etc., as well as successfully sold and sold at major auctions: Sothebys, Christie, Hotel Drouot and others. The collection of the Fund is constantly updated with works of contemporary artists.

Activities

The Fund carries out collection, patronage and exhibition activities in Russia: St. Petersburg, Isachev Gallery, in Germany: Berlin, Mikhailov Art Gallery, has exhibition contacts in the Czech Republic (Prague), and creates a branch in Spain. The purpose of the Fund, the popularization of contemporary Russian art and cultural and exhibition exchange around the world. The fund has been delivering humanitarian aid to the city of Spitak in Armenia affected by the earthquake for 8 years.

Significant Fund exhibitions

• 1988 - Munich: The first exhibition of the Foundation in the monastery of St. Benedict.
• 1989 - Munich: Leningrad, LDM: the first exhibition of cultural property returned to Russia by the Cultural Property Fund, together with the “Return” cooperative.
• 1989 - A large traveling exhibition of the Fund in 54 cities of the USSR.
• 1993 - St. Petersburg: the Fund's exhibition in the new gallery at Liteiny, 53.
• 2000 - Nice - Lyon
• 2001 - Moscow: Central House of Artists
• 2001 - Munich: Messecenter Annual exhibitions in memory of Alexander Isachev. Exhibition "30th Anniversary of the Sentence"