Sidur, Vadim Abramovich

Born on June 28, 1924 in Yekaterinoslav, in the family of teachers Abram Yakovlevich Sidur and Zinaida Ivanovna Andrianova ^[3] .

Great Patriotic War

From 1942 to 1944 he fought in parts of the 3rd Ukrainian Front of the Great Patriotic War , commanded a machine-gun crew.

The paths of war are known to be inscrutable. And when an eighteen-year-old junior lieutenant, commander of a machine-gun platoon, I reached my hometown and my street, I saw from the corner that there was nothing left of the house where I was born and raised. Only the chimney stuck out as an innovative monument to my childhood and youth ... Then I was killed in the war.

- Vadim Abramovich Sidur (1924—1986)

In 1944, in the village of Latkovka , in a battle near Krivoy Rog , he was seriously wounded. Sidura was saved by eighteen-year-old Sasha Kryukova and her mother. From the story of Alexandra Kryukova:

... Mother with soldiers brought another wounded. Instead of the face - a solid wound, one meat. He could not speak. I guessed, gave him a paper, a pencil. He wrote - Vadim Siddur. Adapted through the tube to feed Vadim. Slightly gone, and then a new attack - wounds began to fester. God, how he suffered, what terrible pain he endured! My mother and I decided: we must take Vadim to the hospital. We arrived in Krivoy Rog, and there everything was destroyed, not a single whole hospital. I had to drive to Dnepropetrovsk - this is one and a half hundred miles from us along the broken roads to the spring thaw ... In January of the 45th a letter came from Vadim. God, how glad I am that he is alive!

At age 19, Vadim Siddur became an invalid of Group II, a holder of the Order of the Patriotic War of the 2nd degree and several combat medals and demobilized as a guard lieutenant.

After the war

Chronic childhood fainting malnutrition — the infamous famine in Ukraine, the evacuation nightmares he experienced as a teenager, the life in the machine gun school in Kushka, which hardly differed from camp camps, the front, the wound, the endless series of hospitals — was perceived as the norm human existence. By his own admission, in post-war Moscow, he felt like a stranger from another planet.

- From the memoirs of the adopted son of the sculptor Mikhail Sidur ^[3]

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In 1945-1953 he studied at MVHPU ( Stroganov School ), at the faculty of monumental sculpture. After graduation he was engaged in sculpture and book illustration. In 1961, he survived a severe heart attack , after which for some time he could not work on sculpture (it was physically difficult for him to cope with heavy stone and metal), and therefore concentrated on the graph.

Constantly faced with the official rejection of his work, accused of formalism and pacifism . Nevertheless, he carried out orders for urban decorative sculpture and private orders for tombstones, worked on illustrations. During his lifetime he could not exhibit his work in the USSR; Over 30 exhibitions took place abroad. Sculptures on his models were installed in Germany - “Monument to the victims of violence” (Kassel, 1974), “Monument to the modern state” (Konstanz, 1974), “Treblinka” (West Berlin, 1979), “Appealing” (Dusseldorf), in the USA - "The head of Einstein" and others. In addition, sculptural portraits of Einstein appeared in Munich, which were cast on the gypsum model Sidur 1967 ^[3] .

The most famous works are “The Wounded” (1963), Despair (1963), Monument to the Victims of Violence (1965), Babi Yar (1966), Treblinka (1966), the cycle “Feminine Beginning” (1977 ), "The Formula of Sorrow" (1981), "Appealing" (1985).

Worked like a schedule ; in particular, with his illustrations in 1970 came the poetry collections of Yuri Levitansky “Cinema” and Yunna Moritz “Vine”. He wrote poems and prose, which had circulation in samizdat and printed in the West.

He was buried at the Peredelkino cemetery .

Two trends merged in the works of Vadim Sidur: ideas that led to the emergence of modern art at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and features of the “second wave” of Soviet art of the late 1950s. As in the beginning of the 20th century, modernism was born in discussions with classical realism , and in the late 1950s, new Soviet art developed in controversy with the social realism of a “social and pedagogical” orientation ( Aimermacher ). Siddur was one of the creators of the “second wave” of new art, but his path was the path of a lone wizard, not subject to external influences. He was not aware of the latest trends in either domestic or foreign art. The breeding ground for the artist Siddur was his own life experience and the daily life of the people around him. War, injury, loss of health, care of loved ones, discouragement, finding family happiness, everything he went through, was reflected in his works, led to the acquisition of his own pictorial language, deeply personal, but at the same time universal. The experience of the individual translates into perceiving the problems of universal, questions that life poses to contemporaries - this became the content of Sidur's art, the object of study, thus the artist joined the process of evolution of the present-day consciousness ^[4] .

Siddur began his career in the years when the traditions established in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s dominated the system of art education, and between 1946 and 1952 there was a tendency to increase their dictatorship. However, at the same time, in certain circles, an understanding emerged that the framework into which the visual arts had been driven, prevented him from affecting society fruitfully, concealing his educational function. Gradually, the realization came that art needs new media and new themes. Already a beginning artist, Siddur lived and worked in his own way, chose his own path, which under the circumstances could hardly lead to recognition. New opportunities for the development of his deeply individual creativity appeared after the 20th Congress of the CPSU and with the beginning of the gradual withdrawal of the USSR from isolation. Siddur was entering the new conditions of life, applying all his personal experience, including the experience of the past war, with an understanding of the problems of modern Soviet man as problems of a human scale. He addressed the same eternal themes that excited artists of all time — life and death, love and hate, war and peace. Careful study of ancient cultures - Egypt , Greece , and Mexico - helped to move away from momentary, petty. In his work, Siddur touched upon the issues that had previously circumvented Soviet art ^[5] .

In 1989, the Vadim Sidur Museum was created in Moscow ^[6] . The work of Vadim Sidur is so peculiar and multifaceted (his legacy includes not only a huge number of sculptural and graphic works, but also poetry, prose and even cinematographic works), which in itself represents an entire era in the history of Russian art. Exhibited the most famous works of the artist, including small author's sculptures, subsequently enlarged and installed in many cities of the world: “Monument to the victims of violence” ( Kassel , Germany), “Calling Out” ( Düsseldorf ), “Treblinka” ( Berlin ), “Formula sorrows ”( Pushkin ),“ Portrait of Albert Einstein ”( Princeton , USA),“ Left without burial ”(Moscow) and others. Various periods of V. Sidur's creative work are presented - from the realistic plastics of the mid-1950s to the avant-garde “Coffin-Art” and “Iron Prophets”, to which a separate hall is dedicated. When creating these two cycles, the artist used as a working material sewage pipes, parts of automobile engines and other waste of the “second nature” - human civilization. These strange human figures lying in wooden coffin-boxes, silently protesting against the war and violence that prevail in the modern world.

In honor of the 90th anniversary of the birth of Vadim Sidur, a large-scale reconstruction was carried out - in July 2014 the museum became a modern exhibition center, the halls changed, professional lighting and a private cinema appeared ^[7] .

On August 14, 2015, a group of individuals - members of the public movement “ God's will ”, led by Dmitry Tsorionov (Dmitry Enteo),

damaged 4 works Sidur, located in the State Fund and presented at the exhibition in the Arena ^[8] . Members of the aforementioned group explained their actions by the fact that the exhibited works offended the religious feelings of believers. Their actions have caused a broad discussion in society ^{[9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]} .

August 26 at the same exhibition there was a repeated act of vandalism regarding the work of Vadim Sidur, where the image of Christ, according to the Vandals, was depicted in blasphemous form. She was torn from the wall and thrown on the floor ^[15] .

Initially, the prosecutor's office refused to initiate a criminal case of vandalism against pogrom-mongers ^[16] , but later, a criminal case on the destruction of cultural property was still initiated. At the same time, the Investigation Committee began checking against the exhibition itself under Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Incitement of hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity”) ^[17] on the fact of a public demonstration of Sidur’s damaged works. Such a check with respect to cultural objects in the state fund is unprecedented for modern Russia.

• Order of the Patriotic War , 1st degree (November 6, 1985);
• Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree (November 6, 1947).

Books by V. Sidur

• The happiest autumn: Poems 1983-1986. - M .: 1990. - 160 p.
• Sidur V. Easy pen. M., 1999.
• Monument to the modern state: Myth [first part]. - M .: Vagrius, 2002. - 512 p. Preface M. Sidura. Comm. G.Sidur. Prose.
• Vadim Siddur. Karl Eimermacher . "We'll talk about the details at a date ...". Correspondence / Comp., Prep. text and comments. V. Volovnikova. - M .: ROSSPEN , 2004.
• Vadim Sidur: essay of creativity against the background of life events / M.V. Sidur. - M .: Mosk. state Museum V. Sidur, 2004.
• Siddur, Vadim. Ausstellung (1979; Hamburg). Vadim Siddur: Plastik. Graphik: Katalog. - Hamburg, 1979.
• Sidur V. A. [Booklet]. - Moscow: Soviet artist, 1986.
• Vadim Siddur, 1924-1986: Sculpture / Comp. I.A. Shifrin. - M., 1988.
• Vadim Siddur, 1924-1986: Sculpture. Painting. Graphics. - Moscow: Dep. Culture Executive Committee Perov. District Council of Moscow, 1988.
• Nolde Lurie, Natalia Lvovna. Human drama in the works of Vadim Sidur. - Moscow: Canon Plus, 2014.

Books on V. Sidura

• Gladkov E. ... And created the coffin art. - M., 1998.
• Vadim Siddur: Sculpture. Painting. Graphics. Comp.: G. A. Siddur, M. V. Siddur. - M .: Mosk. state Vadim Sidur Museum: Exposynthesis, 1998.
• Vadim Sidur's World = Świat Wadima Sidura / Ioanna Myanovsk; Highest ped. wk in Bydgoszcz. - Bydgoszcz: Wydaw. uczelniane WSP, 1999.
• Bäckström, Annika. Vadim Sidur: Skulpturer och mutationer. - Stockholm: Carlssons, Cop. 1989.
• Vadim Sidour: sculpture et graphisme / Musée d'Etat Vadim Sidour, Moscou. - Moscou: Exposynthesis, 1996.
• Sidur: Ausstellung und Symposium "Eine Andere Kunst - Vadim Sidur" vom 13. Juni bis 3. Juli 1992 in Berlin Galerie im Scheunenviertel. - Berlin: Eurocultur Ost, 1992.
• Moscow sculptor Vadim Sidur. - Bochum: Lotman-Inst. for Russ. a. Sov. culture, 2000.
• Verdeckte Dialoge im Kalten Krieg: Materialien zur Rezeption des Moskauer Bildhauers Vadim Sidur im Westen. - Bochum, 1997.
• Vadim Sidur: Plastik / Graphik: catalog held in Hamburg, Sept. 5-Oct. 3, 1979. - Hamburg: Manager Magazin Verlagsgesellschaft, Marketingabteilung, 1979.
• The formula of sorrow: [On the opening of the monument to the Jews, the victims of the fascist. genocide, sculptor V. Sidur in Pushkin] / Ed. G. Farber, A. Frenkel; Per. D. G. Yakovlev. - SPb., 1991.

• Eimermacher K. From unity to diversity. Searches in the field of "other art" of the 1950s-1980s. - M .: Publishing Center of the Russian State Humanitarian University, 2004.

• "Vesti Moscow" about Vadim Siddur , the story from the 14th minute.
• Page portal "Maslovka" dedicated to the artist.
• Vadim Sidur Museum.
• Vadim Sidur on the site "Unofficial Poetry"
• Learn Mosk. State Museum V. Sidur.
• Vadim Sidur Museum in Moscow.
• Photo album "And created the coffin-ART", Gladkov Eduard Nikolaevich
• Sculptures of Vadim Sidur as monuments to victims of repression at the online exhibition "Memory in the project."
• Vadim Siddur is a sculptor of heavy emotions.
• Sculptures by Vadim Sidur in the Manezh.
• Vadim Siddur: a brief biography.
• Vadim Siddur. Sculpture and graphics.