Современное искусство Новосибирска в 2009–2019 годах

Abstract

The work examines the contemporary art scene of Novosibirsk from 2009–2019. In the first part of the article we carry out a sociological analysis of the artistic life of the city and highlight such features as: the prevalence of self-organized forms of art presentation over institutional forms, non-publicity and “diffusivity” of a significant part of art practices. We also analyse the influence of these factors on the perception of art and discuss what kinds of methodological challenges they provoke. Further we give a brief overview of some significant exhibitions of the past decade (such as “Siberian Underground. 20 Years Later”, “Repetition of the Untrodden” etc.), examine artistic circles of the city and their transformation from 1990 to our time, discuss principles of their formation and the nature of interactions among them. We also propose a schematic representation of the artistic circles under consideration, their interactions and attractions from a historical point of view. The second part of the article examines the aesthetic features of contemporary art in Novosibirsk from 2009-2019. The transition from the art of the 00s and early 10s to the art of younger generations of the late 10s is characterized by a change in the emotional tonality: from vitality and expressivity to fragile and melancholic sensitivity, from political irony and grotesque to ethical complexity and vulnerability. When considering art of individual artists of the specified period we outline two possible ways of their analysis based on the allocation of a common motive: neo-expressionist and post-conceptual. The first of these is united by the motive of “toys” as a way of working with corporeality and doubleness (for example, in the works of Konstantin Skotnikov, the Cosmonauts art group, Denis Efremov, Alexei Grishchenko, Mayana Nasybullova, etc.). The post-conceptual line is presented through the works of such artists as: Alexander Limarev, Mikhail Karlov, the BERTOLLO art group, Irca Solza. Here we propose a unifying motive of “a game” as a dichotomy of rule systems and their failure that is viewed as an opportunity to conceive another world. In the conclusion of the article, we suggest that such an integrated approach to the analysis of regional art of the last decade is promising.