Anthropology of the Thaw. Friendship Stories of the Ural And Moscow Artists

Abstract

The article represents the anthropological aspect of friendship between the famous Ural and Moscow artists of the sixties. The study is focused on the personality of the sculptor Ernst Neizvestny, who was born in Sverdlovsk, studied and worked in Moscow (and later in Europe and the USA). Ernst Neizvestny was the link between the artistic realities of the Urals and the capital city. When visiting his parents in his hometown, he met with the Ural artists, who in turn often visited the Neizvestny’s Moscow studios, and after the collapse of the USSR, they were keeping in touch while being abroad. In the study, based on a range of personal sources, for example interviews and publications, the theme of the Thaw Generation, friendship between artists is considered not only in the social context of mutual support, but also as a special phenomenon that brings together the characters, styles and symbols of creativity. The study proves that through the exchange of ideas and subjective perceptions the artistic culture of that time, deviating from the socialist realistic canons, but forced to be in the ideological field of Soviet culture, developed.