Vasiliy Nesterenko and Sergey Simakov: Struggle for the Meaning or Why “Kitsch” Is Quite Good

Abstract

In the article the author analyzes the work of two artists – Sergey Simakov (now Father Raphael) and Vasiliy Nesterenko. Wile the peak of Simakov’s artistic work falls at the time of the late USSR, Nesterenko is the person of contemporary Russian painting. According to the author these artists can be viewed as spiritual heirs and successors of Ilya Glazunov’s school in painting. The essence of this school consists in understanding art as civic statement and serving to the Motherland. The artists are related in their visualization of the idea of Holy Rus’ in their work resorting to poster aesthetics at that. The last circumstance is the reason for often qualifying their art as kitsch. Still the author shows in the article that the concept of kitsch was invented in the 20th century to compromise the idea of meaning and justify the understanding of art as principally senseless and shallow, denying the very category of absolute and shattering any foundations. Analyzing certain paintings the author comes to the conclusion that such artists as S. Simakov and V. Nesterenko stand up for the idea of meaning at the “art fronts” and objectify the self-comprehension of Russian people in their images