Timur Novikov's New Artists Lists (2018 / 2025)

Table C • Participation of New Artists in TEII exhibitions

TEII, or ТЭИИ in Russian, is the acronym of Товариществo экспериментального изобразительного искусства / The Society for Experimental Visual Art, 1981-1991. Although the authorities never allowed it to register its charter formally, it nevertheless possessed all relevant functions of an association: members, an elected board of directors etc. The TEII promoted the works of "non-conformist" artists – those who found themselves outside state institutions like the Union of Artists. Its most important exhibitions were the general exhibitions, which took place once or twice a year. These exhibitions admitted a large number of participants, members as well as non-members, their total number going up to 197 in 1985.

The first general exhibition from October 1982 played a significant role in the history of the New Artists: the scandal provoked by Timur Novikov and Ivan Sotnikov with the zero object, a hole in a partition wall, is today considered as the foundation date of the New Artists group (see Chapter 1).
I compiled Table C with the information provided by the TEII almanac from 2007, Ot Leningrada k Sankt-Peterburgu (see Works cited). After selecting the names of seventeen New Artists core members, I listed them independently of the moment they actually adhered to it. For instance, Vadim Ovchinnikov is in Table C with a TEII exhibition from August 1983, but joined the New Artists only two years later, at their first public group exhibition Happy New Year in December 1985. Interestingly, the TEII exhibition running parallel to Happy New Year (The General Exhibition no 7) sees no New artist at all. Table C also shows that Ovchinnikov, like Novikov, was one of the regular TEII participants, while Kozlov stopped participating after January 1987. Others, like Bugaev, took part sporadically.

New artists applied for participation in TEII exhibitions individually, but no later than 1986, Timur Novikov insisted that their works should be shown as a group of its own, in one section. The picture in the TEII almanac on p. 244 demonstrates that they actually did so in May 1986, at the General Exhibition no. 8 (8-я общая выставка ТЭИИ). It shows a fragment of their section with works by Gutsevich, Sotnikov, Krisanov / Bugaev, Ovchinnikov, Kotelnikov, andTaratuta, Kozlov, and, possibly, Maslov (and Savchenkov?). However, due to conflicts with Leningradís cultural department, this show was never opened to the public.