Hannelore Fobo

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

Chapter 3 • The New Artists as an artists collective

In his text from 1985, “New Trends in the Contemporary Painting of the New Artists”, Novikov argued that collective works were “one of the characteristic aspects of the New Artists” (The New Artists, 2012, p. 35; text no 1). From collective works he inferred the existence of an artist collective, and vice-versa:  “The entire New Artists collective worked on the [New Theatre] performance, which is indeed a collective work.” (The New Artists, 2012, p. 107; Text no 2).

According to Soviet ideology (and communist ideology in general), the real creative force was inherent to the collective, while the propagation of competition and individual merits was seen as a typical relict of the capitalist society, with the bourgeois trying to siphon off the fruit of collective endeavours, for instance, in the form of copyright laws.

Production collectives of artists were actually a typical phenomenon of the early Soviet period. However, a production collective doesn’t necessarily entail that works as such are produced collectively – it may consist of a number of individuals sharing similar ideas or a similar ideology who join to create more favourable conditions for their work. An example is the “Prokoll” (Проколл — Производственный коллектив студентов-композиторов Московской консерватории / The Production Collective of Students of Composition at the Moscow conservatory), which existed from 1925 to 1929. In socio-economic terms, production collectives provide each other with means of production (in one way or another), while the product as such may remain individual, as was the case for Prokoll members.

In the case of the New Artists, collective works actually did reflect collective authorship, as Novikov insisted: “The New Artists work collectively in practically all fields of art, including collaboratively produced pictures, books, conceptual pieces, theatre and music and literature. This collective work involves not only members, but also other artists, musicians, strangers and passersby.” (The New Artists, 2012, p. 107; text no 2).

It seems that we simply need to know who produced those collective works in order to compile a lineup that is more exact than Novikov’s notes or recollections.

Let us first have a look at visual art. Here, collective works make up only a smaller fraction of the entire production by the New Artists, and not all artists were involved in collective works to the same degree – for instance, Kozlov painted with others only rarely, while Bugaev did so quite often.[1]  Because artists never signed their collective works with the group’s name New Artists, to identify the authors shouldn’t be a problem – as long as such works were signed individually.[2] Alas, they weren’t always, and in the case of missing signatures, authorship must be reconstructed on the bases of stylistic criteria. Put differently, to identify an artist from outside the “classical” New Artists lineup, there would have to be someone’s “name tag”, yet so far, there seem to be no signs of such particular features. Photographic documentation can help. Kozlov’s pictures from the Pop Mekhanika performance from December 1985 show New artists plus some others being involved in some action painting directly on stage more>>; part of the large cloth, covered with graffiti, has been preserved. Among the painters was musician Viktor Sologub from the „Strannye igry / Strange Games band who performed with Pop Mekhanika that evening. Now this gets very complicated, because Pop Mekhanika, as I will explain later, was not a band of its own, but an orchestra formed on the spot by different bands and other performers on specific occasions. So imagine that Sologub changed his identity twice that evening: on stage, he turned from a Strange Games musician into a Pop Mekhanika performer, and then, putting down his guitar, joined the New Artists for a collective work. This is really weird!

No wonder that instead of defining multiple personalities for collective work, Novikov spoke of “members, but also other artists, musicians, strangers and passersby” without referring to them individually.

However, he (and Bugaev) propagated the principle of collective work to such an extent that it took on a grotesque form. When works by the New Artists were presented at London’s Young Unknowns Gallery in early 1988,[3] Novikov and Bugaev wrote an introduction for the Xerox-copy catalogue, stating that

The strong inter-influences, encouraged by the leadership of the Club of Friends of V.V.Mayakovsky, and the numerous joint works allow us to present a unified exhibition, without the need to divide the work according to the artist. This is a COLLECTIVE exhibition.

 As a result, the press wrote “The groups rigorous collective spirit – no individual name tags on the works” (City Limits). The press ignored the fact that although there were no name tags on the wall, most works could by easily assigned to their respective author, since they were signed individually.

The problem acquires another aspect when it comes to the performing genres, e.g. theatre performances or musical improvisations that leave behind no physical object. By their very nature, the performing genres are related to collective actions, and because of personal relations between the New artists, a certain degree of collaboration with each other established itself naturally and spontaneously. Still, how should we distinguish a simple gathering of friends horsing around from a “real” performance?

In some instances, the difference lies in the fact that (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov documented a meeting with his camera, provoking his friends to improvise poses and gestures, and then printed and painted the pictures to use them as sketches for his collages and paintings. This was the case with “Fashion Show” from 1984, initiated by Kozlov – a highly entertaining happening at Novikov’s place with New Artists Kozlov, Timur Novikov, Oleg Kotelnikov, Yury "Tsirkul" Krasev, and “models” Gasya Ordinova, Katya Selitskaya, and Natalia "Dlinnaya" Turik (Nazarova) posing, among others on top of a kitchen stove more >>. Kozlov used some of the painted vintage prints for his collage-triptych A Slice throughTime. (Dedicated to All), now at in the collection of the Russian Museum more >>; two more are at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies Special Collection, Harvard University more >>. Other pictures from the series have been published in the Anthology, in New Artists catalogues, in the Russian edition of the Rolling Stone magazine more >> and at a Moscow exhibition of alternative fashion. If it hadn’t been for Kozlov’s camera, it is very unlikely that the gathering would still be remembered today.

The same goes for an “unnamed” meeting in the spring of 1985, when Novikov, Kozlov, Alakhov, and Verichev joined their young Dutch companion Yohann in his flat, where they played around with plates, pots, pans, and other kitchen sets. Inspired by his pictures, Kozlov created “Timur on Horseback” (which became the logotype of the first international New Artists exhibition in Stockholm in 1988 more >> and The Raw, The Cooked, The Packaged. The Archives of Perestroika Art at the Kiasma, Helsinki, 2007 more >>), “When you Start Feeling Muscles” more >> (in the collection of the State Russian Museum), “Terror to the Enemy”, and other works – a total of foureen more >>. Kozlov’s camera upgraded the encounter to the rank of a performance with four New artists and one “other artist” I later called “Timur on Horseback”.

Between 1984 and 1986, the role of Kozlov’s camera for New Artists performances is significant. He also arranged photo shoots for two albums covers, Nachalnik Kamchatki by Kino (1984) more >> and Popular Mechanics. Insect Culture, with Sergey Kuryokhin, and New Composers Valery Alakhov and Igor Verichev (1985) more >>. But however we look at it, we must recognise the fact that New artists “created” a collective action not every time they did something together, and further, that they participated in collective actions sometimes, but not all the time – more exactly, if they did, only some did, but not all. Finally, we must “somehow” decide whether or not everyone else participating in such a collective action would become a New artist, as well, or whether they remained “other artists, musicians, strangers and passersby”, as I would suggest in the case of three ladies from Fashion show and the young Dutchman from Timur on Horseback.

This brings us back to the circular argument from the previous chapter: we need to know who the New Artists were in order to define a collective work, and we need to know which were their collective works in order to define the New Artists.

Suppose we find a definition, then immediately the next question arises: just how many members of the group were needed to call a collective action not simply a performance, but a New Artists’ performance?

The answer is: it all depends. In case of doubts, Novikov (and those speaking in his name) possessed the power of naming. With respect to the zero object, we have seen that two out of five were enough. It was actually produced by the smallest collective conceivable – a collective consisting of two members, Novikov and Sotnikov. “Two” allows us to speak of the zero object as a collective work and thus infer from it the birth of the New Artists, whether as an association, group or movement – in the context of a collective, such a distinction becomes redundant. If either Novikov or Sotnikov alone had claimed authorship for “the hole in the wall”, this wouldn’t have worked. But “two” worked, although Novikov later spoke of five founding members, and three of them were not involved in the action.

At the New Theatre performances, their number was certainly larger than two. I already quoted Novikov: “The entire New Artists collective worked on the performance, which is indeed a collective work.” (The New Artists, p. 107; text no 2). In the light of Novikov’s stylistic idiosyncrasies, this should not be taken too literally: “the entire” may be understood as “quite a few” – three to five, plus the New Composers contributing with music. Also, to be a member of the New Artists collective didn’t necessarily mean showing oneself on stage. Kirill Khazanovich, for instance, is not documented with any of the performances from 1984-1986.

Valery Cherkasov, who died in 1984, was even made a New artist posthumously. Novikov included Cherkasov’s works into the “Happy New Year” exhibition in December 1985, the group’s first public solo show. In his text from 1985 ”New Trends in the Contemporary Painting of the New Artists“, Novikov writes “Valery Cherkasov was not a member of the New Artists, but he did much for the new art both theoretically and practically” (The New Artists, 2012, p. 34; text no 1).

The degree of a New artist’s involvement in collective actions was not only highly varying, but, as we have seen, participating in a collective action was not always a prerequisite for a particular artist to become a New artist – unless we call an exhibition a collective action. As a matter of fact, Novikov explained that “[c]ollective work […] contributed to the creation of the association” (The New Artists, 2012, p. 35; text 1). But if collective work was a contribution, there must have been other criteria for the creation of the association, as well.

In view of Novikov’s enthusiasm for collective art, should we establish the priority of collective art over individual art for the New Artists?

In my opinion, when it comes to visual art, their individually created works are receiving much more attention than their collective works, whether from art-critics, the public, or collectors – not only because such works surpass collective works in numbers, but because artists are first and foremost appreciated for their individual contribution to the world of art. Once we know their individual art, we take pleasure in rediscovering it in a collective work, but not vice versa. It might be different with an artist collective made up of one prominent figure and several newcomers, but this was definitely not the case with the New Artists. I would therefore call their collective works a “side-line job” and their individual works the “main job”.

Strictly speaking, Novikov confronts us with two different approaches. One represents the concept of “framing” an artist collective via some kind of membership. It is different from a typical artist collective in that Novikov alone took the initiative to define it and to name artists. In other words, everyone he names is a member. His position can be compared to that of a theatre director engaging actors on the basis of their individual merits – once they sign a contract, they have become lifetime members of the collective, regardless of whether they actually appear on stage or not (although the audience would expect to see them at regular intervals).

The second approach defines the collective afresh with each collective event or exhibition, admitting accidental contributors, for instance at a New Theatre performance: the lineup is fickle. A collective has a collective identity, and Novikov at times changed his opinion with regard to who formed the collective body.

We might call the membership principle (the imitation of) an institutional approach and the event principle an anti-institutional, spontaneous approach.

Novikov blended both approaches together, which allowed him to keep the lineup growing, albeit diffuse. In fact, the lineup had to possess an unlimited potential: this was part of the Novikov’s ambition to challenge the authorities.  He could always add some other event to the list as long as it included at least one New artist.

On the other hand, the principle of merit is an elitist concept. Not everybody is an eligible candidate according to the requirements of a revolution. It was not enough to be named by Novikov. To achieve some kind of group identity, just as important was acceptance of one’s professional qualities by fellow artists. Members needed to be recognised as members by other members. Novikov’s statement “This collective work involves not only members, but also other artists, musicians, strangers and passersby” expresses the concept of members as opposed to non-members.

It therefore proved to be impossible to keep the lineup growing without releasing centrifugal forces: if everybody is a New artist, then no one identifies themselves with the New Artists. Towards the end of the 1980s, the “collective” – the group / association / movement fell apart. Then again, it might have fallen apart just the same, either because it had reached its natural lifespan or because Novikov grew tired of it.

Those two New Artists extensions created in 1986, the “Mayakovsky Friends Club” and the “Folk Art Lovers Club”, couldn't fulfil the artists’ expectations of profiting from legalising membership and got defunct within a year. Because their institutional approach was a fake, there was nothing to stop the dissolution of the New Artists, especially after Novikov decided, around 1989, to create a “real” fake institution, the “New Academy of Fine Arts”.[4] Interestingly, two late exhibitions (1989 and 1990) of the New Artists were organised by New York art dealer Paul Judelson under the label “Club of Friends of Mayakovsky” more >>. Pop culture demands strong labels, and “Mayakovsky” was a more suitable brand to bring Soviet art to the market than “New Artists”.

On the following pages, I will examine the New Artists from the point of view of the membership principle and from the point of view of the event principle. With the help of Novikov’s articles, texts and speeches, I will then establish a narrower category for the New Artists as a group and proceed from group to the less defined movement. In other words, I will substitute the term “collective” with either “group” or “movement”.

The third category, “association” (and, likewise, “society”), plays a minor role. It is impracticable to distinguish between all three categories with mathematical exactness, but at least group and movement stand at the opposite sides of a scale representing various degrees of inner cohesion. Such a differentiation enables us to partly dissolve the ambiguities regarding the New Artists’ structure.

Anticipating the conclusions of the following chapters, we can now attempt a periodization:

• 1982-1984 – The emergence of the New Artists as a small group of visual artists
• 1984-1986 – The group’s growth and consolidation through a number of collective actions that included “other artists, musicians, strangers and passersby”. The core of the group, between fifteen to twenty visual artists by 1986, remains essentially the same until 1989. They form the New Artists group, while “other artists, musicians, strangers and passersby” contribute to the New Artists movement. With respect to the movement, names and numbers fluctuate.
• 1986-1987 – Novikov’s creation of the institutional-like organisations “Friends of Mayakovsky Club” and “Folk Art Lovers Club” with their multiple sections reflects his idea of expanding the group into a movement. (Regarding the question of whether these organisations had any identity of their own see Chapter 8.)
• 1988-1989 – Having established themselves as a brand name, the New Artists are having their first large national and international exhibitions, and at the height of recognition, cease to exist as a group and, accordingly, as a movement. 
• 1989-1991 – A late period producing a new group activity with some new members – “Pirate Television”. Kozlov’s “Collection 2x3m” (starting in 1990) is another project in the spirit of New Artists collective works, but it had a broader approach.

Although Novikov produced contradictory statements throughout his texts and speeches, my thesis is that, taken together, his texts suggest that only visual artists should be ascribed to the narrower category of the New Artists group, and that the New Artists group reflects the New Artists proper. This corresponds to their presentation as a “group” in both of Leningrad’s official New Artists exhibitions, at the Sverdlov House of Culture 1988 and the Railroad Workers Palace of Culture 1989, respectively.

My second thesis is that the New Artists had consolidated as a group of visual artists by 1985/1986, especially with the “Happy New Year” exhibition and the Pop Mekhanika performance at the Leningrad Rock Club from December 1985. This is demonstrated by the fact that the group’s 1985/1986 lineup of visual artists was still very much in effect towards the end of the 1980s, shortly before its break-up: the exhibitions from 1988 and 1989 essentially stick to these earlier lineups.

These theses stand in obvious contrast to the sentence from the flyer quoted above “The New Artists are more a movement than a group” (Brushstroke, 2010, p. 33; in Russian: Новые художники — скорее движение, чем группа). However, Novikov wrote this sentence at a time when, in his view, the movement had engulfed the group,[5] and for some reason or another, he didn't return to this view in his autobiography, where the focus was again on the group (see Chapter 7).

After presenting a general outline of Leningrad’s subculture of the 1980s, followed by a classification of Novikov’s texts examined in this article, I will discuss in detail what characterises the New Artists group and how we may thus distinguish the group from the movement.

to Chapter 4 • The Leningrad subculture of the 1980s >>
Table of Contents >>

© Hannelore Fobo, 2018 / 2025
uploaded 29 October 2018 / revised version uploaded 13 Juli 2025

Last updated 20 July 2025

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