Hannelore Fobo • “Timur Novikov's New Artists Lists” - Chapter 9 - Sergey Kuryokhin’s “Pop-Mekhanika”. The principle of reciprocity.

Chapter 9 • Sergey Kuryokhin’s “Pop-Mekhanika”. The principle of reciprocity.

In the chapter “The New Artists group and the New Artists movement” I argued why, in my opinion, a New artist per se is a visual artist in the first place. I can now support this view with three more arguments.

The first refers to the “Mayakovsky Friends Club” report from 5 October 1987 (Chapter 18). It explicitly mentions the New Artists group as the main members of the visual art or painting section (Отдел изобразительного искусства состоящий в основном из группы Новые художники […])

The second is based on Novikov’s 1987 list (text no 6): which ends “To date, the New Artists are S. Bugaev, T. Novikov, V Ovchinnikov, V. Gutsevich, E. Kozlov, I. Savchenko [sic], O. Kotelnikov, A. Ovchinnikov, O. Maslov, A. Kozin, Yu. Krasev, K. Khazanovich, E. Yufit, M. Taratuta, E. Kondratev, I. Sotnikov.“ All of its sixteen members are painters, although they are not only painters. (Mikhail Taratuta collaborated with the New Artists in 1986/1987, but emigrated in the summer of 1987, which is why he does not appear in Novikov’s later texts.)

The third argument is longer and also subtler. It shows how It shows how Novikov “affiliates” to his group artists from outside visual art – more precisely, from music – by using the principle of reciprocity. Put differently, just as (some) visual artists are also musicians, (some) musicians are also visual artists.

The most important example of a musician Novikov – temporarily – “made” a New artist is Sergey Kuryokhin, the leader of Pop Mekhanika which Novikov considered as particularly significant for New Artists activities.

In essence, “Pop Mekhanika“ was neither a band nor an orchestra, but a gathering of musicians and artists on specific occasions. In other words, “Pop Mekhanika“ was not Pop Mekhanika plus some guest performers. Rather, anyone on stage would be a constituting element of a given Pop Mekhanika performance, although there were, indeed, a number of core members – mostly musicians, but also some New artists.

In his autobiography from 1998 (text no 9), Novikov writes:

text no 9

When the Popular Mechanics band appeared, the New Artists merged with the band as musicians, showmen, set and costume designers etc. Sergey Kuryokhin contributed to two New Artists exhibitions as an artist, It suffices to recall the Stockholm exhibition where he created an entire installation.[1]

The photographic documentation of the 1988 Stockholm exhibition “The New from Leningrad“ actually displays, next to Bugaev’s paintings, Kuroykhin’s jacket fixed to some kind of music stand, but to call it an “entire installation” sounds somewhat grandiose more>>. Kuryokhin’s second contribution could not be identified.

Novikov again referred to Kuryokhin in his 2001 lecture (text no 10). Here he chose the example of the Happy New Year exhibition and the Pop Mekhanika concert at the Leningrad Rock Club in December 1985, stressing the concept of reciprocity – musicians as painters, painters as musicians:

Sergey Kuryokhin showed his works as an artist, and Viktor Tsoy, too. Georgy Guryanov presented his paintings; Andrey Krisanov and Sergei Bugaev-Afrika played together with the band “Kino” and exhibited their works with the New Artists group.

Note that Novikov had not included Andrey Krisanov in his 1987 list of visual artists (text no 6), but in 2001, Krisanov perfectly fitted the context of reciprocity (unlike Bugaev, Krisanov was a professional musician). Yet the statement that Kuryokhin, Tsoy, and Guryanov showed their works at the “Happy New Year” exhibition stands in contrast to Novikov’s earlier accounts from 1986 – none of them was mentioned in the catalogue he edited after the exhibition nor in his article “The Celebration of Arts”, although he would certainly have included them in case they had participated. Possibly, what Novikov had in mind was a painting action on stage on the day of the opening, where many of the Pop Mekhanika performers embellished a large cloth with some graffiti art more>>. Novikov refers to this action in “The Celebration of Arts” (text 3):

A team of artists consisting of Leningrad artists Oleg KOTELNIKOV, Evgenij KOZLOV, Timur NOVIKOV, Sergei Bugaev and Vladimir GUTSEVICH, Moscow artists Nikita ALEKSEEV and Nikolai OVCHINNIKOV began to paint a grandiose canvas (12x4 m), installed behind the orchestra.

In this fragment, Novikov included only painters from the New Artists per se (plus two Moscovites), although E-E Kozlov’s pictures of the performance actually show some more participants, among them Tsoy and Guryanov (but not Kuryokhin). In other words, with respect to this very performance, Novikov developed the principle of reciprocity retrospectively in 2001, stressing it with the second part of his statement, “Andrey Krisanov and Sergei Bugaev-Afrika played together with the band ‘Kino‘ and exhibited their works with the New Artists”. Krisanov and Bugaev are also in Kozlov’s Pop Mekhanika pictures, and they might have joined Kino in the first half of the LRC programme, before everyone (including Kino) participated at the Pop Mekhanika concert.

What Novikov informs us about in the 2001 lecture are three musicians contributing as painters, Kuryokhin, Tsoy, and Guryanov, and two painters contributing as musicians, Krisanov and Bugaev. For each of them, we can speak of a main job and side job, respectively, and all of this came together at the Leningrad Rock Club on 27 December, 1985.

Or did it?

While Tsoy and Guryanov from the Kino band were indeed also painters, Kuryokhin was certainly talented in a number of fields, yet nothing is known of him showing “his works as an artist”, that is, being featured in any New Artists exhibition – or about him painting at all, for that matter (which doesn’t exclude the possibility that he occasionally drew some sketches, like most of us).

It seems to me that the principle of reciprocity led Novikov to add what could have been to what actually happened. To emphasise that musicians were visual artists in their own right was particularly important – visual art caused a musician’s transfer from the New Artists movement to the New Artists group, as could be shown for Georgy Guryanov and Viktor Tsoy. In this respect, Kuryokhin became a key witness.

Yet Novikov did not establish such a reciprocity rule to its full extent: Kuryokhin’s name is not even among the Chronicle lineup of the “Folk Art Lovers Club“, although we might have expected him to be the music section. Only once, in his 2002 lecture, did Novikov explicitly relate Kuryokhin to the New Artists:

Later, musicians began joining us: Georgy Guryanov, Viktor Tsoi, Sergei Kuriokhin, and Igor Verichev, for example, were also considered New Artists. (Timur, p. 115, text no 11. Translated by Thomas Campbell)

Three of the four musicians were also painters, and the forth, Kuryokhin, was also made a painter by Novikov, as we have seen. Did Novikov consider them as New Artists because they were also painters?

One possible translation of относиться [otnosit’sia] is, indeed, “are / were considered” (in the sense of “belong“), but perhaps here, it would be better to use its slightly undetermined meaning as “had something to do with“, the main idea being that the musicians “stood in (close) relation“ to the New Artists, just as примыкать [primykat’] is not only “to join”, but “adjoin“. In the same lecture, Novikov did use the more formal term “member of the New Artists“ referring to Evgeny Yufit: Юфа, тоже член группы “Новые художники”, “Yufa, likewise a member of the New Artists (Timur, 2013, p. 123). If we do not believe that he used such terms at random, we should be aware of such nuances.

In my opinion, Kuryokhin’s personal authority explains Novikov’s somewhat cautious approach to “make“ Kuryokhin a New artist. Kuryokhin was a leader in his own right, no less gifted with organisational skills in the field of music than Novikov in the field of visual art. And although he started collaborating with Novikov and some other New artists quite early (no later than 1983, see my article on “Leningrad Collective Improvisations“ more>>), such collective projects constituted only part of his musical and other projects.[2] Pop Mekhanika, the most important collective project, was clearly Kuryokhin’s creation, and on stage he was Pop Mekhanika’s undisputed leader. Therefore we may say that the New Artists joined Pop-Mekhanika, but neither Pop Mekhanika nor Kuryokhin himself joined the New Artists.

Novikov essentially made the same distinction. In the same lecture from 2001 we read:

Moscow was quieter and Muscovites came to Leningrad to breathe the air of freedom, which parted from the rock-club because of those dashing activities of the rock'n rollers, Sergey Kuryokhin and the New Artist group.

There were numerous points of contact between Novikov and Kuryokhin, including their both joining the press-conference of right-wing politicians Alexander Dugin and Eduard Limonov in the spring of 1995, but for Novikov, to consider Kuryokhin a New artist like Guryanov or Tsoy, seems to have stood beyond good reason.

[1] Translated by the author. In the 2003 catalogue “Timur”, the English translation of this fragment is slightly different: “The New Artists merged with the Popular Mechanics group, doubling up as musical showmen and set and costume designers. Sergei Kuryokhin contributed to two New Artists exhibitions as an artist, creating an entire installation for the Stockholm exhibition.”

[2] In 1985, (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov created the album cover for “Popular Mechanics. Insect Culture”, Kuroykhin’s project with the New Composers and Igor Butman. The LP was released in 1987 by Ark Records, Liverpool.

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