Viktor Pivovarov
Born in 1937 in Moscow.
1962 – Graduated from the Art Department of the Moscow Polygraphic Institute.
Worked as an illustrator of children's books.
1967 – Created a series of monotypes 'The Temptation of St. Anthony', which marked the beginning of his artistic career.
In the 1970s, he created a series of paintings in nitro enamel called 'The Blue Glasses of the Mad Policeman', with noticeable influences of surrealism.
Following Ilya Kabakov, he began working in the 'album' genre, predominantly using surreal images that balance between literariness and dream.
In the 1970s, he became one of the founders of the Moscow Conceptual School.
1982 – Moved to Prague, where he has lived and worked since.
Has participated in exhibitions since 1977.
Works in collections
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg.
Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.
State Literary Museum, Moscow.
F. M. Dostoevsky Museum.
Prague National Gallery.
Museum Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany.
Art Museum, Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, and others.
Also in private collections in Russia, Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic, and the USA.
Exhibitions and auctions
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2009 – 'A Cockroach for Dinner', Jiri Svestka Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic.
2007 – 'If...', XL Gallery, Moscow.
2006 – 'Lemon Eaters', Moscow Museum of Modern Art.
2005 – 'Foxes and Holidays', Pleskot Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic.
2004 – 'Steps of a Mechanic', Mikhailovsky Castle, Saint Petersburg.
2004 – 'Dark Rooms', XL Gallery, Moscow.
2004 – 'A Guinea and a Magician', Galerie ad astra, Kurim, Czech Republic.
2001 – 'Philemon', iFA galerie, Berlin, Germany.
2000 – 'Objects in the Landscape' (with P. Pepperstein), Obscuri Viri, Moscow.
1999 – 'Father and Son' (with P. Pepperstein), Kunsthaus Zug, Zug, Switzerland.
1998 – 'Lessons of Chinese Language', Velta Gallery, Moscow.
1998 – 'Some Details of Melancholy', Gallery Sternberg.
1998 – 'Ost-Trava', Gallery Sokolska 26, Ostrava, Czech Republic.
1998 – 'Haven's Chelm', Vaclav Spala Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic.
1997 – 'Sonja and the Angels', Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren, Germany.
1997 – 'Sonja and the Angels', Musée d'Art Moderne, Saint-Étienne, France.
1997 – 'Dramatis Personae', Obscuri Viri, Moscow.
1996 – 'Dramatis Personae', CCI, Moscow.
1996 – 'The Flat No. 22', Galerie der Stadt Wels, Wels, Austria.
1996 – 'Metempsychose', Galerie U dobreho Pastyre, Brno, Czech Republic.
1996 – 'The Games on the Water', Gallery Sypka, Brno, Czech Republic.
1996 – 'Skupina Jauza', Gallery Veseli nad Moravou, Czech Republic.
1996 – 'Sonja and the Angels', Gallery Rudolfinum, Czech Republic.
1995 – 'Something Like a Diary', Red Art Gallery, Moscow.
1995 – 'Illusions That Are Not Lost', Galerie Ruce, Prague, Czech Republic.
1995 – 'The Flat No. 22', Glazer Kunstverein, Graz, Austria.
1994 – 'We Can't Be Seen But We're Here', Galerie Krings-Ernst, Cologne, Germany.
1994 – 'I'm Animal', Window Gallery, British Consulate, Prague, Czech Republic.
1994 – 'Agent in Norway', Obscuri Viri, Moscow.
1993 – 'Metempsychosis', L-Gallery, Moscow.
1992 – Retrospective, Galerie Krings-Ernst, Cologne.
1992 – 'Unlimited Possibilities of Painting', Behemot Gallery, Czech Republic.
1992 – 'Little Pleasures of Great Grief', Cultural House, Prague, Czech Republic.
1991 – 'Drawings', Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, USA.
1991 – 'Little White Balls', Galerie Krings-Ernst, Cologne, Germany.
1989 – Retrospective exhibition of paintings 1969-89, Narodni Dom, Prague, Czechoslovakia.
1989 – 'Image and Text', House of Arts, Brno, Czechoslovakia.
1988 – 'Concert' (with Kabakov), Lucerne, Sweden.
1987 – 'Exhibition of Illustrations', Museum of National Writing, Prague, Czechoslovakia.
1984 – 'Drawings and Watercolors', Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Author about himself
No information available.
Critic
Viktor Pivovarov is undoubtedly one of the founders of Moscow Conceptualism. In the early 1970s, he created an entirely new form in art – the 'album', where the literary phrase and visual image reveal a special unity, a complex organism of verbal and pictorial meaning. In his techniques, Pivovarov uncovers hidden potentials in the mechanisms of culture – a visual philosophy, making visible the famous phrase by Chekhov's Vershinin from 'Three Sisters': 'Gentlemen, let's philosophize.' The entire material world in Pivovarov's art begins to speak, acquiring words as in Andersen's fairy tales. In these strategies, in turn, the word materializes, being transmitted into an object – into a visible image. Intersecting and diverging, word and image create a relevant paradoxical connection, a new integrity – the very unified field theory where the particle (word) and the wave (image) form, in their dialogue, the wholeness of the universe.
Vitaly Patsyukov
'Pivovarov shares the creative method of Pieter Bruegel because, having visited the "jade clouds" and tasted the honey of nirvana, he voluntarily descended down, to the simplest and most ordinary, and even lower, to the darkest and scariest, yet does not lose the great sense of beauty. The artist tries to apply such an experience to his works. Like Freud, he forces the "darkest and scariest" to emerge, to turn the patient for the better. ...V. Pivovarov tries to heal realism according to Freud using the method of free associations, as a basis for psychoanalytic therapy. In this situation, the artist finds himself at a session with himself, offering his trusted witness – the viewer, who observes everything through an ajar door – to assess the effectiveness of the session.'
Natalia Sukhova. http://www.tvgallery.ru
A mix of different codes moves along a narrow blade between emptiness, poetry, and strict reality. Imperceptibly, we find ourselves on the ground of a subtle game with indistinct and indistinguishable symbol-meanings freely scattered across the pluralistic plane and thereby touch new paradigms introduced by postmodern and postconceptual thinking.
Petr Nedoma
Bibliography
A. Kovalev. Name Index // New Literary Review. 2005.
Zh. Vasilieva. Pivovarov and Other Sages // Monthly Literary and Publicist Magazine LECHAIM. December 2008.
V. Tupitsyn. Communal (Post)modernism // Ad Marginem. Moscow, 1998.
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