Valran, Artless still life

Valran

ALEXANDER SEKATSKY ON THE NATURE OF FINE ARTS

VALERY VALRAN
ARTLESS STILL LIFE

I painted my first still life in 1975. It was a composition made of bottles. The whole of the next year (1976) was exclusively dedicated to bottles. And since that time I have started freeing my works of all kinds of excesses.

I cannot say it was easy. For a few years I was fighting shade making it more and more transparent until it disappeared altogether. Without shade the objects lost their support in space and appeared as if levitating over the bearing plane. Later it was time to reject the bearing plane, too. The objects froze and were hanging in space. At the time, I still worked thoroughly with the painting plane trying to achieve a diversity of the space rather than its depth. In the end I reached a monochrome space, and then I started using the canvas colour and texture as the painting background imitating the latter over the priming. Lately I started pasting the canvas and leave it in its primeval form.

It all seems simple and logical. However, it has required nearly thirty years. And the path was not quite straight. For a few years I painted thematic sill lives ("rural", "chemical", "surgical" those, etc.). Since 1987, I have been working on the "archetype" still lives using those objects which had symbolical, mythological, and religious functions in different traditional cultures (fish, bread, eggs, vessels, water). In the end, rather a short list of objects emerged with which I build up my still lives, very infrequently combining them together. These are: a bottle, a glass, an apple, an egg, bread, and fish.

Usually I build up my composition on the canvas, whereas the objects themselves I paint in enough detail from nature, attaining convincingness. Generally speaking, strange interrelations reminding one of a romance emerge between the objects and myself. And each and every still life is in a way a history of this romance.

My still lives can be hardly attributed to a certain style. In them, metaphysics, surrealism, primitivism, minimalism are mixed together. I liked very much still lives by J.Morandi but stylistically he is my antipode. Morandi dissolved his vessels in atmosphere, whereas I "cut my vessels out of tin" and opposed them to the milieu and background. Herrings, eggs and apples by K. Petrov-Vodkin can hardly leave any Russian artist indifferent, but he is a virtuoso-builder of the space whereas I went towards elimination of the space. Probably, F. Surbaran is the only artist whose still lives have conquered me immediately and forever. Unfortunately, I have got acquainted with his work rather too recently.

This particular Exhibition Project comprises 20 works, 17 of which were painted in 2003 and 2004. I have tried to generalize, interpret and represent all the basic subjects of mine in two formats: 120х160 and 80х160.

ALEXANDER SEKATSKY
ON THE NATURE OF FINE ARTS

An image - provided, the subject under discussion is the fine arts - always claims to be all-sufficient and, at the same time, it is always palpitating while waiting for an assessing word. An artist transfers this palpitating to his or her ouvrages in precisely the same way as he or she transfers the strength of imaging. He or she, the Author, would appreciate a simple sincere approval too, be it even quite unpretentious one like «0h, boy...» or «I'll be darned!», but deep in soul a hope is flickering for an inmost word of understanding, an equivalent of what the artist has made, an equivalent of his or her conception - fleeting or gained through suffering. And it is through an oncoming understanding word alone that the conception acquires a status of an Idea.

Alas, the world is rather sparing in admiration, while a deficit of the inmost understanding is inherent to this world. The sphere of decrees in respect to fine arts is quite monopolized by an intermediate discourse: the art critics smoothly transiting into art criticism. Here, it is customary to proclaim influences and schools, a «coloristic spectrum», freshness of paints and, conjointly, one's own sojourn at some or other biennale... Art-critics are unscrupulous as is becoming to monopolists, they prefer those artists (or rather «art-makers», to be precise) who have no other judges (and cannot have) except these critics. Although one may assume with certainness that even in their system of the values the works by Valran would be honored with a favorable review and the artist would be allocated a fitting place.

However, the painting by Valery Valran invokes an entirely different discussion. A sumptuous illusion of outer effects («I'll be darned!») is combined here with such a depth of conception that cannot be understood right away, and the artist, at that, has been faithful to this conception for many a year already. Hence, primarily, the seriousness of intentions: a quality quite rare in modern art, and master's clear idea of what exactly has he or she to tell the world.

Here are simple things, so well known to everybody, focused in their absolute separateness. We saw them thousand times but never like they are here, in that grade of loneliness which, to our mind, is only peculiar to humans. Things should exist in a complete set, in a kit, should be part of property, please an eye, correspond or not correspond to our taste. A man puts a thing into the posture of subjection being its owner, or into a posture of being admired as artists often do, the «admiring» at that proving nearly always to be a self-admiring. In order to become really valuable, the thing must speak about me and not about itself: we might tolerate for some time a subject telling us about him- or herself, but this is not allowed to things.

Valery Valran, to my mind, tries to study the limits of things' loneliness. And in a strange way this study turns into a lesson of dignity: the science teaches simple still life artists to overcome the world's tightness.

Freud once said that the almighty nature of thoughts «comes as if from without». Therefore the wishes coming «from within» require some justification in thoughts. Valran's materialized objects possess a similar strength of «from withoutedness», they make one to suit their convenience irrespective of our wishes and mood. The artist aspires to a point where the strength of imaging overcomes the nature of image. And the Exhibition presents the trajectory of this path.

KILKART

The“Kilkart” project’s task is quite unpretentious: just to give kilka it’s due, to restore its capital, kilka’s being pushed aside to the periphery of Russian culture.

Kilka, being fish, posesses all the archaetypical and mythological meanings - from the Christ symbol to the phallic one. In Russian culture kilka is not just a small fish but the national symbol. Generations of students turned into Soviet intellectuals due to kilka - it supported not only their perishable bodies but in every way helped their mental work. And the ritual of eating up kilka sandwiches in snack-bars after working hours was, in a sense, Communion with the Soviet way of life.

This project is an attempt to break the limits of the commom, everyday kilka’s image, to make it a piece of high culture, a spiritual object which can and must be worshiped like state symbols and lower gods.

Introdusing kilka into the kultural sphere we hope, in the course of time, it will find it’s own shishkins and repins.

The project involves painting, photography, collage, installation, plates (overglaze painting), cutting boards (oil painting), jewelery and, of course, traditional kilka sandwiches.

Valran

A BITE AND DAILY BREAD

The painter Valran’s idea is acock and simple - that is why it is convincing. Kilkography* of our life, seeming to be quite unpretentious comparing with usual figurative means, still has some essential advantages. For example, who could be the most important witness in court? Probably, the person who saw everything being invisible, or unnoticed himself. There is a knack to finding and hearing out such a witness. And here is kilka that hiding out in the depths of the ocean or in a tin of tomato sauce has watched us more than one or two decades - now it is not just an object for a bite or a snack but a sudden evidence, accusatory and justisfactory at the same time.

However, Valery Valran is doing his examination by methods that are not quite peculiar to art in its traditional meaning. Mamardashvily reminded us time and again that an artist paints not apples but by apples. Alas, this presumption of impressionism has become overgrown with much abuse - we are accustomed very much indeed to the situation when a depicted object is only a loudspeaker (or low-whisperer) prompting us a proper mood. Lyricism and pathetics destroyed painting at long last - not for keeps, of course, since though there is no eternal life in art, there is no eternal death in it either.

However that may be, kilkography presented here is devoid of pretended significance, and it breaks out into a series of distinct corpuscular meanings. Among them, the heraldic constituent is evident first of all. If one does not go into the depths of the native history too far but contents oneself with the last century, it seems obvious that just kilka, not the Double Eagle, or Russian Bear, is the most appropriate totem animal. That unity, the authorities so large and dully tried to symbolize by the platonic union of the Worker and Kolkhoznitsa, is far better symbolized by the union of kilka and vodka. The Great Country citizens of any nationality swore an oath to this symbol for they knew by their own experience that actually it washes out antagonisms and smoothes things over. And then there comes a nostalgic note, and everybody has his own one.

The particular sensation of solidarity arising at the display is also connnected with the method chosen by the artist. Some of the kilkagrams are sparing, as heraldic symbols should be, others are inventious and even capricious. But there is no that boring to death intentional ‘epater’ as French people call it (is it the very thing that one day will destroy conceptualism?) - instead of that one has a sensation of mischievous and admiring spirit that is only possible when аn idea is not just declared but also embodied.

The heraldical constituent by no means does not exceed the individual style here: all the works contain distinctive signs of their belonging to Valran the painter. It is a short ? but sometimes even detailed summary of already passed, a sort of an autorbiography written with the symbols of an invented language. Well, the undefeasible right of an inventor (if he is a real artist) to tell us about himself by means of his invention is realised. The event has happened.

Alexander Sekatsky

*Kilka (Russian) sprat, small fish that Russin people adore to have just after drinking a vodka - a ritual not existing in Western countries.

VALRAN (VALERI KOZIEV)

Born in the Komi, Russia, on 27th August, 1949. In 1972 graduated from Leningrad State University, department of psychology. Has a PH. D. Degree. Began to do painting in 1972. His fist experiments were in the style of “action painting”. His first paintings were influenced by J. Pollok and E. Mikhnov-Voitenko. Since 1982 began to develop the style of “meditative abstract art” and since 1987 – “architypical still life”.

From 1976 took part in more then 100 group exhibitions in Russia, Germany, Switzerland, USA

Valeri Koziev

Personal exhibitions:

1979 LDCHS, Leningrad
1982 Library of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Leningrad 1987 Club “Vodokanal”, Leningrad 1989 Raab Galerie, West Berlin, Germany
1992 Borey Art Gallery, St. Petersburg
1993 Anna Achmatova-Museum, St. Petersburg
1994 Borey Art Gallery, St. Petersburg 1994 IG Halle “Alte Fabrik”, Rapperswil, Switzerland 1994 Romerhall, Bad Kreuznach, Gennany 1994 Galerie Hinterhaus, Wiesbaden, Germany
1995 Schloss Kronburg, Memmingen, Gennany 1995 Galerie im Stiegoibaus, Munchen, Gennany 1995 Landtag Des Bundeslandes Rheinland-Pfalz, Mainz, Germany
1995 Palitra Gallery, St. Petersburg
1996 Gallery “S.P.A.S.”, St. Petersburg
1996 Galerie Kloska und Vinogradov, Munchen, Germany
1997 Evangelische Academie Loccum, Bremen, Germany 1997 Ernst Deutsch Theater, Hamburg, Germany 1997 National Art Museum of Komi Republic, Syktyvkar, Russia
1997 St. Petersburg Bank of Reconstruction and Development, Russia
1998 Gallery “Art-Collegium”, St. Petersburg
1999 The State Museum of History of St. Petersburg
1999 Gallery “Belij svet”, Tver
2000 The State Art Museum, Yaroslavl
2001 The State Art Museum, Yaroslavl
2001 Borey Art Gallery, St. Petersburg

His works can be found in The State Russian Museum /St. Petersburg/, The State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, Romerhall /Germany/, National Art Museum Komi Republic /Russia/, St. Petersburg Bank of Reconstruction and Development /Russia/, Museum of Contemporery Russian Art, Jersey-City(USA), The State Yaroslavl Art Museum, Tver Regional Arts Gallery, Museum of Nonconformist Art /St. Petersburg/.

Translator from Russia V. Kucheriavkin