March 30, 2011

On PBS next week: Desert of Forbidden Art

"These works are a physical expression of a collective vision that could not be destroyed."

The words of Igor Savitsky, a man who single-handedly saved over 40,000 works of avant-garde Soviet art by hiding them in plain sight. Well, in plain sight in a completely out of the way museum in Nukus, Karakalpakstan (Uzbekistan).

"I found these paintings rolled up under the beds of old widows, buried in family trash, in dark corners of artists' studios, sometimes even patching a hole in the roof. I ended up with a collection that no one in the Soviet Union would dare to exhibit."

– Igor Savitsky

Savitsky's story is one of amazing determination and singular vision, of a man completely obsessed with his work, denying all other things, including his health (which lead to his early death). He traveled all over the Soviet Union, gathering up hidden, forgotten, forbidden works of art, and promised to pay widows and children, artists and collectors, if only they gave him their works for safekeeping at his museum. Savitsky's work brought to light artists whose legacy might have otherwise disappeared into a black hole of obscurity, because they did not fit within the bounds of officially sanctioned Socialist Realism. Artists like Volkov, Kurzin, Borovaya, Rybnikov and Korovay, all profiled in this wonderful documentary, might never otherwise have been known.

The interviews and film clips of Savitsky, of the museum, interviews with the current director, etc. make this a beautiful, engaging documentary. But the images of the paintings themselves are just breathtaking. The brilliant, vibrant colors, the fascinating melding of styles from the East and from the West (oriental miniaturism with icon painting with Impressionism), are not to be missed. And, barring a trip to Nukus, this may be the only way you see them. Because the museum, despite being financially strapped, has refused to sell off any of its works to finance ongoing operations, because they know it would not stop there, that the sell-off would be used to buy tractors and medical supplies...

Be sure to catch this excellent work on Independent Lens, next Tuesday (April 5). But check local listings as times may vary. For more information, check out the PBS page for the film.

p.s. This just in: a NYT article reports that the museum is again facing political censorship issues.

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Kashtanka – A Bilingual Reader

A bilingual presentation of one of the great classics of Russian literature.

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided.

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious.

The Little Golden Calf

Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.