Here is the Serpent Gorynych from the tires, and the tank from the “Zaporozhets”
A skirt made of ties, a blouse made of tights, toys made from tin caps. All exhibits at the exhibition “Aesthetics of Bricolage. Nameless Art”, which opened at the Museum of Decorative Arts, are made from improvised materials. Their authors are ordinary resourceful people who, in the conditions of the Soviet shortage, decorated their life and wardrobe as best they could. The epigraph to this project could be a folk saying – the need for inventions is cunning. The exposition is really filled with sophisticated home-made art objects in the style of “pull out the eye.” But they are all made from the heart – with fiction and enthusiasm.
Guests of the opening of the exhibition are greeted by an original art object in the courtyard of the museum on Delegatskaya. A homemade washbasin with a spout made of a nail is topped with a plate of pickles, inside it is a strong homemade moonshine. Zachin is a match for the project, which takes place as part of the Marginal Art Festival. The exposition includes three collections: these are unusual clothes that the artist Alexander Petlyura has been looking for at flea markets for many years, folk ready-made from the collection of another artist Vladimir Arkhipov, and photographs of the winners of the Russian Marginal photo contest with landscape design in the do-it-yourself genre. In a word, the picture of home creativity turned out to be voluminous and multi-format.
In the center of the exhibition is an outlandish wardrobe. To the motley skirt, sewn from different ties, a transparent blouse in a flower made of tights was selected. Not every fashionista will dare to go out in such a light, however, after the Soviet scarce times, girls did everything to stand out from the gray mass. For example, dresses were sewn from “flower” shawls – in the exposition of such a whole series of all colors. Eyes run up from a riot of colors. Here is a yellow jacket with roses sewn on it. But jeans with leopard patches. Nearby is a men’s jacket with a hammer and sickle made of rivets on the back. And also the original demobilization tunic with metal shoulder straps. And hats, knitted from shopping bags. The artist Alexander Petliura began to collect all this back in the Soviet years. He himself is like an art object of the exhibition: in an alcoholic T-shirt, over which is thrown a shirt sewn from patches – polka dots, a flower, a stripe.
Writer Lyudmila Petrushevskaya appears at the opening wearing handmade accessories. She is an experienced needlewoman. “I always make my own hats. Look at my jewelry – also myself, ”she tells MK. Petrushevskaya’s hat is black, with wide brim and an openwork ribbon. There are many of these in the writer’s collection. And the fabric Velcro pendant is decorated with small figurines and a weighty brooch. Petrushevskaya in her own style.
Around the unusual wardrobe, made by anonymous authors, there are everyday curiosities. Box “Bible” made of plywood and wire. Figures of a hare and a wolf from the cartoon “Just you wait!” Made from metal soda caps. Vase from a bottle of champagne, pasted over with plastic flowers. There are also large cunningly invented fruits of the engineering folk genius: a chair-stool, a shovel-crutch, a watering can-suitcase, a table-carpet. These things are already from the collection of Vladimir Arkhipov.
Then we look at the photo – with folk creative creativity of the environment. Here is the Zmey Gorynych made of tires, and a tank from Zaporozhets, and a toilet in Vangogov’s sunflowers, country sculptures from pots, hares from stumps, figures of chorus girls from tin cans, a flowerbed from a toilet bowl and an installation from old telephones on a tree. There are also explanations of some authors of landscape objects at the exhibition, the meaning of which echoes the line from Alena Apina’s song: “I blinded him from what was.” What could not be bought in Soviet times, they did it themselves as best they could, as best they could, as soon as the hand lay down. And, of course, to escape from dullness and boredom. In a word, not an exhibition – the triumph of left-handers originally from the USSR. Today it all looks like kitsch, but this kitsch is sincere and natural. As they say, from the heart. Russian folk.
Newspaper headline:
Sincerely folk in the style of “pluck out the eye”