Anatoly Alekseev. Results Automatic translate

Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art presents an exhibition of the artist Anatoly Alekseev, in whose paintings myth invades reality

• “Intellectual-erotic realism” by a muralist of the classical school
• Works where the unreal becomes an organic part of the world
• A variety of stories that will make the viewer both remember the past and think about the future

In the exhibition, epic paintings coexist with landscapes of the Leningrad region: in the artistic world of Anatoly Alekseev, even dragons and knights seem to be indigenous inhabitants of the banks of the Sestra River or the forests of the Karelian Isthmus. Reflecting on his work, the artist tried on the ironic formulation of “intellectual-erotic realism”. And if everything is more or less clear with eroticism - Alekseev admitted that if, for example, there is no woman in a literary work, then it is not very interesting to him - then it is quite difficult to talk about the intellectual richness of painting, especially if the author deliberately chooses the most sensual subjects: Andromeda chained to a rock or Europa dancing with a bull.

The works of Anatoly Alekseev are very spectacular: in the landscapes the sky is filled with a glow, and in the fantastic canvases the heroes are trying to get along with the destructive elements. Art critic and friend of the artist Alexander Korolev in one of his articles mentions the “idea of ​​monumentality”, characteristic of the author, as well as other students of the famous Soviet monumental artist A. A. Mylnikov. According to Korolev, Alekseev is distinguished among them by “density of form combined with generality and figurativeness”: the world that this artist paints is stable, concrete and looks like a single matter, everywhere moderately calm and moderately tense.

In monumental art, a certain degree of convention is important: for example, installation on a plane, and not on depth. At the same time, it is always addressed to a wide audience and always strives to win their attention with some striking effect. Similar masterful discoveries can be found in any of Alekseev’s paintings: in the image of a basket with mushrooms, and in a multi-figure composition with horses.

It is interesting to consider the program work “Itogi”, created in 2000. The millennium is now remembered as a time of decline, if not degradation, of monumental art. This is in tune with the popular idea of ​​the “end of history,” and at the same time of art as such, which was introduced into public discussion by the philosopher and political scientist Francis Fukuyama. In Alekseev’s apocalyptic revelation, horsemen rush over the ruins of religious buildings of disappeared civilizations. They literally trample under their hooves the spiritual quest of the past, which in general does not contradict the interpretation of the images of the horsemen of the Apocalypse in Christian literature.

And here it would be appropriate to remember that we are dealing with “intellectual-erotic realism”, and the genre of “Revelations” always anticipates the future. The driving force of the whole picture is a naked woman on a white horse. Knowing about the established iconography of the four horsemen, it would be funny to assume that this is the Plague, but it is too vital. Of course, this is the first horseman - the Conqueror. Twenty years after this work was written, one can increasingly hear that women are the true makers of history. Alekseev’s heroine is so swift that her hair is held back by a knight in pink armor. We meet the same character in another painting by the author in the image of Perseus, which is quite logical, since from myth this hero-serpent fighter stepped straight into chivalric romances.

Where Anatoly Alekseev turns to myth, there is a feeling of the permeability of time - the eternal life of the characters. At the same time, his female images literally consist of flesh and blood and are no different from our contemporaries, and dragons, bulls and knights belong to a special fantastic tradition in which the unreal is an organic part of the world.

about the author

Anatoly Fedorovich Alekseev was born in 1951 in Leningrad. He graduated from the Leningrad Secondary Art School, and then from the painting department of the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. I. E. Repin. Member of the Union of Artists of the USSR since 1978. Since 2015, he has been an advisor to the Chinese-Russian Oil Painting Art Center in Yantai (PRC).

Since 1977, he has participated in exhibitions both at home and abroad: in China, Italy, USA, Germany, France, Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Luxembourg. From 1990 to 1995, several solo exhibitions were organized in the USA and Italy.

The works of Anatoly Alekseev are kept in the collection of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, as well as in museums and private collections in the Russian Federation, Italy, the USA, Germany, Japan and China.

He lived and worked in St. Petersburg, defining his genre as intellectual-erotic realism. Died on July 12, 2021.