The Living Texture of Marlen Spindler Automatic translate

The Nadezhda Brykina Gallery will host the exhibition "Living Texture," dedicated to Marlen Spindler, whose work occupies a special place in the history of 20th-century Russian art. This exhibition will feature works by Marlen Spindler, exhibited for the first time in Moscow, offering viewers a unique opportunity to discover new facets of his creative method. The opening of the exhibition will coincide with the 95th anniversary of Spindler’s birth and the 20th anniversary of the Gallery.

Marlen Spindler, one of the outstanding masters of the Soviet underground, was only recognized by the world after the collapse of the socialist system in the USSR. Over the course of a long period, his talent developed despite the blows and vicissitudes of fate that plagued his difficult life. He spent fifteen years of his life in prison and exile, experiencing the loss of freedom and physical limitations that became a source not only of pain but also of spiritual strength. These challenging years also became a time of deep reflection, in which the artist learned to find support. Despite his difficult past, Spindler did not conform to societal norms, and his fiery and confrontational nature often led to clashes with others.

These trials hardened him and shaped his unique perception of life, in which tragedy and joy, pain and admiration for the world exist inextricably linked. His personality combined the tragedy of his experiences with a remarkable inner freedom, which was reflected in his paintings, filled with energy, gesture, and profound drama. Špindler’s life became a story of overcoming, a dialogue with personal experience and the world around him, which became the most important source of his artistic inspiration.

The work of Marlen Spindler, as the Russian art scholar Jean-Claude Marcadet writes, is as striking in its power as his personality. His work is closely connected to the influences that marked his life. Above all, this is the pristine nature of Russia’s vast expanses, as well as iconography; and, furthermore, the tragedy of human existence, which he personally experienced. But it is also a boundless love of life and a sensitivity to joy. Despite all the hardships he endured, Marlen Spindler is not a rebel; he has come to terms with the existing world. Marlen Spindler is a like-minded figure of another famous and influential Christian artist, Georges Rouault. In depicting human tragedy, like Marlen, he was able to combine contradictory elements in his work: both a miserable existence and profound spirituality. On the other hand, another similarity between Marlen Spindler’s personality and the poetic style of Georges Rouault can be traced - the severity of the contours surrounding the figurative elements, which in Rouault’s works are undoubtedly associated with the influence of stained glass windows in churches and Catholic cathedrals.

Marlen Spindler maintained a strong connection with the diverse life of the outside world. Figurative elements are transformed into hieroglyphs and pictograms, rhythmically organized on the painted surface. The artist prioritizes gesture, the same kind that left vibrant marks in Picasso, a gesture that explains the spontaneity of primitive art, cave art, or Larionov-style graffiti. The grandeur of spiritual thought, the melancholy of imprisonment, and the admiration for life do not prevent Marlen Spindler from creating fragments of humor and illogicality.

His reflections on art deserve to be considered alongside his paintings. Let us quote just one of his phrases, which demonstrates how masterfully the artist managed to unite art and life: "Everything works toward the center, like in football. The viewer’s consciousness is drawn to the center through the flanks, as if casually preparing for the main event, and then in the center — an explosion, a release of climax. The main thing is to keep the viewer in the center, not letting go."

The dream of monumental art leads Marlen Spindler to discover a new material: coarse, coarse-grained burlap, or canvas with a texture similar to it. Its texture, reminiscent of a wall surface, possesses a natural energy that seems to provide an adequate response to spatial breakthroughs.

In these works, whose execution technique resembles fresco, the concern for the freedom of spontaneous gesture is complicated by a sense of the depth of the paint layer, which somehow responds to the gesture, as if the material’s own will modifies the artist’s, creating a complex, conflicting dramaturgy. Painting these canvases is like frescoes. The work is labor-intensive, requiring, in addition to great physical effort, immense mental concentration, for, as we know, a fresco cannot be repainted or corrected. It must be created immediately, in a single breath, and with the unpredictability of an abstract image, this is quite difficult.

The cracks and breaks in the paint layer that appear immediately after its application introduce a sense of time into the work — the living, breathing texture of the painting layer, likened to the natural organic surfaces of the earth, seems to have been achieved through long-term tectonic processes.

According to Natalia Alexandrova, the organizer of Spindler’s exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery in 1996, he can be considered one of those artists "who are rightfully placed alongside the masters of the Russian avant-garde — Marc Chagall, Wassily Kandinsky, and Kazimir Malevich. It was the unique phenomena of these individual geniuses that shaped the entire breadth of the artistic process of the 20th century."

In addition to Spindler’s works, the Gallery also features a renewed permanent exhibition dedicated to artists of the Sixties, featuring their significant works.