Articles
Annotation for Personal
Exhibition of 1981
Of Completion and
Incompleteness
Short Annotation for Personal
Exhibition of 1992
Two Spaces
The Ethics of the Beautiful
Contest design for Rekolle
International Workshop, 2005
  1. Avant-garde Today
  2. Humanized Space
The Ability To Bring Light
Movement of the Diagonal
Artistic Credo
On the Incompleteness
of the Creative Act, Sacrifice,
and Self-awareness
in the Anderssein
On Art and Life
The Code of the Plastic Art
and Space of Sculptural
Composition
The Evolution of the "Russian Idea"
in the Visual Arts of the 12th–19th
Centuries
The Russian Idea, Now
and in the Future
Articles by Other Authors
The Ethics of Plastic Forms
in Valery Yevdokimov's Sculptures
Plastic Art as an Iconic
Experience: The Problem
of the Artistic Image
The Sculpture
of Valery Yevdokimov
Artificial Game
Mikhail Seleznev about
Valery Yevdokimov
Oleg Komov about
Valery Yevdokimov
Peter Baranov about
Valery Yevdokimov
Portrait – A Convergenc
of Forms
Extracts from an Article
by Olga Kostina
Extract from an Article
by Susanna Serova
Commentary on the Model
Monument of Russian Philosopher
Vladimir Solovyov
In Search of One's Own Self
Thinking About Time
Spiritual Anxiety
The Mystery of Art.
Sergey Orlov
Master. Valery Maloletkov
The Academy of Arts Presents…
The Mystery of Art.
Lubov Yevdokimova
 

"The Sculpture of Valery Yevdokimov"

Extracts from an article by Dmitry Galkovsky

 

…The essence of this artist's creative work consists, essentially, in the destruction of established unambiguity and verbal formalization – definite, and ostensibly doubtless means of expressing a topic.

…Valery Yevdokimov tends to aspire to expressing utterly generalized images – the results of thorough thinking – in plastic forms. However, there is no massive, monotonous "pressure of the topic" that makes everything dependent on a single viewpoint. Yevdokimov tries to express some "archetypical" themes that are inherent in the national character. The sculptor aims at expressing his own inner experience. Naturalness and vitality are a direct consequence of the freedom of interpretation and affinity with the topic. This conditionality of forms is meant to create an evolving space by transforming it into a microcosmos with its own hierarchy of meanings. The artist tries to complete this task by aligning the achievements of modern plastic arts with Old Russian architecture and paintings.

…The aspiration to achieve the utmost level of symbolization of images is characteristic even of the sculptor's works done in a purely realistic manner. For example, one of the latest pieces of work is a bust of Pushkin, which impresses by the attempt made by the author to endow a very concrete, classical image with a metaphysical meaning. Nevertheless, the image of the great Russian poet was not chosen by accident. It was Merezhkovsky who said about Pushkin: "It was not for nothing that his friends called him "the Spark". Because he indeed… flashed and faded like a spark, like a falling star, like the augury of possible Russian harmony – Russian "noble appearance" which even he hadn't achieved. Having flown away he only left us with his dark, obscure skin without the burning, glowing core underneath, without his inner image. Who will find this genuine face of Pushkin's again?"

It appears to me that the portrait bust made by Yevdokimov is just such a desperate attempt to find the "true portrait of Pushkin". "Pushkin's genuine face" – to comprehend anew the Pushkinian theme.

…In a sense, this work is a monument to the "Pushkinian theme" as such. It leaves the viewer with a feeling of tragic uncertainty which, I believe, is the main merit of this sculpture. The ultimate vividness of the image is combined with the attitude of care towards a symbolic understanding of the Poet's destiny.

…Primarily, Yevdokimov's Pushkin is all about perplexity. It's a perplexed Pushkin, a baffled Pushkin who "became a statue all of a sudden" and did not quite believe in it. At the same time the author himself is perplexed by such a cynical and vengeful theme. Pushkin is open with his eyebrows raised in surprise while exterior massiveness and rigour of shapes emphasize this feeling. This very rigour of shapes represents Puskin's intellectualism, His "Salierianism". Pushkin was a lucid mind, a logos.

…Such an interesting, wise mind! What incredible ability to harmonize and correlate parts of his own "self", flying apart into infinity – one should have to clearly understand the painful contradiction inherent in creative work, that is neither Mozartian nor Salierian. How tragic should be the destiny of a man who clearly understands the destructive power of fantasies easily embodied by the artist. Actually, "the spark of harmony" could flash only in the image of the dying poet back in the winter of 1837 when he almost consciously got himself killed. This harmony is seen in Yevdokomov's portrait, or rather perceived behind the inevitable stillness of this pop-eyed statue. This bronze horseman's forehead hides the horror of mad Evgeny crushed by the merciless greatness of Peter's ambition.

…Yevdokimov's Pushkin keeps silence. This is muteness, comprehension of great meaning and tragic inability to express it. This is Pushkin who fell silent forever, who finally found harmony, "indifference" which he had appealed in his "Exegi Monumentum" for. This Pushkin is a person who fostered the development of great Russian culture and took the burden of tragic responsibility for its future – our future.

Pushkin sees low farce and high tragedy in the future of hi motherland from his point of view in 1837. This indifference represents his wise acceptance of an inevitable future as well as abject horror, hopelessness. These two sentiments complement each other thus making us feel some kind of sincere proportionality.

This is what, in short, one thinks of while looking at the portrait. The portrait is the embodied revenge of history…

1987

 
Bust of A.S. Pushkin. 1987. Bronze, granite; 1,5 life-size.
Museum-Reserve of A.S. Pushkin, Bolshie Vyazyomy, Moscow Region