VISITORS FROM THE PAST

After many years in a private collection in Germany, eighteen historic paintings and drawings by Tatyana Apraksina were recently returned as a gift to their author.

All these works were created in Leningrad in the 1970s and 80s. The earliest dates from 1974.

These visitors from the past were first on view at T. Apraksina’s studio on each of three days:

Thursday, October 29, 2015 – beginning at 7 p.m.

Friday, October 30, 2015 – beginning at 7 p.m.

Sunday, November 1, 2015 – beginning at 5 p.m.

Due the number of additional people wishing to view the exhibit, the show was extended through the end of November.

Below are photos from the exhibit, followed by an article about it.

Reproductions of works from the artist’s early period and part of her cycle “Gaze from Within” can also be seen at Tatyana Apraksina’s Studio.

AUTUMN MARATHON: VISITORS FROM THE PAST

— James Manteith —

An unknown man’s voice sounds in the receiver.

“Is this Apraksin Court?”

“Yes.”

“I’m coming to the exhibit. How do I get there?”

Directions follow. And no one on either side of this conversation seems surprised until somewhat later, even though everyone knows Apraksin Court is in St. Petersburg, while the display under discussion is in Oakland, California, by San Francisco Bay.

That evening, the morning’s caller climbs a flight of outdoor stairs to the second floor, enters Tatyana Apraksina’s studio, has a look and says, “It’s Apraksin Court!” He well remembers the sight of these buildings: in the ’70s, he worked among them, loading crates of heads for hammers. Such things stay in the memory! And in those same ’70s, in the same city sector, the artist who unexpectedly for herself would be known as Apraksina had different tools in her hands, logging the experience that grounded her earliest exhibits.

Tatyana Apraksina. Side Entrance to Apraksin Court. 1984-1985

Tatyana Apraksina. Side Entrance to Apraksin Court. 1984-1985

Most of Apraksina’s early art has long since dispersed among collections and friends. Yet now, decades later, some works from that time have suddenly found her in the United States. Returned to the author after many years in a private collection in Germany, eighteen drawings and paintings, by now a part of history, determine the focus of this exhibit, entitled “Visitors from the Past.” The majority of these works haven’t seen their author in at least twenty years. Sometimes much longer. Images half-effaced in memory reassume their original clarity, dimensions in physical space. “Nothing’s ever really gone,” says a viewer, recalling personal witness of such transitions. “Everything returns.”

“Visitors from the Past” is scheduled for three days: October 29-30 and November 1, 2015. Showings then extend through the whole of November. An autumn marathon. Complex symmetry can be sensed with the Petersburg trip undertaken by the artist the previous spring, when for the first time in sixteen years Apraksina set foot in her own court and own original studio, a site which also hosted a meeting with the past, with paintings miraculously intact after their author’s long absence. There, on that side of the earth, other keys to truth surfaced. And here, more keys appear, no less needed.

Recently Apraksina compared art with gates: it doesn’t replace reality but may help gain entrance there. Moreover, she added, no gate is final or absolute. This justifies crafting ever new gates, as well as restoring the old. Among these early works, the theme of gates sometimes occurs literally, as more than metaphor, in the shapes of city archways, vivid symbols where the commonplace merges seamlessly with fate.

Tatyana Apraksina. From the Cityscape Cycle "Gaze from Within" (Courtyards of St. Petersburg)

Tatyana Apraksina. From the Cityscape Cycle “Gaze from Within” (Courtyards of St. Petersburg)

Prepared for the exhibit, sheets and canvases from the Leningrad of the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s form a semicircle facing the studio loft’s entrance. Among the works created off Apraksin Lane in Leningrad are some from the artist’s Gaze from Within cycle of courtyard landscapes. The full cycle was first shown at the city’s Library of the Academy of Sciences in 1984. One scene shows a side street leading into Apraksin Court. Others complement the panorama with interstitial courtyards from adjacent neighborhoods. All the courtyards are approached from a personal perspective, with no attempt to exit a human scale for the sake of effect. “Painfully familiar,” says one viewer — who grew up in these mazes of Dostoevsky’s Petersburg — then repeats, “painfully familiar. Even after I left, I kept seeing these courtyards in my dreams. Like labyrinths of the subconscious. ” In these monochrome pastels, the solitary figures who make rare appearances seem at one with the courtyards, while the courtyards themselves, even when deserted, seem at one with human life.

Tatyana Apraksina. From the Cityscape Cycle "Gaze from Within" (Courtyards of St. Petersburg)

Tatyana Apraksina. From the Cityscape Cycle “Gaze from Within” (Courtyards of St. Petersburg)

Shortly after its opening, says the artist, the Academy of Sciences exhibit was hastily removed under pressure from state security. Yet in that brief interval, this first large-scale showing managed to cause a stir, to become an event. “Why was the exhibit taken down?” many now ask, Americans and not only. “What was there to dislike, what was offensive?” That era is separated from the present not only by a change of government but also by altered aesthetics. The specific defiance implied in visual language fades into the past. Yet such memories are easily refreshed. “Come on!” scoffs Apraksina, paraphrasing a fellow of serious rank who debriefed her back then. “‘Couldn’t you find something more appealing in our beautiful city than garbage bins and a blind old lady?'”

Tatyana Apraksina. From the Cityscape Cycle "Gaze from Within" (Courtyards of St. Petersburg)

Tatyana Apraksina. From the Cityscape Cycle “Gaze from Within” (Courtyards of St. Petersburg)

“Exactly!” another viewer lends a vintage stock remark. “And our beautiful country has no such thing as old age.” At any rate, apparently neither human aging nor architectural decrepitude ought to have been shown like this — unfiltered: free of the lens of political ideology, even of the ideology of naive sentimentality. Here reality is shown open to discourse, inclusive of the full range of human reactions, from fear to love, even love addressed to shambles, free of artificially imposed subtexts.

Incidentally, says Apraksina, she herself has no information as to the woman’s blindness, a trait simply assumed by many — including luminaries of nonconformism, with their specific criteria of contemporary relevance — mainly because the figure carries a cane.

When interpreting art, there’s something questionable about overemphasizing the times of its creation. These works’ content transcends topical issues of stagnation-era Leningrad. Nonetheless, it’s natural to respond personally to traces of historical moments. “I was exactly like that,” professes one viewer, pointing to an unabashedly declarative image of a nude cellist against the backdrop of a withdrawing street crowd comprising solely men, defined by impenetrable backs and anonymous hats. “Always a black sheep. I know just how he feels. Since then the dark guys have disappeared, and the naked and strange ones remain. It’s a great painting, right out of Magritte.”

Tatyana Apraksina. Cellist. 1983-1984

Tatyana Apraksina. Cellist. 1983-1984

“New dark ones took their place all the same,” his companion, recently returned from Moscow, corrects him.

The viewer accepts the fairness of this rejoinder. Still, he says, he no longer feels alone: black sheep, he ventures, manage to find one another.

Tatyana Apraksina. Self-Portrait. 1974

Tatyana Apraksina. Self-Portrait. 1974

Meanwhile, other works — drawings dating from a still-earlier time (they even include exact dates of creation: 1974, 1975, 1977…) — delineate people with little or no reference to surroundings. Such works might be said to portray the inner life within the courtyards’ domiciles. Not without attention to such inner, hidden life does the artist’s creative course turn to the courtyards’ emptiness and wornness to buttress further stages of progress. The exhibit gives an inkling of origins. Despite a certain randomness in the set of works that found their way into this particular collection, this sampling offers, for instance, a self-portrait from 1974, a pivotal year for its author. Beside this drawn portrait is an old photograph, taken that same year by Boris Mikhalevkin: the artist sits by a piano, in front of a wall completely covered by provocatively sharp, freshly completed sheets. “Isn’t it just pure ’70s?” adds Apraksina. “So expressionist. Posturing, longing for self-declaration.”

Tatyana Apraksina, 1974, Apraksin Lane. Photograph by Boris Mikhalevkin

Tatyana Apraksina, 1974, Apraksin Lane. Photograph by Boris Mikhalevkin

Maybe. But the current spontaneous time warp serves as an occasion to ponder the values of that time’s rebels and where their rebellion led — in this case, say, contrasted with others.

A professional therapist attending the exhibit sees everything in her own way, interpreting the works’ subjects in terms of inherent sexual energy. “But you’re an artist, you sublimate!” This could be stated with other tropes, but some kind of sublimation certainly has a place here. Another viewer, surprised by the variety of themes, media, styles, posits that the author may have several personalities. But the author asserts the opposite: one personality simply need not subordinate life’s diversity to a single mold.

All the works reveal a feminine origin, with formal symbols of this, says the therapist, though various cases find varied sublimations, sometimes transitioning into masculinity. Yet it occurs to the artist that, for instance, in traditional Chinese yin-yang symbology, the same symbols — curve and corner, vertical and horizontal — carry diametrically opposite connotations. One way or another, namely a totality of opinions is adequate to the fullness of art itself.

Much discussion surrounds a large-scale pastel of 1975, “Premonition,” depicting a mutual embrace between a child — a “golden boy” — and a “green man” (as one viewer calls him) who clearly has many years behind him. The nature and meaning of this pairing is enigmatic: the “green man” hardly wins every viewer’s sympathy and trust. Perceptions diverge. “I think the feelings here are familiar to any mother,” one woman say. “She wants to hold her child all her life!” Or, in another version: “‘It’s my baby! Don’t touch!’ That’s written all over that face.” The author proposes a new hypothesis, more general but no less substantive: “When I look at this scene now, I think it depicts how age or tradition encounters novelty. The old both protects and supports, while simultaneously assimilating, dominating the new, which needs the old but also feels a bit afraid of it.”

Tatyana Apraksina. Premonition. 1975

Tatyana Apraksina. Premonition. 1975

An American visitor to the exhibit has a memorable response, after familiarizing herself with the early works from the German collection, then with the studio’s wide range of fresh paintings: “Not one dead face.”

In turn, one of the artist’s compatriots, enthusing over the exhibit, asserts that he particularly likes frightening works of art, that he sees plenty of them here, but isn’t afraid. This art is frighteningly alive.

One might note a frightening aliveness and expressiveness lingering even in faces depicted in stylized manners bequeathed by bygone fashions. Behind such faces are individuals, personalities, whether real or imagined, as in the pastel with the strange English name “The Bells,” comprising stained-glass-like overlays of faces and chimes. “I know all these people,” someone says, then begins to narrate each of their tales in turn. The title is placed directly on the picture — a decision later quite rare for the author. “Why is the name in English?” she tries to answer. “Everyone was drenched in English-language rock lyrics. Some floated up out of that source, gave a hint…”

Alternatively, the name may allude to John Donne’s “For whom the bell tolls,” also figuring as the title of the novel by Hemingway, a writer much in circulation then. Here the visual image, like the poem bearing Donne’s line, invokes the interconnectedness of fragile human lives. No life in this world is insignificant, each life is inseparable from the other.

Tatyana Apraksina. The Bells. 1976

Tatyana Apraksina. The Bells. 1976

A peculiar feature of the collection-based exhibit is to mark the strongest, deepest side of the artist’s Leningrad span of creative development — her working out of the theme of musical performance — by no more than one piece, far from the most striking example. This is a modest portrait sketch of a violinist, drawn in charcoal during a rehearsal. A subdued presence. Yet this violinist is Mikhail Gantvarg; namely he was to be the muse, the heart of the artist’s whole musical line.

Tatyana Apraksina. Mikhail Gantvarg. 1985

Tatyana Apraksina. Mikhail Gantvarg. 1985

Seeing the portrait, a former Leningrader suddenly recalls her onetime attendance of Philharmonic concerts and her admiration for the orchestra’s then-concertmaster, whose name she hadn’t known until now. So these impressions, too, come full circle, are restored, concerning not only that life but life itself.

The composition of the audience at this exhibit warrants separate attention. Viewers make their way here from many different places: some from walking distance, others from nearby and even not-so-nearby towns and settlements. Half of the audience are Russian émigrés, while the rest are Americans of varying backgrounds. As for the Americans, besides having an eye-opening encounter with a hitherto completely unknown phenomenon at the intersection of Russian history and culture, they apprehend something more universal, common to all. The presence of violins, for example, in later pieces. From violin imagery it’s no stretch to talk of vibrations of the universe — indifferent to political, social or ethnic distinctions.

One American, however, expresses surprise over suddenly realizing her favorite artists have always been Russian. Another is thrilled by a feeling of seemingly popping up at a meeting of Russian intelligentsia. But the quality these people denote with the word “Russian” foremost likely relates to tastes native in themselves.

Those more used to viewing European art see more, while those for whom this is novel find it sufficient to contact the surface content or study spots of color… In this single studio has suddenly appeared “more art than the eye can take in at one time,” “more than in many museums,” in one American’s words.

And in this abundant studio, everyone feels uncommonly good and relaxed. People are pleased to spend time among the paintings, conversing, enjoying the spontaneous performance of Chopin and Schumann at the piano, an instrument more than appropriate here. In parallel occur unusual acquaintances, unexpected points of contact, the discovery of hidden meanings and connections. Some might be coming here for the first and only time in their lives, while some start visiting the show all but daily.

“You’ve created something unique here in this place,” one of the last viewers says on the way out. “It’s a great achievement. We’ll come again.”

Why is everything that’s been described happening here? “Artists’ creativity often shows up in the spaces they find to do their work,” an expert viewer says. It’s hard to escape a feeling of more than accidental convergence. Including the presence, with the works that traveled from Germany to this studio by boat and yacht slips, of a painting of a boy in a sailing uniform.

Tatyana Apraksina. Sailor. 1988

Tatyana Apraksina. Sailor. 1988

Apraksina plans to keep some of these recovered works. Others may continue their path onward, freeing their author for new creativity. In any case, part of attaining such freedom lies in willingness to face the self, including selves from the past.

Also abiding at the exhibit is an oil portrait of the woman in whose collection all these “visitors” spent many years, of whom it was said she lived in a museum. She found inspiration in these works; through her, these works inspired others. And at the exhibit’s close, having faced a new audience, she too seems to exude an aura of satisfaction. When the sacrifice of the past is accepted by the present, life wins. Even the past is capable of change, which brings more change to view a new horizon.

Tatyana Apraksina. Neonila. 1985

Tatyana Apraksina. Neonila. 1985

Congratulations on your anniversary! You’ve managed to create a readable, respected, totally unique magazine with an audience of devoted readers. It’s a great achievement. We wish a long life, full of creativity, to the Hero of the Day.

 

     T., California

 

 

 

20 years — it really is a solemn moment. We, your readers, are the ones who ought to thank you for the cause to celebrate at the arrival of each issue of this magazine, beyond comparison with any other. I can’t imagine a time without it in my hands, without it bringing me new discoveries. Thank you for these 20 years.

 

     Ira, Sacramento

 

 

Wishin’ you rain for your Blues.

 

     Bill

 

Apraksin Blues is indubitably an original and strong artistic and human endeavor. The music of thought and form permeates each page. May it live on — as it has been, and as it may become. Wishing you success!

 

     Alla Hodos, California

 

 

Vive le Blues!

 

Michael Buckley, NY, NY

 

 

Congratulations on the anniversary of AB, dear to my heart! It’s a huge event, in my opinion! Truly an historical date.

 

Congratulations also on the aroma of a new era of Blues, the age of adulthood, maturity, the age of a higher level of its development. I wish your intuition maximum realization and materialization in all things!

 

     A., Russia

 

 

such a beautiful message and sense of the time / space dimension of Blues and blue and blueness — the expansiveness of 20 years anniversary and birthday — we celebrate you and with you.

 

     meredith and thom

 

 

Congratulations and best wishes for the prosperity of your amazing and unique creation — now almost adult, but with as youthful a soul as ever. I very much liked what you wrote about the “music of Blues” — indeed, every issue develops the musical theme announced two decades ago — what might be called the “Symphony of High Culture” (or “Russian-American Suite,” if you will — Blues contains these two motifs, constantly intertwining). With each issue, the music is a bit different, but the most important thing is that it never ends.

 

     A., USA

 

 

Congratulations for your big anniversary! I had not realized Apraksin has such a long history.

 

     Elizabeth

 

 

Your Blues hits a High Note!

 

My sincere wishes for you to continue on as a vessel of Spirit and high Petersburg traditions, bringing these values to the New World!

 

     Nadezhda Ovsyannikova, Washington

 

 

Congratulations to those who brought this amazing publication to life and continue nurturing it. Its development is impressive, but even more so is its adherence to its principals. Best wishes for even greater satisfactions for all who experience Apraksin Blues now and in the future.

 

     From fans on the northwest corner of the continental United States

 

 

We join our voices to the chorus of congratulations on the 20th anniversary of Blues; from where we are in Florida, the phenomenon of your bilingual and intercultural exploration and artistic interpretation of contemporary experience looks especially unique.

 

     We continue to admire your tireless search, its uncontrollable and unpredictable trajectory. We are glad that the first twenty years find you wholly ready for and open to the immense and still-rising tide of the new, which goes by the name of the 21st Century.

 

     Mila and Kostya Vodopyanov, Florida

 

 

Blues is completely unique against the background of everything published today. It’s terribly interesting, although, when reading it, I sometimes catch myself thinking that I don’t have the education to comprehend some of the articles. But that in itself is great!

 

     Basically — “don’t drop your palms from the brow of your thought.”* Please!

 

     S., California

 

 

* Translator’s note: Bulat Okudzhava, “Little Song about Mozart.”

 

 

Russian translations by James Manteith.

Its history’s third decade unsealed, Blues begins to understand that the childhood of becoming belongs irrevocably to the past. The precedent is now created. We are making a smooth transition to the age of adult infinity. We exist. And although, throughout its first twenty years, Blues has regularly undergone rebirth, time and again, the probability of new births is inseparable from conjunction with the permanent fact of its own a priori presence.

Blues is bottomless — it’s so deep,” wrote one of its admirers. What can be added to the image now formed, the picture painted? Infinite possible additions, with endless opportunities to draw upon its bottomlessness. But only a closed matter can fully open. And thus today, even as we pay tribute to what has come to pass, we also bid it farewell, stepping over its threshold. Where to? Emphatically beyond!

When the time comes for a choice, seeking tips and hints is ill-advised.

Yet Blues, even going past its own limits and continuing its work of being unrecognizable, always stays the same Blues…

Marking the solemnity of the moment, I congratulate the Blues community on sharing this twenty-year anniversary. I bow in grateful reverence to all who with their approval, participation, support, censure, suspicion, resistance or perfect indifference have helped shape and affirm the music of Blues.

T.Apraksina

(Translation from Russian)

Photos by E.Starovoitova and D.Yegorova.

The Editors are inviting authors who contribute to AB as specialists in various disciplines to answer a series of questions about the future of the cultural fields they are professionally associated with. Instead of guessing, we consider it important to learn their opinions directly.

Part of the resulting responses have been selected for publication. In this issue we begin to acquaint readers with these experts’ opinions on the future of culture.

While preparing the magazine  for publication, we have moderated discussions among generalist readers about the responses chosen for print, and also offer the most provocative, sometimes potentially controversial, fragments of these discussions for contemplation. Perhaps this will inspire a wish to voice other points of view.

The Editors thank all the specialists who have responded to the invitation to share their thoughts on the future, as well as all readers who have shown themselves far from indifferent to issues obviously critical for everyone.

PART ONE:

PHILOSOPHY

ART

SCIENCE

PART TWO:

AMERICAN POETS AND ARTISTS ON THE ARTS

MORE PERSPECTIVES ON SCIENCE

We thank the pianist Elena Kuschnerova for her support of this project.

New York (Photo: J. Manteith)

James Manteith, translator (Photo: Dmitry Galanin)

Sergei Deych, director (Photo: Dmitry Galanin)

The director and the cameraman (Daniil Deych) (Photo: Dmitry Galanin)

Interview with T. Apraksina. Memories of encounters with composers. (Photo: Dmitry Galanin)

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen!

We invite you to make use of a rare opportunity to spend an evening in the company of the editor-in-chief of “Apraksin Blues” — Tatyana Apraksina, who has traveled to Petersburg for this from California, where for the past fifteen years the magazine has continued to be published and develop, to extend into new geographic and linguistic spaces.

You will receive answers to all questions relating to the magazine’s profile and fate, the organization of its work, conditions of publication, and plans for the future.

You will also meet “A.B.” translation editor, author and one of the main participants in the publication process — James Manteith.

This event is dedicated to the twenty year anniversary of the magazine’s operations.

We look forward to seeing you at the St. Petersburg office at Apraksin Lane, Building 3, Apartment 3 (entrance through the archway).

Sunday, April 5, 5 p.m.

Monday, April 6, 6 p.m.

 

We hope to see you soon!

Elena Starovoitova,

Office Coordinator, St. Petersburg Division

“Apraksin Blues”

On the History of Unofficial Culture and the Contemporary Russian Diaspora: 1950s-1990s. Autobiographies. Authors’ readings. / [Compiled, edited, annotated by Y. M. Valieva]. St. Petersburg: OOO “Contrast,” 2015. 600 p. + 3 CDs.

ISBN 978-5-4380-0099-0

The book includes new materials on the history of unofficial culture and the contemporary Russian diaspora: autobiographies, manuscript facsimiles, photographs. Among texts published here for the first time are autobiographies of samizdat leaders Boris Ivanov and Vyacheslav Dolinin, transfuturist poets Sergei Sigei and Ry Nikonova, Malaya Sadovaya Circle writer Alexander Churilin, and poet and artist Tatiana Apraksina.

The section “Materials on the History of Unofficial Culture” features interviews, memoirs, documents on the history of samizdat.

This edition includes three audio CDs containing recordings of readings by all writers represented in the book, including: Naum Korzhavin, Yevgeny Rein, Ludmila Shtern, human rights movement participants Alexander Esenin-Volpin, Natalia Gorbanevskaya, former political prisoners Nikolai Brown and Anatoly Berger, modern Russian emigre authors Vladimir Lazarev, Vladimir Gandelsman, Bakhyt Kenjeev, Vladimir Druk, Katya Kapovich, Yevgeny Slivkin, Irina Mashinskaya.

The “Audio Archives” include 1970s-1980s by authors including OBERIU writer Igor Bakhterev. The book draws on materials from Russian and foreign archives, as well as from private collections. Most of the material is previously unpublished.

The book and audio set is addressed to specialists — linguists, historians of culture, teachers of Russian language and literature, as well as a wide range of readers.

Participants in the evening presentation include: Vyacheslav Dolinin, Nikolai Brown, Anatoly Berger, Mikhail Eremin, Irina Tsymbal, Sergey Stratanovsky, Petr Cheigin, Tatyana Tsarkova, Tatyana Apraksina

Vasilevsky Island, 18th line, d. 1

Great Hall (Hall №201)

Cost 70 rubles – ticket to the museum

Telephone: 327-35-06

 

Concert: “Light of the Morning Star”

 

A unique recital, dedicated by its participants to the birthday of Helena Roerich and the 25th anniversary of the founding of CESAME – the Center for Soviet-American Musical Exchange.

The program features works by American composer and pianist Richard Cameron-Wolfe and Petersburg composer Gregory Korchmar.

 

Cameron-Wolfe’s work as a pianist reflects his strong interest in “missing links” — early twentieth century composers who represent the transition from late Romanticism to “sound art,” and whose music is rarely performed today. The life and legacy of the great Russian artist and humanist Nicholas Roerich and humanist inspired Cameron-Wolfe to compose “Roerich Rhapsody,” scored for piano and cello.

 

Gregory Korchmar is an Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, the artistic director of the International Festival “Petersburg Musical Spring,” and the chairman of the St. Petersburg Union of Composers. His creative activity has consistently combined composition and performance (currently as a pianist and harpsichordist in the chamber ensemble “Soloists of St. Petersburg”). He is the author of more than 150 works in various musical genres.

Last year saw the renewal of operations of our historic St. Petersburg editorial offices, at this address:
“Apraksin Blues” St. Petersburg, Apraksin per. d. 3, kv. 3, St. Petersburg 191023 Russia
t. 310-9640, m. 8-921-78-68-456
and the release of our jubilee issue 25 “OF ALL THE…”
We look forward to fresh news and meetings!
Elena Starovoitova, St. Petersburg
A few of the opening’s participants:

Elena Starovoitova

Elena Starovoitova

Olga Syray

Olga Syray

Nikolai Serov

Nikolai Serov

At the Apraksin Blues SPb editorial offices

At the Apraksin Blues SPb editorial offices

1997. At the presentation of Apraksin Blues issue 7.

1997. At the presentation of Apraksin Blues issue 7.

An exhibit of T. Apraksina’s artwork is on view at the headquarters of Intel Corp. in Santa Clara, California, from April 1 through June 28, 2013.
Inquiries about the exhibit may be directed to apraksinblues@yahoo.com