Erik Bulatov is one of the most important living artists from Russia and Eastern Europe. He numbers, along with Ilya Kabakov, among a small but significant group of Russian artists who, at a remove from the governmental regulations of the Soviet art system, attained completely independent forms of artistic expression.
Bulatov’s drawings and paintings have an extraordinary coherence. His unique, stringent pictorial system was first expressed in his word pictures of the 1970s, where he analyzed the interplay of contrasting symbolic systems, such as language and images or abstraction and illusion – a theme he is still concerned with today. The meaning of his work and the symbolic codes he uses are products of his cultural background. Bulatov lived most of his life in Russia, only moving to Paris in 1991, and the emblems and typography of socialist glorification are unmistakable themes throughout his oeuvre.
Despite difficult working conditions, Bulatov did not emigrate, but continued to develop his work in Russia until the collapse of the Soviet Union, when he moved to France. Bulatov’s paintings can be situated in the realm of political art, despite their lack of unequivocal political or ideological messages. His particular modes of artistic expression are bound to a particular time and place, while also giving rise to multiple visual associations. It is characteristic of Bulatov’s manner of political commentary that he subversively unites opposing impulses.
Erik Bulatov studied painting at the Surikov Art Institute in Moscow, graduating in 1958. He began working as a children’s book illustrator with friend and collaborator, Oleg Vassiliev for which he won numerous awards.
From June to October 2013 the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco honoured Erik Bulatov with a retrospective. Bulatov’s works have appeared in nearly every important exhibition on 20th Century Russian Art, including “RUSSIA!” at the Guggenheim Museums in New York, USA (2005) and Bilbao, Spain (2006), and “Berlin- Moscow / Moscow-Berlin 1950–2000”, Tretyakow-Galerie, Moskau, Russia (2003), and Martin-Gropius- Bau, Berlin, Germany (2004), or „Traumfabrik Kommunismus. Die visuelle Kultur der Stalinzeit“, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt / Main, Germany (2003).
He was also featured at the 43rd Venice Biennale (1988) and the Third Moscow Biennale (2009). His solo exhibitions have appeared at mamco – Musee d’art moderne et contemporain in Geneva, Switzerland (2009/2010) and at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France (2007), at the Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover, Germany (2006), and the Tretyakow-Galerie, Moskau, Russia (2003 and 2006).
“The picture is different. It is the only reality I trust and believe. The world around us is too active, too unstable for us to maintain any true belief in it; everything is in a state of flux, everything is changing. Only the picture is immutable. “ Erik Bulatov, 1987
Resource: http://www.arndtfineart.com/website/artist_18?idx=b
Categorie:L09.01- Arte contemporanea europea - European contemporary art
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