Bartenev Andrey Viktorovich Andrey Bartenev: biography, creativity, personal life. Andrey Bartenev. Biography and creative path

In "Fashionable Sentence" in early March, there was an unexpected change.

Fashion historian Alexander Vasiliev, who has been sitting in the judge's chair since 2009, has given way to another man. And what!

Andrei Bartenev is considered one of the most outrageous contemporary Russian artists. Although it is impossible to call him only an artist - he is also a director, a sculptor, a fashion designer, and even a writer. What he does always causes controversy. However, if someone says that they do not understand the message of his works, Bartenev just shrugs his shoulders.

Contemporary art is a translation of the meanings of prehistoric standards of beauty into modern language he says. - And since young languages ​​are very difficult to learn, many do not understand.

WHO IS HE?

Andrey was born in distant Norilsk. After leaving school, he studied as a theater director at the Art Institute of Krasnodar, and then went to conquer Moscow. And soon the secular party started talking about a strange man who goes to presentations in suits made of empty plastic bottles with flashing lights.

It can be said that Bartenev ended up in right place at the right time. It was in those wild 90s, when against the backdrop of absolute poverty, loud presentations and noisy parties flourished everywhere, this strange man suddenly came to court.

And when he released the performance " The Snow Queen”- with moving sculptures with geometric ornaments of bright colors, then critics even compared Bartenev with Malevich and Kandinsky! It was a real success, after which Andrei was noted abroad.

Among his acquaintances were not only Russian, but also foreign stars - Andrew Logan, Paco Rabanne, Calvin Klein, Jean-Paul Gaultier ...

They became not only my good acquaintances and friends, but also an example of how you can model your life, - says Bartenev.

Despite the image of a crazy freak, Andrei is a rather sensible person, who clearly knows what he wants and how to achieve it. Bartenev is a brilliant manager of himself, so his fees are very high, and his works are sold at decent prices.

"NEVER REFUSE SEX"

If many people know about Bartenev's performances - they turn out to be too loud, then Andrei tries to keep everything that lies outside the sphere of art a secret. For example, even reputable reference books are confused about how old he is. In different sources - different numbers: 46, 48, 54 ...

Also, no one knows anything about the personal life of the outrageous artist. It is not even known if he is married. True, judging by the fact that once Andrei became the hero of the Let's Get Married program (where he came in a corn suit that completely hides his body and face), his heart is still free. Bartenev himself, in a recent interview, when asked what advice he would give to himself, a 19-year-old, from the height of his years, answers: “Never refuse sex to those who want to have sex with you.”

IS THE CLOWNING OVER?

To be fair, it must be said that in recent times Bartenev's style even in clothes has changed somewhat. He stopped so frankly shocking the audience. He himself explains this by the fact that he used to be a clown, but the children whom he amused have grown up, and now we need to look for other ways to be interesting for them. Or maybe Andrey was just tired of the misunderstanding of others: he was repeatedly attacked - just because of the bright appearance.

But Bartenev is loved abroad, his works are in many of the best galleries. Yes, and he most spends time outside of Russia - works in America and Europe, gives master classes in theater academies. It was in Europe, or rather in Spain, that he was caught by a call from Channel One with a proposal to become, albeit temporarily, the host of Fashion Sentence.

"PROS AND CONS"

According to Bartenev, at first he thought that it was either someone's joke, or they just got in the wrong place. But when it became clear that the call was not a hoax, I immediately bought a ticket for the next flight to Moscow.

The surprises didn't end there. Bartenev, remembering that this is Channel One, and not Fashion TV, brought a whole suitcase of classic costumes to the shooting of the program (it turns out that there are such in his arsenal). However, they only waved their hands: no, don't be dignified, let's take your crazy outfits of giraffes and peacocks to the studio.

Andrey Bartenev fit into the well-coordinated team represented by Evelina Khromchenko and Nadezhda Babkina quite organically. But the audience of "Fashionable Sentence" was divided into two camps.

Some from the very first broadcast fell in love with Bartenev - in his unique style, the ability to detect something unusual even in the "gray mouse" and, of course, in his sparkling humor, sometimes on the verge of a foul.

Others, however, began to demand the return of Vasiliev, albeit also very outrageous, but almost homely and dear.

However, in general, we can say that the experiment with the introduction of Bartenev into the program was a success. So it is possible that in the future he will more than once replace the fashion historian who is somewhat tired of constant filming.

Photo by B. Kremer.

exhibition curator

“What we see in this exhibition is a fantastic expression of the time, and that is why Bartenev will remain in the history of both Russian and world art. The 1990s is a time of colossal energy, and in these works we feel it very keenly. In those years, everything was mixed up, the whirlwind of time carried us all somewhere: someone lost in the battle with this hurricane, and someone became stronger and laid the foundations of the world in which we live today. The 1990s is a celebration of freedom, which shows how easily everything mixed with everything in personal and public creation. Then Moscow was covered with scary stalls where you could buy a Bible, and sneakers, and yellow press, which was not there - a real symbol of the 1990s. Bartenev wonderfully expressed this time in crazy collages, which he wove into the fabric of his sculptures. He showed an incredible, exciting energy, for which there is nostalgia today: then it seemed that everything was possible.

"Three Sisters" (2012)

“The work gave me great pleasure: I have always explored a person as a kind of biomorphic mass, capable of creating a huge number of sculptural variations. I look at dancing actors as a sculptural form that, due to its biomechanics, transforms before my eyes. The combination of characters in space created an endless series of compositions - the project fully satisfied my passion for sculpture and for shifting accents in space.”

"Mogul-mogul, or the Adventures of invisible worms in Russia" (2000)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“I also love this performance very much, and it has survived only in the form of documentation. Here I have summed up my ten years of work with moving sculptures, and main value"Gogol-mogul" is associated with the discovery of a falling sculpture. For the performance, we prepared four tons of garbage and six thousand eggs. Seventy actors went on stage, took off everything they were wearing and threw it at the viewer, at this time thousands of eggs fell from the third level, and garbage from the second. Fragments of flying masses formed the feeling of a falling sculpture.

Then I began to investigate who is engaged in falling sculpture in the world: first of all, this is the British artist Cornelia Parker and Jean Tinguely, the Swiss artist who made the Stravinsky Fountain at the Georges Pompidou Center with his wife Nika. He was engaged in similar experiments: he built mechanical sculptures, put dynamite in them, blew them up and filmed the moment of the explosion. And Cornelia Parker not only arranged explosions, but also then collected fragments - she made a reconstruction of the explosion. She also cast the words of Shakespeare's sonnet in metal, went out to the cliff and threw these words into the sea in the order they were supposed to sound line by line. And I made "Mogul-mogul".

"Smoking Lips on the Asphalt" (1998)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“I am a regular participant in Andrew Logan's British project Alternative Miss World. This is an endless performance in which everyone participates - from animals to people and robots. In 1998, he performed at the Smoking Lips on Asphalt facility. That year Pani Bronya, legendary in the Moscow art environment, won. I knew that she should win, and the British were sure that I definitely should have won: they knew my performances well. I advised them not to rush to conclusions - they still did not know who Pani Bronya was! I am happy that everything turned out this way: the gentle combination of advanced age and Panya Broni's acting stunned everyone. I was also happy for myself, it gave me great pleasure to perform in the “Smoking Lips on Asphalt” facility. And here it is in the museum. And the video next to it shows me standing in it - at Richmond Holographic Studios.

"Snow Queen" (1993)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“This project was about how Russia opened its territory to the invasion of European and American goods. I took the fairy tale "The Snow Queen" as a basis, because she stole hearts in response to the talent of logistics. The same thing happened here: we were so naive, so joyful and traded all the joy for the possession of the unreal world of the supermarket. We showed this project in London at the Royal Festival Hall and the Victoria and Albert Museum, in Russia at the Tretyakov Gallery.”

Sviblova:“Tumblers, from which one of his most important works is made, are in some way a symbol of Russia. I still have such a toy, I periodically shake it and I think that no matter how we lean from side to side, we still come to the vertical.

"Botanical Ballet" (1992)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“The pearl of my work is the Botanical Ballet of 1992. It included developments of both 1990 and 1991, which I made as part of the Fruit Poker project, there was such an association of Moscow artists. Then I already made the Botanical Ballet, with which we traveled all over Europe, showed both as a performance and an exhibition - at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Baden-Baden, the church in Basel at Art Basel.

From the "Botanical Ballet" - from the tension of color - my new sculpture of this year has grown ("Sea buckthorn". - Note. ed.). And "Botanical Ballet" grew out of children's games with snow in the city of Norilsk, where snow was a more accessible material than toys.

"Sea Buckthorn" (2015)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“About the conflict between strict form and sucked balls: some aesthetic embellishment of time - and any time. We love ancient ruins, they were magnificent when they were created, but the beauty of destruction is hard to deny. These balls destroy the dynamic tension of the metal, but create the peculiar beauty of the dependents on the strings of the sculpture's metal."

Sviblova: « New job Barteneva is absolutely fantastic, it can be installed in any public space, it shows that we have the most powerful sculptural powers. It is no weaker than the monumental works of Koons and other great artists. Let's not be afraid to call what we see by their proper names, let's not be afraid to confess our love to Bartenev, because many in our artistic world associate Andryusha only with performance.”

"Electric Aliens" (2004)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“At first I showed this project as a performance: I moved on stage in a suit. The first time was at the Hippodrome nightclub on Leicester Square, which Andrew Logan turned into a venue for Alternative Miss World - then I was an alien (in complete darkness, the assistants carried Bartenev out in a luminous alien suit. - Note. ed.). Then I showed it in the “Etazhi” loft in St. Petersburg, and then in Berlin in a huge gallery space. In the form of an independent installation, I presented aliens in the Tretyakov Gallery, and the MMSI decided to purchase the installation for the collection. I wanted to show the project at Burning Man, but the museum said they don't lend their work to any "burning men". As for the technology, this is a 2004 development by NASA for luminous fabrics. And the installation itself is a prototype of my sculpture "Field of Lonely Hearts".

"Blow Kiss of the Trees" (2012)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“My favorite performance was made for Archstoyanie in 2012. He talks about the fact that trees are absolutely fantastic creatures on our planet: they give us a reason to live, they give us oxygen. A kiss is just the oxygen they send us, but the trees don't have legs to run away from us, from our cruelty. We have shown various thoughts that trees broadcast into space. The most successful performance took place at one in the morning on a hill and under a spotlight. Everything that was captured by the spotlight seemed bright green and bright white, and everything in the shadows became terribly black. It was a completely biblical contrast between good and evil."

"Say: I love you" (2005)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“The sound sculpture consists of an open spiral and 200 speakers that form eight cycles. There is a microphone in the center, a person comes up to him and says: “I love you”, and the phrase begins to fly through these speakers. This is primarily a psychological experience: I saw that many people are generally afraid to utter this phrase in their lives. To which I reply: practice! It helps: many lovers come here and confess their love to each other. The work was created for the First Moscow Biennale contemporary art, and then became part of the MMSI (MMOMA) collection "

Sviblova:“This is an amazing job: it makes us do the most difficult thing, to say “I love you” - the most difficult existential gesture. These words each of us wants to hear, but they are so difficult to pronounce! There is an incredible contrast between the words and the aggressive form of the installation: it looks like a roller coaster or hills in a mountainous area, and the speakers look like octopus suckers. When we say these very words, we hear that our voice rolls in space, like an echo in the mountains. The form of the installation is amazing: it proves that we have before us the most delicate plastic sculptor. Many of Bartenev's performances have taken the form of sculptures, and I'm not afraid to say that he does not lose the competition with Louise Bourgeois, which is exhibited in the Garage. Somewhere they even express themselves plastically, referring to an aggressive form to reflect the world in which we live.

"Connection Lost. Field of Lonely Hearts" (2007)

Photo: Ksenia Kolesnikova

Bartenev:“This is a project capable of change, the mechanisms in it each time behave in a new way, which changes the original meaning. When you look into the endless space of hearts that are not connected to each other in any way, you can see that at some point they begin to turn into an abstract glow-impulse. When I realized this in Venice (the work was exhibited at the Venice Biennale curated by Olga Sviblova. - Note. ed.), then said that the artist is the programmer of a certain sculpture, which is engaged in self-reproduction and self-change. And thus the program scheme of the sculpture changes the final image and the context of what is happening. It was 2007 and so much has happened in the art of software in those nine years. And then it was just the first experience of what we could emotionally face. Only one thing depends on the artists - to direct the discovery to creation and love or destruction. I choose creation and love.”

Sviblova:“This is a model of our human community, which goes into the virtual space. Then it was not obvious - we only raised the question of what virtual space is. Today it already seems to us that as soon as we forget our phone, fall out of this space, then trouble happens. Thanks to this virtual communication, we get the feeling that we are together, although this is the same illusion as the relationship of a thousand people crowding into a disco. At some point, we still understand that everyone is dancing alone, that the more we are together, the more alone we are. Bartenev is a person who is incredibly sensitive to these moments of existential abandonment, and each time he overcomes them with his performances - just like a knight.

margarita virova

Seems like a daily artist Andrey Bartenev manages to do about a million things: he creates costumes for theatrical performances, puts on performances and supervises festivals, teaches at the course, where he helps those who wish to understand the basics of contemporary art. This spring, he also tried on the role of the host of the “Fashionable Sentence”, where he made a splash, urging the participants of the program, in general, not to be embarrassed to be whoever they want - and he himself shone in unusual, complex and funny costumes. We talked with Andrey Bartenev, who turns almost every exit into an act of art, about the freedom to be himself, beauty and selfishness.

If we talk about experiments with appearance, then all my costumes are, of course, spacesuits. When we go out into an airless space - we take out one spacesuit, we get into aquatic environment- we get another one, put on a third one in the desert, in a city oversaturated different people, - fourth. That's what I'm doing. Moreover, the task of my spacesuits is to either protect my weak human body or detect it strengths or change its structure. I have always done it and will always do it.

The percentage of people who

have rare performances

about the beautiful

does not change

I don't follow what's going on in fashion. If I follow, it's only a small group of European designers, and these are just five names that I'm curious about. But what I see they practice outside of any trends, what they create is designed for a very limited audience. And then I can do it myself.

I think that it is easiest for big egoists to perceive clothing and image as a way of self-expression. To manifest the power of egoism, one needs to oppose oneself environment, getting into a situation where you are different and alienated from the general mass.

But getting rid of stereotypes depends solely on your free will - take it and get rid of it. Be different, it's much easier than you think, and much easier than being attached to the fears that hold you back.

I think that there is no movement towards "ugliness" - it's more of a journalistic cliché. In fact, all these alien, clownish, strange images have always been around. It's just that the media either picks them up at the cutting edge of the news, or abandons them. Accordingly, this culture either returns or disappears. I think that the percentage of people who have such rare ideas about beauty does not change. Just curiosity and the degree of marketability of information is changing. Now, probably, it has again become possible to sell, and everyone began to talk about it. Of course, the industry of our tricks, "self-mutilation", is also developing. But before there were other freaks, after all, the percentage of eccentricity is constant.

The standards of beauty are changing because our world is changing, and we are a human civilization: songs about beauty are in new words and new thoughts. If we did not find new ways to talk about beauty, then intellectual evolution would stop. The poetic, fantasy world of our thinking all the time gives us new versions of the understanding of beauty. New sounds, words, numbers. Why are all musicians, artists, writers needed? Because they have to write their own beauty stories that are appropriate for the era in which they live.

With me, everything is very simple: the dictate of my thinking is much stronger than the dictate of opinions. And I trust my inner voice much more than the chorus of external authorities. In the end, this voice is given to you by heaven - and it sounds, but you cannot do anything. And it is he who is the measure of all your actions. I didn't want to do what the people around me did, deliberately followed the path of denial and heard what I needed. I immediately realized that what was left is mine, and this is not so little, it will be enough for my whole long life.

I trust my inner voice much more

than a chorus of external authorities

For certain people, fashion is a visual language that signals: "I'm yours, take me to your team." Look at least at the artists who are engaged in street art: they look similar, because they are all from the same cultural cell. This is how it works, fashion exists so that with the help of appearance a person can find friends, comrades who will understand him. Clothing, of course, is a language in the same way that graffiti is on city walls. This is normal, and this is knowledge that needs to be used. If you do not want to fall into some category, invent yourself. I can play anything and I love it. I can be outside the categories - and I can be in any of them.

Born in 1969 in Norilsk. Graduated from the Krasnodar Art Institute. Since 1996 - Member of the Moscow Union of Artists. A. Bartenev's works have been repeatedly exhibited in the largest museums of contemporary art abroad, are in Russian and foreign galleries, private and corporate collections: Raco Rabanne, Andrew Logan, Brian Eno, Zandra Rhodes, Zimmerli Museum Collection, New Jersey, Timur Novikov's New Academy, St. Petersburg, Museum of Unique Dolls, Moscow, museum complex Tsaritsino, Moscow. - artist, graphic artist, designer, fashion designer, author of a number of well-known sculptural performances, such as "Mogul-mogul, or the adventures of invisible worms in Russia", in which art ideas about a falling sculpture were fully embodied, "Botanical Ballet", "Snow Queen" "," Mineral water», « The Royal Family returns”, “Nerpa Hunt” in the Manhattan Express and others. An artist working in the genre of spectacular synthetic performance. Bartenev's works have been repeatedly exhibited in the largest Russian and foreign museums, his works are in the best collections of contemporary art around the world. He acted as a co-author of projects with outstanding artists and directors of our time, including Andrew Logan and Robert Wilson. Any attempts to fit Bartenev's works into the boundaries of one of the genres - fashion, sculpture, theater, contemporary art - fail, because the artist accepts the conditions of existence in an interdisciplinary space as an inevitable consequence of creative freedom. "Art for me is a single stream, and I don't care what forms it takes." His slogan: “I am close not to passive, but active living of life. In the course of a constant internal experiment, unexpected things happen - so much is fantasized and emotional. One gets the feeling that you are inside a huge water stream flying upwards. It passes through you, and you have time fix only a small part of it. When it seems to me that my strength and ideas run out, this is a deceptive impression. When I continue the experience, hoping to repeat it in a new quality, it always repeats itself differently - in a new quality of emotion. This stream flying up (and not falling down like a dead weight), is striking in its perpetuity.

Andrey Bartenev(b. 1969, Norilsk) is a Russian artist, sculptor, experimenter and creator of many provocative, interactive installations and performances. One of the world's most sought-after contemporary Russian artists

Biography

Born in 1969 in Norilsk. As a child, he dreamed of learning to play the piano, but, unfortunately, the Bartenevs lived very modestly and could not afford such a luxury. When Andrei was 16 years old, he left his native Norilsk and went to study at the Art Institute of Krasnodar. There he received the profession of theater director. His artistic career began in Moscow in the late eighties.

Creation

Andrei Bartenev achieved his first success in 1992, thanks to his performance Botanical Ballet. This work received the Grand Prix at the Riga festival. In 1996 Bartenev became a member of the Moscow Union of Artists.

The most popular are Bartenev's performances, bright and unusual. For all the seeming spontaneity and disorderliness of the Bartenev show, their internal form and dynamics are always carefully worked out.

Bartenev creates absurd, capricious, piquant, provocative, carnival fantasies. They are inspired by the mythology of art, the dreams of scientists, through porn anime. The artist in his wild costumes and make-up is an art object in his own right. Thus, Bartenev continues and develops the ideas of Russian Futurism.

Bartenev is also known as the creator of costumes for theatrical performances. He owns the costumes for the production of The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck in New York, the performances of Elisabeth Bam in Moscow and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies in Hamburg. Author of theatrical performances for Robert Wilson's Watermill Center in the USA.

In 2008 Bartenev's works were presented in the American art museum Visionary in Baltimore and the National Arts Club in Gramercy Park in New York.

In 2009 he organized and curated the Third International Festival of Illustration (Moscow), held seminars at the International Summer Academy at Domaine de Boisbuchet, Center Georges Pompidou, in international center de Recherche, etc.

In 2012, Bartenev designed a treasure display at the Royal Library, Denmark.

In 2017, Andrey Bartenev tried himself in a new role, becoming a temporary host of the TV show "