Non-conformist art in St. Petersburg: Pushkinskaya-10
Anna Moss explores late-Soviet counterculture through an artists’ squat
A view of the courtyard at Pushkinskaya-10. All photos credit: the author.
St Petersburg is a city celebrated for its kaleidoscopic architecture. Its neoclassical and baroque pistachio green and powder pink domes recall the imperial vision of Peter the Great for city to be a ‘window to Europe’. To manifest this vision of Russia’s new capital, the Tsar enlisted the expertise of Swiss, Italian and Dutch architects.
But a darker reality hid behind St Petersburg’s palatial façades: that the building of the city was done by over 500,000 serfs who struggled to construct on the swampland, and many of whom died. A city of immense beauty, St Petersburg is nevertheless one problematised by its past. Its grandiosity can be seen to preserve a bygone dream, giving the impression of a kind of museum city. Its very topography, with its many canals and courtyards reflects its past: by Russian law, no building can be taller than the Winter Palace.
St Petersburg ceased to be the capital after the Russian Revolution in 1917, but it retained its status as a cultural capital thanks to its many native artists, musicians and writers. Over two centuries since it was founded, in what was Leningrad, one of the city’s courtyards came to represent a radical and clandestine art that opposed the state-controlled art of the era. In 1989, a group of independent artists and musicians occupied a disused building in Pushkinskaya street. The street’s name of course pays homage to one of Russia’s most beloved poets and cultural icons, poet Alexander Pushkin, who died in Saint Petersburg.
The occupants of Pushkinskaya-10 were also to have their own legacy, but — mirroring Pushkin’s own exile — it was one that was accompanied by the risk of imprisonment. These artists disobeyed the rules of socialist realism, which, under Joseph Stalin’s definition, required art to be ‘socialist in content, national in form’. Experimental and formalistic artistic trends such as surrealism, pop art, and conceptualism, all practiced by artists at Pushkinskaya-10, deviated from this. Although no dominant artistic trend emerged in this unofficial art, the movement became known as non-conformism, as the artists were unified in non-conformism to state-dictated art.
As well as following principles of socialist realism, Soviet artists had to be members of The State Artists’ Union. The residents of Pushkinskaya-10, because they were not members, fell under the ‘Parasite Law’. This policy ruled unemployment illegal and identified dissidents as an example of ‘social parasitism’. To avoid this charge, artists sought day jobs that would allow them to fund materials for their art and not raise suspicion: they worked as book illustrators, janitors, and electricians. That the Artist’s Union had a monopoly over studios, exhibitions and commissions forced the artists to be creative not just in their work, but in every aspect of their endeavours. With no real rights or infrastructure, artists held squat and apartment exhibitions. These were promoted among small circles and held in secret: leaflets could not include their names without risking their livelihood.
An interior at Pushkinskaya-10
A collage dedicated to the Beatles - heroes in non-conformist circles in the Soviet Union
Reflecting on the activities of Pushkinskaya-10, it seems remarkable that non-conformist art, given its adverse political conditions, survives. That it does survive is due to invaluable efforts of collectors and patrons who against all odds, and often at great personal risk, brought nonconformist art to the West. One such renowned collector was Norton Dodge, an American economist who accumulated one of the largest collections of nonconformist art. In a catalogue of his collection, Dodge wrote: ‘Soviet nonconformist art expresses the power of the human spirit.’ Dodge’s collection is now in the Zimmerli museum, New Jersey, which is the home to over 20,000 Soviet and nonconformist works. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, non-conformism gained, and continues to gain in present times, much recognition. In 2015 the Tate’s exhibition, The World Goes Pop, included the work of Soviet artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, seeking to tell the story of global pop art. In 2018, Sotheby’s held an auction ‘Escape Artists’, which was dedicated solely to Soviet nonconformist art. Its sales totaled over 1.2 million US dollars.
Today, Pushkinskaya-10 stands as a testament to the freedom of expression that its residents considered paramount. Many artists of the original group still reside in the commune. The interior of the building is decorated completely by the artists, including murals and stained glass windows. A sculpture of Jesus refigured as a musician stands by one of the staircases. Music played a central role in the scene: standing in the courtyard, one sees a frieze of each member of the Beatles on the building and a mural of a yellow submarine. A number of musicians have been permanent residents of Pushkinskaya-10, including Boris Grebenshikov, widely regarded as a ‘founding father’ of Russian rock music.
The artists’ studios reflect the sheer variety of different artistic interests, and abiding by its founding philosophy, Pushkinskaya-10, remains a privately owned, independent art center. Though the restrictions artists face in the Soviet Union differ from those today, it remains a space in which artists resist censorship and official culture in broader contexts, such as LGBT rights. When asked about the differences between underground art in St.Petersburg and Russia’s capital, Moscow, director Anastasia Patsey comments: ‘The Leningrad underground scene was more closed and local, and at some points more avant-garde and radical. Looking back, one can say that the Moscow perspective has dominated the history of the unofficial Soviet art for a long time. Today, however, we notice a growing interest towards the Leningrad context, which offers a lot of material for new research.’
Anna Moss is an MA student at the Courtauld Institute of Art, specialising in Russian 20th Century art. Prior to that she studied English literature and philosophy, and is particularly interested in aesthetics.