Tatyana Nazarenko: "The longer I live, the less I know how to start and end novels." Tatyana Nazarenko: "The longer I live, the less I know how to start and end novels" - Are you a good housewife? love your home

Nazarenko Tatyana Grigorievna

Tatiana Nazarenko

(Born 1944)

Painter. Engaged in artistic photography. Portrait painter, landscape painter, genre painter, master of historical painting.

In 1955-1962 she studied at the Moscow secondary art school at the Moscow State Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov, then in 1962-1968 at the Moscow State Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov under D.D. Zhilinsky.

Currently he teaches at the same institute.

Laureate of the State Prize of Russia, full member of the Russian Academy of Arts.

T.G. Nazarenko is one of the leaders of the artistic life of the 1970s. The creativity of her generation is characterized by analyticity, the desire for a multifaceted reading of the meaning of the work, the emphasis on personal intonation, and irony.

The language of allegory was close to many masters of that time. Nazarenko recalls: "The 70s forced us to resort to an allegory: an ambiguous time, when a lot seems to be allowed, and at the same time again no, closed again."

She is particularly famous for her paintings historical themes("Execution of the People's Will", 1969-1972; "Decembrists", 1978). In them, she combines documentation, the spirit of evidence, a historical perspective and her own idea of the event.

Interest in different stages of history and culture, elements of stylization and direct quotation famous works- all this brings Nazarenko's art closer to the aesthetics of postmodernism.

__________________________

Nazarenko Tatyana Grigorievna

Honored Artist of Russia, laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation, Prize of the Government of Moscow, member of the presidium, full member of the Russian Academy of Arts, professor

She was born on June 24 in Moscow. Father - Nazarenko Grigory Nikolaevich (1910-1990). Mother - Abramova Nina Nikolaevna (born in 1920). Spouse - Zhigulin Alexander Anatolyevich (born in 1951). Children: Nazarenko Nikolai Vasilievich (born in 1971), Zhigulin Alexander Aleksandrovich (born in 1987).

Tatyana Nazarenko's father, a front-line soldier, a career soldier, after the war was appointed to Far East and the parents left. Tanya stayed in Moscow with her grandmother, Anna Semyonovna Abramova. She showed her first school grades, and then her drawings and paintings.

A. S. Abramova has been a widow since 1937. Her husband, Nikolai Nikolaevich Abramov, was illegally repressed and died in custody. Left alone, she worked as a teacher in kindergarten, a nurse, raised and helped her two daughters get a higher education, raised her granddaughter Tatiana, and then helped raise her eldest son Nikolai. Grandmother had an endless source of love in herself, but it seems that her main love was still Tanya, who also loved her. Anna Semyonovna Abramova remained to live in the paintings of the artist Tatyana Nazarenko: "Morning. Grandmother and Nikolka" (1972), "Portrait of A. S. Abramova" (1976), "Memoirs" (1982), "Life" (1983), "White wells. In memory of my grandmother "(1987).

At the age of 11, Tatyana entered the Moscow Art School. A circle of friends was quickly formed there: Natalya Nesterova, Irina Starzhenetskaya, Lyubov Reshetnikova, Ksenia Nechitailo - the bright future masters of the 1970s. It was a stormy, generous time, rich in various events of cultural life, a time of rise in Russian art, acquaintance with outstanding works of domestic and foreign classics of the 20th century, until then banned and unknown to young people.

In 1962, Tatyana Nazarenko entered the painting department of the V. I. Surikov Art Institute, where D. D. Zhilinsky, A. M. Gritsay, S. N. Shilnikov became her teachers. After graduating from the institute from 1968 to 1972, she worked in the creative workshop of the USSR Academy of Arts under G. M. Korzhev.

The art of Tatyana Nazarenko was formed under the influence of the turbulent events of the 1960s and memories of the tragic events of the 1930s. It combines a full-blooded attitude, love of life, the ability to experience everyday events as a holiday - and constant anxiety, which allows you to turn these holidays into strange and complex actions, where everything is true - and not true, where there is as much fun as sadness, where there are many layers of perception, many spaces superimposed on one another, where time is unsteady, the accuracy of natural observations and the most unbridled fantasy are intertwined.

In the work of Tatyana Nazarenko, there is a strong analytical beginning. In whatever genre of painting she works, the main content of her paintings is expressed not only and not so much through the plot, but through the general spiritual atmosphere, which determines the psychological state of the characters, and the emotional coloring of landscapes, objects, and the plastic language of her art. This spirituality of painting, combined with an analytical and close approach to the phenomena depicted, constitutes the meaningful originality of the artist's works.

The adequacy of time, deep modernity is one of the defining features of the artist's work. Nazarenko brings to his works something subtly, but undoubtedly making them a product of our days, the way of thinking of our contemporary. The viewer feels the time pulsing in her art.

These features began to appear already in the first independent works of the artist, in the multidirectional search for the first postgraduate years.

At the end of her studies at the institute, in 1965-1967, Nazarenko traveled to Central Asia. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan determined the range of subjects for her works for several years. Nazarenko's Central Asian paintings ("Mother with a Child", "Motherhood", "Samarkand. Yard", "Uzbek Wedding", "Prayer", "Boys in Bukhara") reflected her live observations. But not only. These works seemed to contain all the luggage of her student acquisitions. But they already show another inalienable quality of the young artist - originality. From under the usual forms of "the art of the sixties" a different content looms in them. Everything in them is much more unsteady and ambiguous, they are extraordinarily musical, primitive features appear in them: the desire to remove representation, to bring a smile, simplicity and play.

And it is no coincidence that immediately after the Central Asian series, Nazarenko turns to topics that are much more close to him. She paints pictures where the main characters are herself and her friends. The life of a generation becomes the subject of her art.

The beginning of the 1970s for Nazarenko, as for most artists of her generation, was a time of searching for a genre, manner, and theme. The artist tries her hand both in a primitivist manner and in the system of strict neoclassicism, she paints romantic-decorative and playful canvases. During these years, she wrote such different works as "The Execution of the People's Will" (1969-1972), "A Tree in New Athos" (1969), "Sunday in the Forest" (1970), "Portrait of a Circus Actress" (1970), "Seeing Winter" (1973), "New Year's festivities" (1973), "Morning. Grandma and Nikolka" (1972), "Young Artists" (1968), "My Contemporaries" (1973), "Lunch" (1970), "Portrait of Igor Kupryashin" (1974).

Among her characters, one can almost always find one's own image - and the measure of the sharp-sighted ruthlessness of the eye, the ability to emphasize the acute character at the expense of the idyllic-prosperous is just as strong in relation to oneself as to any other model.

Characteristic in this sense are group portraits, solved as genre paintings (Students, 1969; Young Artists, 1968; My Contemporaries, 1973; Foggy Day on Shikotan, 1976; After the Exam, 1976). Their characters are recognizably portraits, the collisions are plausible: youth celebrations, conversations in the studio... And at the same time, there is something mysterious in them that turns everyday scenes into romantic fantasies.

Tatyana Nazarenko's historical compositions reflect our contemporary's view of the past. In her paintings, the past and the present are simultaneously present, a historical event - and our current understanding of it. The very approach to solving the topic is already characteristic: in historical canvases - "The Execution of the People's Will", "Partisans Came" (1975), "Decembrists. The Revolt of the Chernigov Regiment" (1978), "Pugachev" (1980) - the artist chooses tragic, culminating moments, requiring the highest tension of the spiritual forces of the participants in the action. Silence, silence are significant here.

Tatyana Nazarenko's painting "The Execution of the People's Will" appeared at the Moscow Youth Exhibition in 1972. The picture was seen by everyone, although not accepted by everyone. It bizarrely combined adherence to Renaissance models, a tendency to generalized reflections and a tragic sense of vulnerability of fighters for freedom, for spiritual ideals before the crushing faceless force of the machine of suppression. For the painting "The Execution of the People's Will" Nazarenko was awarded the Moscow Komsomol Prize. In 1976 she was awarded the 1st prize at the International Competition for Young Painters in Sofia (Bulgaria).

Compassion, a sense of social responsibility - in the future, these qualities developed and strengthened in the art of Tatyana Nazarenko, acquiring different, sometimes bizarre forms of embodiment, intertwining with the motifs of carnivals, holidays, festivities, with romantic self-portraits, with artistic play. And everywhere, invisibly and distinctly, there is anxiety, a feeling that behind the unsteady well-being of our everyday life there are the harsh fates of other generations, their pain and suffering.

Nazarenko loves to write carnivals. One of the first "carnival" works of the artist - "New Year's festivities" (1973), in which she seeks to show the inner meaning of the carnival, the range of diverse and rather complex feelings experienced by randomly gathered people.

Over the years, the play principle intensifies in the work of the artist. Narrative leaves the works, and allegory appears. In an allegorical capacity, he also uses reminiscences of the art of the past - whether it is almost direct quotations from classical works, historical costumes on our contemporaries, or the presence of objects from the past in compositions dedicated to today.

In the second half of the 1970s - early 1980s, Nazarenko painted several group portraits of friends who had gathered on a festive occasion. These are the paintings "Meeting the New Year" (1976), "Moscow Evening" (1978), "Carnival" (1979), "Tatiana's Day" (1982), "September in Odessa" (1985) and many others, as well as those written earlier canvases "Young Artists" (1968) and "My Contemporaries" (1974).

If Nazarenko's early group portraits clearly felt silence, concentration, the desire of the characters to hear each other, listen to the truth, then in subsequent works ("Carnival", "Tatyana's Day", etc.), the unrestrained element of carnival reigns. The costumes and poses are extravagant, the spirit of the festival owns not only people, but also objects. However, this is a holiday without fun, communication without mutual understanding and spiritual closeness. The theme of loneliness, so important for the artist, is bizarrely combined in her work with the theme of carnival ("Portrait in fancy dress", 1982).

There are elements of carnivalization in the paintings "Carousel" (1982) and in the diptych "Dance" (1980).

In the works of Nazarenko there is a desire for contact with the viewer, a willingness to open oneself to an attentive, sympathetic look. The artist has written several works, where she speaks almost directly about the confession of her art, about how painful and difficult it is to show herself unprotected, exposed before the court of general indifference ("Flowers. Self-Portrait", 1979; "Circus Girl", 1984; "Spectators", 1988; "Meal", 1992).

One of the most unusual paintings by Tatyana Nazarenko is the triptych "Workshop" (1983). The artist presents the viewer with a real workshop in which real paintings were created ("Tatiana's Day" and "Carnival"), and at the same time the process of translating his idea.

There is another form of "confession" in the works of Nazarenko. In such works, she does not need irony, she does not need colorful carnival clothes: here the closest, warmest is embodied ... And almost always in these paintings there is an image of a grandmother: "Morning. Grandmother and Nikolka", triptych "Life" (1983) and others . In 1982, the painting "Memories" was painted, where the artist, as it were, materializes the life associations that arose when looking at old photographs.

Among the main works of Tatyana Nazarenko are also: "Home Concert" (1986), diptych "Happy Old Age" (1988), "Little Orchestra" (1989), "Fragments" (1990), "Monument to History" (triptych, 1992), " Time" (triptych, 1992), "Mad World" (1992), "Spell" (1995), "Homeless" (2001).

Tatyana Nazarenko is a social artist. "I've always been interested in people," she says. "I can't turn away, dismiss other people's misfortune. To make people think, to call them to sympathy - that's the main goal of my work." Vivid proof of this was her exhibition "Transition" (1995-1996) - an installation of 120 painted plywood "tricks" made in human growth. At the exhibition, visitors had to stop, peer into the faces of unfortunate old women, invalids, itinerant musicians - all those who are seen daily in underground passages, but most often they pass by without stopping their eyes. The exhibition was a great success (later it was seen by residents of Germany, the USA, Finland), and "Transition" became for the artist in literally transition to a new stage in life, to a new art.

In 1997, her exhibition "My Paris" was held, where there were also figures made of plywood - garcons of Parisian cafes in long white aprons, fish sellers ... Another exhibition of Tatyana Nazarenko - "Moscow Table" was held in the same year at the Marat Gelman Gallery, and then was shown at the State Russian Museum of St. Petersburg in the program of the exhibition "Art against geography". In May-September 2002, the Kuskovo Museum hosted an exhibition of the artist "I'm glad to be deceived myself..." (The Art of Deception).

Since 1966, when Nazarenko first showed her work at the VII Moscow Youth Exhibition, she has been constantly participating in city and all-Russian exhibitions, exhibitions visual arts in Russia and abroad. The first solo exhibitions were held in Leverkusen (1986), Bremen, Oldenburg, Odessa, Kiev, Lvov (all in 1987). Since then, the artist's solo exhibitions have been held in Moscow (the first in 1989), Cologne, Washington, New York, Boston, Madrid, Tallinn, Helsinki and other cities. The works of Tatyana Nazarenko are kept in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery(Moscow), the State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg), the National Museum "Women in Art" (Washington), the National Jewish Museum (Washington), the Museum of Modern Art (Sofia), the Museum of Modern Art (Budapest) and other art museums of the world, in private collections.

The creative works of Tatiana Nazarenko were awarded with high awards: the State Prize of the Russian Federation (1993), the Moscow Government Prize (1999), the silver medal of the USSR Academy of Arts (1985), the gold medal of the Russian Academy of Arts (2005).

T. G. Nazarenko - Honored Artist of Russia (2002), since 1997 - Corresponding Member, since 2001 - Full Member, Member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Arts; Professor of the Department of Painting, Head of the Easel Painting Workshop of the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V. I. Surikov (1998). Member of the Union of Artists since 1969.

Lives and works in Moscow.

Tatyana Nazarenko - a representative of the "official" art?

Tatyana Nazarenko (*1944) - "Queen of the Union of Artists" in her interview talks about the difficult fate of the "left" artist in yesterday's official Union. More than once, her works were censored by loyal art officials and removed from official exhibitions. It was believed that Nazarenko "disfigures the Soviet people." Today, according to the artist, there is a danger of a new lack of freedom. The art market begins to dictate to the artist "what and how to do."

Credo:
"I'm always doing one thing, varying the same theme - the theme of loneliness. Loneliness seems to me one of the most significant dramas of a person. In different works: in large historical canvases, in portraits or genre paintings, this topic determines a lot in my canvases. Force people to think, to call them to sympathy - this is the main goal of my work."

Born, lives and works in Moscow.

1968 - graduated from the Moscow Art Institute named after Surikov.

1969 - 1972 - worked in the workshops of the Academy of Arts.

1969 - joined the Union of Artists of the USSR.

Since 1966 - participates in numerous exhibitions, including foreign ones.

1976 - First Prize for international competition young painters in Sofia.

1987 - Silver medal of the Academy of Arts of the USSR.

1993 - Laureate of the State Prize Russian Federation in the field of literature and fine arts.

My first acquaintance with the work of Tatyana Nazarenko happened somewhere in the mid-1970s. I was then a member of the youth section of the Union of Artists. The young art critic shared with us her reflections on the new trends in Soviet painting. When the image of Nazarenko's painting "The Partisans Came" (1975, Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR) appeared on the screen, there were exclamations of surprise in the hall. Someone immediately began to attack, sharply criticize the work. Her decision was surprising. The scene of the removal from the gallows of the tortured appeared as the removal from the cross on the canvases of the old masters. And this is in the country of atheism. It was obvious: a bright individuality, a serious, searching artist, came to art. Very soon, Nazarenko will become one of the leading artists of the generation. She will receive awards, praise, but often criticism and rejection. First impression. How small she is. And at the same time literally radiating energy. And yet - an unusually bright blue of her eyes.

Am I that small? I always considered myself so powerful, - the artist laughs.

My father is a military man, my mother is a doctor. My grandmother raised me, because my parents constantly had to live in different cities. And I lived with her in Moscow.

Grandmother will forever remain the main person in her life. When Tatyana has a son, she will help "raise" him. Nazarenko will constantly write it. In the painting "Morning. Grandmother and Nikolka" (1972, Directorate of Exhibitions of the Union of Artists), she depicts her carefully protecting her grandson's sleep. The artist compares two worlds - wise and good world old age and carefree, when every day is a holiday and discovery - childhood. Carefully, lovingly, she writes out each of the countless wrinkles on her grandmother's face and her sad and affectionate eyes.

Nazarenko's childhood was the normal childhood of a child from a "good" family. School of Music. At the age of 11, she enters art school.

- Did your parents react calmly to your choice of the profession of an artist?

They didn't react at all. She entered art school, well, she studies and studies. True, when a friend of mine said that an artist should have a rich husband or rich parents, this alerted them. They were very worried that I would never earn money, that they would have to feed me all my life.

Now, after I became the Laureate of the State Prize, they took me seriously. But in general, my mother still sometimes says, it would be better if you graduated from the radio institute and would be a normal person. It so happened that Tatyana's class at the art school turned out to be unusually rich in talents. Natalya Nesterova, Irina Starzhenetskaya, Ksenia Nechitailo became her classmates and friends. Each of them will subsequently find their own unique style, a world of images. Today they are all recognized "masters" of art of the 1970s - 1980s.

For Nazarenko and the artists of her generation, the period of formation, maturation coincided with a wonderful, unforgettable time - the period of the "thaw." It was a time of hope. Time of genuine revival and searches in culture and art. I will always remember my first encounters with contemporary Western art. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Moscow and Leningrad hosted exhibitions of Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, and contemporary American, British, French, and Belgian artists. Thousands of crowds besieged the museums. People have been queuing since night.

One of the strongest impressions of those years, Nazarenko recalls, was the exhibition "30 Years of the Moscow Union of Artists". On it, next to a well-known one, we saw such Soviet art, the existence of which we did not even suspect.

The works of young leftist members of the Union were also shown there: Andronov, the Nikonov brothers, and others. Subsequently, they will be called masters of the "severe style." Then she, an aspiring artist, and her friends could not even imagine that they would have to continue the struggle begun by the "sixties" for the further renewal and humanization of Soviet art.

Then there will be studies at the Art Institute. Surikov. Already in the years of study, the realization appeared that it would not be easy to defend oneself, one's understanding of art.

- "At school, and then at the institute, there was a certain duality in relation to our work. We were required to be lifelike in the spirit of the Wanderers. [...] Here is the story of how I wrote my diploma. I took the topic of motherhood. I knew for sure that wanted: in a yurt, two women - a young and an old one - by a cradle with a child. Illuminated figures, black background. The idea of the "Adoration of the Magi" A. M. Gritsay [the head of the workshop - N. Sh.] said: "Tanya, you don't know life, do not know the happiness of motherhood. It is impossible when solving such a topic with a black background. Darkness is denial. You have a lot of natural materials - follow nature. "I obeyed - it turned out to be a work that I would not have done if I had not been convinced."

In her desire to create "real" art, Nazarenko, like many seeking artists of her generation, turns to the traditions of classical art. Her main "teachers" are the masters of the Northern Netherlandish Renaissance. No matter how far the young members of the Union went in their search, there was always a certain limit, a limit of permissibility: they had to remain within the framework of realistic figurative painting.

- You received an academic education. Is realistic art really yours?

Maybe it wasn't mine. At the time when I was studying, we did not know that it was possible to work differently.

- Some artists found the courage to break with the Academy and its system. (I cite Elena Gritsenko from Leningrad as an example, who successfully graduated from the Academy and then abandoned the career of an "official" artist and connected her fate with the underground).

This requires character. I had main man- Grandmother, whom I did not want to upset. And some things - to leave the institute and something else - could not even cross my mind, because this would be the collapse of my grandmother's foundations. I was friends with many underground artists, I was in close contact with Kabakov, Bulatov, Vasiliev, but I could not afford it. Also, for realism, I had a lot of options.

- Already your first works, which appeared at the exhibitions, differed from the usual, traditional ones. Was it a conscious desire not to follow the beaten paths?

I recently visited the Surikov Institute. I just couldn't believe my eyes. The building itself was renovated and rebuilt. We are now in the mid 1990s. They hang there as samples of paintings, drawings of the very right wing of the Union. It seemed to me that they no longer exist. We have learned from others. The same Zhilinsky. With his help, we discovered the Renaissance, we were in awe of it. This gave rise to my passion for Bosch, Brueghel, Masaccio, Uccello. Their work is still the pinnacle of art for me. Until now, when you are sad, something does not work out, you look at how the ear is written by the "canon" Van Eyck and you immediately want to do something similar.

Masters of the "severe style" depicted "an ordinary person in an ordinary environment." Their characters manifested and realized themselves in everyday work, in social contacts. The hero of the seventies is less unambiguous, more prone to reflection. The pictorial structure itself is also becoming more complex. The "openness" of the statement is replaced by allegory, metaphor, allegory.

With a new hero and this two-dimensionality of the narrative, we meet in the group portraits created by Nazarenko in the 1970s ("My contemporaries," 1973, the Radishchev Saratov Art Museum; "Moscow Evening", 1978, the Tretyakov Gallery). Their heroes are the artist herself and her circle of close friends. Her work is autobiographical and self-portrait. Her own fate, the fate of close people, the life of her generation become the leading themes of the artist.

In "Moscow Evening" Nazarenko recreates the confidential creative atmosphere of friendly gatherings of young seventies. At dusk, several artists are sitting in the workshop. "Seven-string guitar ringing" evokes thoughts. Outside the window - Moscow. In the distance you can see the towers and domes of the Kremlin temples. From the dusk emerges the figure of a beautiful stranger in a powdered wig - the character of one of the famous Russian portraits of the 18th century.

In these works, the main features of the always recognizable style of Nazarenko have already clearly manifested themselves. Careful, loving recreation will take the surrounding world, bringing her work closer to the works of the old Netherlandish masters. Grotesque exaggeration of the characters. Here the lessons of Brueghel, Bosch, Russian folk "primitive" affected. Critics will accuse the artist of "disfiguring the Soviet people."

- "They tell me: the people in your paintings are some kind of grotesque. I do not agree. We always exaggerate our strengths and downplay our shortcomings. I just see people as they are. And this is not always beautiful." Over time, the theme of loneliness and disunity grows in Nazarenko's work, often combined with images of general fun, the artist's friends gathered for a feast, carnival ("Tatiana's Day," 1982, private collection, Germany; "Carnival," 1979, Directorate of Exhibitions of the Union of Artists). Carnivals, masquerades, festivities - one of the favorite plots of the "seventies". This is a kind of metaphor for acting and at the same time disunity, loneliness in the crowd and the search for contact with others.

At one time, the entry of masters of the "severe style" into art was not easy, causing heated debate. Then they got used to them, their searches received "official" recognition, many of them became masters. The same thing happened with the most daring, talented, searching "seventies". Now the attacks of criticism have become their lot. Favorite accusations were accusations of "closeness", "obscurity" of their work.

- "Maybe if I had been born a decade earlier, I would have been with Popkov, with Nikonov. And the sixties would have been the most wonderful for me. They were frank ... Why is it unclear with the seventies? ... The pathos of the harsh everyday life had to go. This is a natural change. Spirituality, closeness, composition came ... This came in contrast to the hero of the sixties with an open chest: "Look what I am!" ... The 70s forced to resort to allegory: ambiguous time when a lot seems to be allowed, and at the same time again, no, again everything is closed.

Tatyana Nazarenko works in a variety of genres. And almost from the very first steps he tries himself in the historical picture. The historical or thematic picture was given a leading place in the art of socialist realism, as before in academicism. It is significant that in Soviet art it remained the privilege of a male artist. Starting with "The Execution of the People's Will" (1969-1972, Tretyakov Gallery), each subsequent painting by Nazarenko on a historical plot becomes an event. In contrast to the traditional historical canvases of socialist realism, which were an instructive example of the "heroic" past, the historical picture for Nazarenko became a dialogue-reflection addressed to the viewer-interlocutor about the past and its inextricable connection with today, about history, as the ever-repeating tragedy of loneliness. The artist's heroes are individuals who acutely felt the injustice of the surrounding reality, entered the struggle to change it and came across a wall of misunderstanding. About this and her famous diptych "Pugachev" (1980).

The rebel, the leader of the peasant uprising, Emelyan Pugachev, is being taken in a cage to Moscow for execution. The artist does not seek to reconstruct the event. The central scene resembles popular prints, ancient oleographs. Simplified, toy landscape, puppet figures of soldiers in bright uniforms. By resorting to this convention, she emphatically distances herself and the viewer from what is happening. It happened once, a long time ago, says the artist. The second part is written in a completely different manner, reminiscent of "tricks" of the 17th century. It presents ancient portraits, documents, folios relating to the era of the reign of Catherine II and the Pugachev rebellion. These are eyewitnesses of the event. With their help, everyone can revive the past for themselves, get closer to it.

- "My historical pictures, of course, are connected with the present day. "Pugachev" is a story of betrayal. It is at every turn. Companions refused Pugachev, dooming him to execution. This is how it always happens. " The life of even the most "leftist" artist, a member of the Union, was burdened by the inevitable duality. To be "visible", to participate in exhibitions, one had to make compromises one way or another.

- How did you manage to be yourself and still show your work?

I have always made a clear distinction between what I write for myself and what I write for exhibitions. What I did for myself was without any hope that I could ever show it. The first exhibition where I was able to show at least something of this was in 1975. A commission came and removed 3 works. I decided that if they shoot 5 main works, then I will refuse to participate at all. Then maybe my life would have gone differently. But they left these 2 works, programmatic for me. People started talking about this exhibition... In general, I showed all my works only in 1989, at my first solo exhibition.

For all the "closedness" of the 70s, one often senses in their works a desire for contact, a readiness to reveal themselves to an attentive, interested viewer. One of these "confessional" paintings was Nazarenko's triptych "Workshop" (1983, Tretyakov Gallery). The artist introduces us to the "laboratory" of her work. On the left side, she depicted herself sitting with her back to the viewer, immersed in work. In the central part, the process of the birth of the picture is presented. As if from nothingness, translucent figures of future characters appear on the canvas. They materialize before our eyes, acquire concrete features. Numerous items in the workshop tell about the artist, her world, her passions. On the wall hang a cast from the death mask of Pushkin, a female portrait of Cranach, and, of course, a reproduction of the portrait of the "canon" Van Eyck - Nazarenko's "main" teacher. On the desk are old books, a candle, an icon. The open window of the workshop is shown on the right side. On the windowsill - a guitar, tubes of paint, a bottle of solvent. Outside the window, at a glance, evening Moscow is visible.

- Do you have family, children. Perhaps it was not easy to combine both of these roles?

- Of course, it's difficult. I broke up with my first husband because he gave me a choice. I had my first child just then... (here she sighs, then laughs) It's very hard to remember. At that time I studied at the workshops of the Academy of Arts. I had to either sit with the child, or move in with my grandmother, who looked after him. It's always harder for a woman. All my life I have been torn between creativity and children. More than once, the children of famous writers, actresses, and artists subsequently, in their memoirs about them, settle scores with their mothers for a destitute childhood, reproaching them for selfish concentration on their work. On "Self-portrait with her son" (1977, Ministry of Culture), next to the artist sketching something in a notebook, completely absorbed in her occupation, stands her eldest son Nikolka. The boy attentively, with curiosity, watches how a blank sheet comes to life under her hand, turning into a landscape. But in the eyes of the son slips and jealousy. Maybe the artist's eye involuntarily caught the first sprouts of a brewing conflict.

- Did your children feel disadvantaged?

Terrible. About two weeks ago there was a TV show in which my children gave interviews. All the time it seemed to me that I was torn between work and children, that I devoted a lot of time to them. The eldest is already 24 years old, the youngest is 8. Both of them, independently of each other, said that I pay little attention to them. The youngest said that his grandmother was raising him: "And my mother is a wonderful artist, and basically I visit her at opening days." Here, such a nightmare. The elder said that he did not want to be an artist because his mother spent all her time in the workshop.

- It turns out that if a woman gives herself entirely to creativity, no matter how well she treats children, they still feel deprived

No, it's not forgiven. They suffer terribly. I didn't plan my family. Children are always random. The second gave birth deliberately. And now I take a lot of time away from work, because I understand that many people make art, art can do without me, but he cannot do without me. But, as it turned out, this was not enough for him.

Since the late 1970s, the theme of the artist's vulnerability, "nakedness", defenselessness before the court of a lazy and indifferent public and those in power has increasingly arisen in Nazarenko's work. She already clearly sounds in one of her best self-portraits - the painting "Flowers. Self-portrait" (1979, Tretyakov Gallery). Almost the entire space of the canvas is occupied by a bouquet of fresh, golden lilies, on the wall is a reproduction from a painting by Van Eyck, whom she deifies. The artist stands pressed to the edge of the canvas, eyes downcast and arms outstretched limply, turning away from what usually pleases her so much and serves as a constant source of inspiration.

This theme becomes the leitmotif in "Circus" (1984). At a dizzying height, above the roofs of the houses, an artist dressed only in a bikini balances "without insurance". Downstairs, the audience applauds her risky number. These are officials from the Union, dressed formally: in dark suits, with ties. Nazarenko endows their images with recognizable portrait features. Without knowing the specific circumstances that contributed to the appearance of this work, it could well be considered in the circle of works related to feminist discourse, thematizing the role of women in society.

I still don't understand this feminist movement. For me, this is nonsense.

- Your "Circus" could well be called a "feminist" work.

I have a happy creative destiny. So, I started traveling abroad quite early. And then, when they suddenly tell you: “You won’t go anywhere else, you won’t see anything, you won’t exhibit. That’s when I wrote Circus. "It's not interesting to sit with women and discuss some business. I have so little time. I have a child at home. In the West, life is different. Of course, they have their own problems, but they live much more prosperously. After we bought a house in the country, "I understood what the Russian people are. I didn't know this before. If we take Germany, America, for comparison, this is a completely different level of life. Starting from toilets, roads, televisions, rags. And life, it determines consciousness. Having all this, western women can sit, shag, think about whether to stand up for their rights or their children, or for landscaping, or for the freedom of sexual minorities.

- For me, for example, it was very important to "discover" forgotten writers, artists, to whom we owe feminists. The feeling that women have a tradition in art gives confidence.

I believe that women's creativity is an exception. This is an anomaly.

- But any creativity, to some extent - an abnormality.

Yes, in principle, creativity is always an abnormality. And women - to an even greater extent. Children suffer from this. It is not normal for a woman not to have children.

- If we talk about artists, writers, then even today it is much more difficult for them to break through.

I have never experienced discrimination. Maybe only at the dawn of her youth, when she wanted to get into the monumental workshop. I was told that her leader, Alexander Deineka, did not want to have girls in his workshop. Then Elena Romanova studied with him. Maybe it was just a rumor, and if I had wanted more insistently, maybe I would have got there.

- Western artists are much less likely than their colleagues to get to prestigious exhibitions, large galleries are still reluctant to exhibit women's work.

Well, what is fundamental?

- No, rather unconsciously.

Of course, unconsciously. Because, as a rule, artists are worse. Because they simply do not have the opportunity to fully realize themselves. I prove that contemporary artists are in no way inferior to their colleagues. She agrees and comes straight to the feminist conclusion: - If you create the same conditions, women are no different from men. But this never happened. Back to the topic of children...

- And why do you think that raising children is only your task? Why can't a man take the same part in this?

He absolutely cannot. When I had my second child, I didn't have what I wanted. But my husband had no children. He wanted this child. I gave birth at 42. I decided, I will give birth to a child and let my husband take care of him, teach him, put him on skis. This poor child loves only me. And so I, an unfortunate 50-year-old woman, have to get up early, do exercises with him, check his lessons, learn English, go skiing, which I am afraid to ski ... I sit in the workshop with great pleasure, but what to do, he has already appeared.

And yet, men have advantages. They are physically much stronger, more resilient.

- But the physical limit is in men. One sets the world record in swimming, and the other plays chess.

We were brought up that we should not be worse than men, weaker. So I got used to being equal. Carrying the paintings myself, stuffing the canvas myself... I can't yield to a man in anything. For example, I want to sit with huge "things." But I can't lift it physically.

- And why must there be huge works?

But I wanted to not feel that I am a woman. I proved that I can, like any man, do a great thing when, for example, I wrote three by three.

- So, you somehow had a feeling of being secondary?

Oh sure. I was very fond of weapons. Wrote pictures with weapons. I didn't want to give up on anything.

I remember that when I was a member of the exhibition committee, as a rule, it was possible to guess that the work was for women. Maybe when the artist did not set the task of hiding it. It wasn't worse or better. It was different. As a rule, small works, portraits of children, or anything related to toys, or still lifes. Something a little more gentle.

- Probably because artists have a slightly different life compared to their male counterparts. A man can afford to completely abandon everyday worries, from the responsibility to raise his children and devote himself entirely to creativity. Thus, everything falls on women's shoulders. And the social situation of the artist to some extent determines the range of her themes. As you have already said, "everyday life determines consciousness."

Oh sure.

- Today the artist has freedom, although absolute freedom, of course, does not exist. You can do anything.

I have always felt free to some extent. I had many works, which I knew for sure that they would never leave the walls of the studio. Now everything is dictated by the amount of money. From one lack of freedom you get into another. If you have money, you can rent any hall, put up whatever you want. If you don't have them, you won't post anything. I can do anything in the workshop, but no one needs it. I completely lost interest in art. It may not have been there before, but there was some visibility. If now my child wanted to become an artist, I would beat him with a stick, saying: do not become an artist ... And with my first child, I really wanted him to become an artist. Now we have become servants. I personally feel like a servant of the rich at presentations, parties. For a while in our society we were put in such an abnormal situation that we are an elite, that we are able to influence something. Poets read their poems in front of thousands of audiences. In the cab of the truck, one could see some pinned pictures.

- Before good book, film, picture - it was a breath of freedom. And now people have other values and opportunities. They can travel, buy. It turned out that everyone does not need art, on the contrary, few people need it. But maybe these are only temporary processes.

I'm a bad philosopher, I don't know how long people will be interested in art and how interesting. Now the gallery owner dictates. They advise what and how to do. In any contract, even the size of the paintings is stipulated. Because burghers of this size have walls. It must be something pleasing to the eye. My husband says to me, we need something bright, corrupt.

- You and I were contemporaries of the "thaw". Growing up at this time. Today we have fallen to be witnesses of perestroika. Can you somehow compare the then atmosphere, sensations with what is happening before our eyes today?

Very many did not pass this test: the permission of everything, travel and something else. We used to communicate more, were more frank. After the temptations that perestroika brought, people have changed. And, in general, to some extent, I believe that they were better before. The personal exhibition of the artist (1989) was shown not only in Russia, but also in the West: in Germany, America. It was met with great interest by the foreign public and critics. The artist gained the fame of the "Queen of the Union of Artists". For some "new" Russian critics, ready to clear everything and destroy "to the ground" in the struggle for "relevant" art, Nazarenko's exhibition was one of the reasons to settle scores with the seventies. One of them stated: "In general, the exhibition demonstrated the historical exhaustion of the painting of the 'seventies', became a kind of departure for their bright, but transient creativity."

- "I do not feel like a lost generation. We managed to taste freedom in the" thaw ". And in Brezhnev's timelessness we tried to show at exhibitions what we thought about: either directly or through allegories. My paintings were removed from exhibitions more than once. "Pugacheva" thrice..."

Excessive focus on one's grievances and misunderstandings was one of the reasons for the crisis in the artist's work, which dragged on for several years. One after another, paintings began to appear, more and more reminiscent of Bosch's phantasmogoria. On them, officials from the Union and the "indifferent public" turned into ugly creatures, half-humans, half-animals, tormenting the artist. However, Nazarenko has never been an indifferent person, focused on herself. Before her eyes, the hopes associated with perestroika turned into inflation and impoverishment. Old women appeared on the streets, selling their last belongings, beggars, homeless people. She responded to what is happening around with her "Transition".

Underpass in the subway - today's haven of the homeless and refugees. Newspaper sellers, flower sellers, musicians, beggars, and the disabled live here. The artist "transferred" it to the halls Central House artist and pushed the viewer with the less fortunate, the disadvantaged, forced to peer into the faces of those whom he hastened to slip past more than once in "impatience of the heart." And of course, as in many of her works, the artist herself is present among other characters.

The transition is also the state of today's post-Soviet society, going no one knows where, it is also a new interesting stage in the creative development of Nazarenko.

Before us - sculptural painting - the second reality, the reality of art. The artist observes the necessary measure of conventionality and distance. Upon closer inspection, the figures turn out to be rough, painted plywood. Their reverse side is left unfinished. The characters themselves are depicted with grotesque sharpness. "Transitional figures", according to the apt definition of one of the critics.

"Transition" aroused great interest among the public and among the "initiates" and undoubtedly was one of the most important cultural events recent years. The artist once again confirmed her place in art and clearly "proved" that it is too early to bury the seventies.

In her "Transition" the eternal Russian question again clearly sounded: "Rus, where are you rushing to ...", the pain of the artist and her hope were expressed ...

1 Cnt. by: Lebedeva, V. Tatiana Nazarenko, M., 1991.
2 Quot. Quoted from: Efimovich, N. "They say I mutilate the Soviet people..." V; "Komsomolskaya Pravda," December 21, 1991.
3 Cit. by: Lebedeva, V. Decree. op.
4 Cit. Quoted from: Efimovich, N. ibid.
5 "Art," 1989, L "8, 76.
6 Cit. Quoted from: Efimovich, N. ibid.

Nazarenko Tatyana Grigorievna (born 1944)

Painter. Engaged in artistic photography. Portrait painter, landscape painter, genre painter, master of historical painting.
In 1955-1962 she studied at the Moscow Art School at the Moscow State Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov, then in 1962-1968 at the Moscow State Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov under D.D. Zhilinsky.
Currently he teaches at the same institute. Laureate of the State Prize of Russia, full member of the Russian Academy of Arts.
T.G. Nazarenko is one of the leaders of the artistic life of the 1970s. The creativity of her generation is characterized by analyticity, the desire for a multifaceted reading of the meaning of the work, the emphasis on personal intonation, and irony. The language of allegory was close to many masters of that time. Nazarenko recalls: "The 70s forced us to resort to an allegory: an ambiguous time, when a lot seems to be allowed, and at the same time again no, closed again." Particularly famous for her paintings on historical themes ("Execution of the People's Will", 1969-1972; "Decembrists", 1978). In them, she combines documentation, the spirit of evidence, a historical perspective and her own idea of the event. Interest in various stages of history and culture, elements of stylization and direct quotation of famous works - all this brings Nazarenko's art closer to the aesthetics of postmodernism.

Tatyana Nazarenko has more than enough regalia: a laureate of the State Prize, a full member of the Academy of Arts, a member of the presidium of this academy. In addition, this socialite defended her thesis, and her paintings are in the most prestigious museums in New York, London, Paris, Berlin, in our Tretyakov Gallery, in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg ...

E The art has become a classic. The works of Tatyana Nazarenko are deservedly expensive. But on the eve of her recent anniversary, Tatiana ... decided to talk not about art, but about her fate, events and very personal feelings.

“As a child, I was an angular, shy, clumsy girl,” the artist recalls. “My mother was always afraid that I would never get married. Therefore, I was given such an upbringing: dancing, music, drawing ...

— How did you become an artist?

- At first it was School of Music. And only then I entered the art school at the Surikov Institute. Children, entering there, had special training, studied with teachers for several years. I didn’t even know the meaning of the words “still life”, “landscape”, “watercolor”, “ oil paints". Before the exam in painting, the teacher explained everything to me in a popular way. Then I went to college. After graduating in 1969 with excellent marks, she entered the workshop of the Academy of Arts. Some time later, among very few senior colleagues, she was rewarded with a monthly trip to Italy.

Compare yourself now to the one in the 70s. What would you like to bring back from the past? Maybe lust for life?

- Nothing! I am full of lust for life. I feel like I'm 30 years old, even 25! Although we were young, we discovered a lot for ourselves. Dangled, like lively, in all museums and exhibitions. Tired, they went to the machine, drank a couple of doses of a 40-kopeck bag, laughed, returned to the Surikov workshops and wrote like animals. Thoughts after the "red" became bolder and honed.

Later, I began to worry about many things, for example, the contradiction between man and power. Among those sentenced to hanging was Sofya Perovskaya, whom I painted from a photograph of Natalia Gorbanevskaya, and the wise and bearded man next to her on the scaffold was Andrei Sinyavsky, a writer and philosopher who was expelled from the USSR. Then nobody knew about it. I could not speak openly against the system, I did not want to bring another grief into the house. Grandma's husband, my grandfather, was shot in 1937...

"Narodnaya Volya" went to various exhibitions for a long time: from the Moscow city to the all-Union. I received a Komsomol award for it. Still not taking the money in hand, I decided to spend it on drink. Invite friends to help make it happen. "Komsomol - never!" And all the friends, together with the teacher Dmitry Zhilinsky, unanimously refused to drink with this money. “Well then, come to my birthday, June 24,” I was not taken aback. We ate granny pies. I remember this Komsomol award as a slap in the face from friends.

- What kind of incident happened with the painting "The Partisans Came", which was removed from the exhibition, because Lenin was seen lying dead next to the gallows?

- In fact, the artist Viktor Popkov, who posed for me, was lying. So the claims of the commission were absurd, although Victor wore a mustache and beard under the leader of the revolution. I had to cover my face with a handkerchief in the picture. I did and I regret it. After this incident, almost immediately, Popkov was accidentally killed on the street during an attack by bandits on collectors. Some kind of mystic. My "Partizans" are now in the Tretyakov Gallery. I think, should I return the face of the artist to its place, since it happened ?!

- Have you had many advisers in your life?

“I had a very wise grandmother. She advised me a lot, but I got married against her advice, although I adored her. “If you marry him, I will die,” this is how my grandmother reacted when she recognized my first fiance. “Okay, grandma, I won’t go out, just don’t die.” And then at night, looking at the grandmother, she said: "I will not die, do what you want."

Does she seem to like her second husband?

- Yes, my grandmother loved handsome and businesslike men. Alexander had his own business and, in addition, helped me a lot in my work. Designed and sold paintings. Sasha sawed out thick plywood outlines of 130 paintings. These were the silhouettes that I saw in the passages, these are people of different characters, directly a social section of society. People of the 90s in transitions are intellectuals, employees, pensioners who suddenly became beggars. They were united by concern, disorder, they were overboard. It was a transitional period in our society.

Has this topic run out of steam?

- Partially, of course, yes, although people have become different, less ruffy. Generation for 10 - 12 years has changed. Sasha and I broke up, and I learned how to cut myself, although the “tricks” are already a passed stage.

“What do you think love is?” Habit, inner movement, illness?

- No no. What is love, I don't know. Perhaps this is an addiction to one man. I loved both my first and second husband and I don’t understand how you can live with a man without love. Although I always wait for love, I look forward to it. For me, the concept of "marriage of convenience" is impossible. By design, I don't do anything.

“You don’t paint pictures of carnal love at all, although romantic relationship with men, I suspect - part of your life.

— true truth I don't know about love and sex. Everything just goes by itself. But the longer I live, the less I know how to start novels, how it is harmless for both to end. Contrary to the advice of glossy women's magazines, I like to call men first, especially handsome ones. I often kick myself for this. There is a lack of romance in youth. I had an affair with a man who is younger than me by many years. I had just returned from Germany, bought a lot of clothes - fashionable and different, and, without unpacking my suitcases, rushed to Pitsunda. I met a young man on the train. So I never unpacked this suitcase for the whole time of my vacation. There was no time for fashionable clothes.

- Well, if love happens again, are you ready for this? Suddenly a man wants to have a common child?

- I myself dream of a girl. Now anything can happen to me. I am a healthy strong woman. There are many women in the world who give birth easily at my age. I just got checked out recently, and my body is like a 30-year-old woman. Do you know how old I am now? I have many years...

“It takes health and money to raise a child. Imagine that painting is unclaimed. How would you make money?

— You never know how. I'm not afraid of anything and I'm fine with physical work. I can do anything: grow vegetables in a greenhouse and sell to neighbors. I can sing, after all, in nightclubs owned by friends.

Are you a good hostess? Do you love your home?

— I am very attached to some things, I love old furniture. I love blue and white dishes. I bring services from Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic. I only buy antiques. I like to treat guests from good plates. After leaving, I understand the futility of the idea - they beat the dishes. I am not accustomed to visiting cooks, so I can quickly cook dinner, I love to bake pies. This is done quickly, since my family and I are indifferent to food, although I recognize cooking as an art form, I do not go beyond a chop with onions and potatoes. I like to salt Norwegian salmon myself, I just dip a piece of fish in brine (salt and sugar) for exactly three hours - and to the table. Canned cucumbers with garlic, tomatoes and zucchini. I rejoice when guests evaluate my production. And on big holidays I can bake a Napoleon cake according to my grandmother's recipe. Seven cakes are laid with custard - and under the load for one and a half to two days.

- On Sundays, your whole family sits down at the table, do you have a drink?

- No, neither the first husband, nor the second, nor my children are completely non-drinkers. And I love myself! But you won't drink alone.

“They say about you that you are made of strong steel - you can punch through anything you want.

- It's just an appearance!

Interviewed by Anatoly MELIKHOV

Photos used in the material: ANATOLY MELIKHOVA

She was born on June 24 in Moscow. Father - Nazarenko Grigory Nikolaevich (1910-1990). Mother - Nina Nikolaevna Abramova (born in 1920). Spouse - Zhigulin Alexander Anatolyevich (born in 1951). Children: Nazarenko Nikolai Vasilievich (born in 1971), Zhigulin Alexander Aleksandrovich (born in 1987).

Tatyana Nazarenko's father, a front-line soldier, a regular military man, was assigned to the Far East after the war, and his parents left. Tanya stayed in Moscow with her grandmother, Anna Semyonovna Abramova. She showed her first school grades, and then her drawings and paintings.

A.S. Abramova has been a widow since 1937. Her husband, Nikolai Nikolaevich Abramov, was illegally repressed and died in custody. Left alone, she worked as a kindergarten teacher, a nurse, raised and helped her two daughters get a higher education, raised her granddaughter Tatyana, and then helped raise her eldest son Nikolai. Grandmother had an endless source of love in herself, but it seems that her main love was still Tanya, who also loved her. Anna Semenovna Abramova remained to live in the paintings of the artist Tatyana Nazarenko: "Morning. Grandmother and Nikolka" (1972), "Portrait of A.S. Abramova" (1976), "Memoirs" (1982), "Life" (1983), "White wells. In memory of my grandmother "(1987).

In 1962, Tatyana Nazarenko entered the painting department of the Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov, where D.D. Zhilinsky, A.M. Gritsai, S.N. Shilnikov. After graduating from the institute from 1968 to 1972, she worked in the creative workshop of the USSR Academy of Arts under G.M. Korzhev.

In the work of Tatyana Nazarenko, there is a strong analytical beginning. In whatever genre of painting she works, the main content of her paintings is expressed not only and not so much through the plot, but through the general spiritual atmosphere that determines the psychological state of the characters, and the emotional coloring of landscapes, objects, and the very plastic language of her art. This spirituality of painting, combined with an analytical and close approach to the phenomena depicted, constitutes the meaningful originality of the artist's works.

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These features began to appear already in the first independent works of the artist, in the multidirectional search for the first postgraduate years.

At the end of her studies at the institute, in 1965-67, Nazarenko traveled to Central Asia. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan determined the range of subjects for her works for several years. Nazarenko's Central Asian paintings ("Mother with a Child", "Motherhood", "Samarkand. Yard", "Uzbek Wedding", "Prayer", "Boys in Bukhara") reflected her live observations. But not only. These works seemed to contain all the luggage of her student acquisitions. But they already show another integral quality of the young artist - originality. From under the usual forms of "art of the sixties" they peep a different content. Everything in them is much more unsteady and ambiguous, they are extraordinarily musical, primitive features appear in them: the desire to remove representation, to bring a smile, simplicity and play.

The beginning of the 1970s for Nazarenko, as for most artists of her generation, was a time of searching for a genre, manner, and theme. The artist tries her hand both in a “primitivist” manner and in the system of strict neoclassicism, she paints romantic-decorative and playful canvases. During these years, she wrote such different works as "The Execution of the People's Will" (1969-1972), "A Tree in New Athos" (1969), "Sunday in the Forest" (1970), "Portrait of a Circus Actress" (1970), "Seeing off winter" (1973), "New Year's festivities" (1973), "Morning. Grandmother and Nikolka (1972), Young Artists (1968), My Contemporaries (1973), Lunch (1970), Portrait of Igor Kupryashin (1974).

Among her heroes one can almost always find one's own image - and the measure of the sharp-sighted ruthlessness of the eye, the ability to emphasize the acute character to the detriment of the idyllic-prosperous is just as strong in relation to oneself as to any other model.

Characteristic in this sense are group portraits, solved as genre paintings (Students, 1969; Young Artists, 1968; My Contemporaries, 1973; Foggy Day on Shikotan, 1976; After the Exam, 1976). Their characters are recognizably portraits, the collisions are plausible: youth holidays, conversations in the workshop... And at the same time, there is something mysterious in them that turns everyday scenes into romantic fantasies.

Tatyana Nazarenko's historical compositions reflect our contemporary's view of the past. In her paintings, the past and the present are simultaneously present, a historical event - and our current understanding of it. The very approach to solving the topic is already characteristic: in historical canvases - “The Execution of the People’s Will”, “Partisans Came” (1975), “Decembrists. The Revolt of the Chernihiv Regiment” (1978), “Pugachev” (1980) – the artist chooses tragic, culminating moments that require the highest tension of the spiritual forces of the participants in the action. Silence, silence are significant here.

Tatyana Nazarenko's painting "The Execution of the People's Will" appeared at the Moscow Youth Exhibition in 1972. The picture was seen by everyone - although not accepted by everyone. It bizarrely combined adherence to Renaissance models, a tendency to generalized reflections and a tragic sense of vulnerability of fighters for freedom, for spiritual ideals before the crushing faceless force of the machine of suppression. For the painting "The Execution of the People's Will" Nazarenko was awarded the Moscow Komsomol Prize. In 1976 she was awarded the 1st prize at the international competition for young painters in Sofia (Bulgaria).

Nazarenko loves to write carnivals. One of the first "carnival" works of the artist is "New Year's festivities" (1973), in which she seeks to show the inner meaning of the carnival, the range of diverse and rather complex feelings experienced by randomly gathered people.

If Nazarenko’s early group portraits clearly felt silence, concentration, the desire of the characters to hear each other, listen to the truth, then in subsequent works (“Carnival”, “Tatyana’s Day”, etc.), the unrestrained element of carnival reigns. The costumes and poses are extravagant, the spirit of the festival owns not only people, but also objects. However, this is a holiday without fun, communication without mutual understanding and spiritual closeness. The theme of loneliness, so important for the artist, is bizarrely combined in her work with the theme of carnival (“Portrait in fancy dress”, 1982).

There are elements of carnivalization in the paintings "Carousel" (1982) and the diptych "Dance" (1980).

In the works of Nazarenko there is a desire for contact with the viewer, a willingness to open oneself to an attentive, sympathetic look. The artist has written several works where she speaks almost directly about the confessional nature of her art, about how painful and difficult it is to show herself unprotected, exposed before the court of general indifference (“Flowers. Self-Portrait”, 1979; “Circus Girl”, 1984; “Spectators”, 1988; "Meal", 1992).

One of the most unusual paintings by Tatyana Nazarenko is the triptych "Workshop" (1983). The artist presents the viewer with a real workshop in which real paintings were created (“Tatiana's Day” and “Carnival”), and at the same time the process of translating his idea.

There is another form of "confession" in the works of Nazarenko. In such works, she does not need irony, she does not need colorful carnival clothes: here the closest, warmest is embodied ... And almost always in these paintings there is an image of a grandmother: “Morning. Grandmother and Nikolka”, triptych “Life” (1983) and others. In 1982, the painting "Memories" was painted, where the artist, as it were, materializes the life associations that arose when looking at old photographs.

Among the main works of Tatyana Nazarenko are also: “Home Concert” (1986), diptych “Happy Old Age” (1988), “Little Orchestra” (1989), “Fragments” (1990), “Monument to History” (triptych, 1992), “ Time" (triptych, 1992), "Mad World" (1992), "Spell" (1995), "Homeless" (2001).

Tatyana Nazarenko is a social artist. “I have always been interested in people,” she says. - I can not turn away, brush off someone else's misfortune. To make people think, to call them to sympathy - this is the main goal of my work. Vivid proof of this was her exhibition "Transition" (1995-96) - an installation of 80 painted plywood "tricks" made in human growth. At the exhibition, visitors had to stop, peer into the faces of unfortunate old women, disabled people, wandering musicians - all those who are seen daily in the underground passages, but most often pass by without stopping their eyes. The exhibition was a great success (later it was seen by residents of Germany, the USA, Finland), and "Transition" became for the artist literally a transition to a new stage in her life, to a new art.

In 1997, her exhibition "My Paris" was held, where there were also figures made of plywood - garcons of Parisian cafes in long white aprons, fish sellers ... Another exhibition of Tatyana Nazarenko "Moscow Table" was held in the same year at the Marat Gelman Gallery, and then was shown in the State Russian Museum of St. Petersburg in the program of the exhibition "Art against geography". In May-September 2002, the Kuskovo Museum hosted an exhibition of the artist “I myself am glad to be deceived ...” (The Art of Deception).

Since 1966, when Nazarenko first showed her work at the 7th Moscow Youth Exhibition, she has been constantly participating in city and all-Russian exhibitions, exhibitions of fine arts in Russia and abroad. The first solo exhibitions were held in Leverkusen (1986), Bremen, Oldenburg, Odessa, Kiev, Lvov (all in 1987). Since then, the artist's solo exhibitions have been held in Moscow (the first in 1989), Cologne, Washington, New York, Boston, Madrid, Tallinn, Helsinki and other cities. The works of Tatyana Nazarenko are kept in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), the State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg), the National Museum "Women in Art" (Washington), the National Jewish Museum (Washington), the Museum of Modern Art (Sofia), the Museum of Modern Art (Budapest) and other art museums of the world, in private collections.

The creative works of Tatiana Nazarenko were awarded with high awards: the State Prize of the Russian Federation (1993), the Prize of the Government of Moscow (1999), the silver medal of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1985).

T.G. Nazarenko - Honored Artist of Russia (2002), since 1997 - Corresponding Member, since 2001 - Full Member, Member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Arts; Professor of the Department of Painting, Head of the Easel Painting Workshop of the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov (1998). Member of the Union of Artists since 1969.

Lives and works in Moscow.

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robocop 08.03.2008 01:09:26

tatyana nazarenko academician.professor.artist and with all this, a creature of which the world has never seen hello to you victim of sexual harassment