EXHIBITIONS OF NONCONFORMIST ARTISTS IN THE UKRAINIAN SSR IN THE 2ND HALF OF 1960S – AT EARLY 1980S

Abstract

The article deals with the study of exhibitions of unofficial art which were held in the Ukrainian SSR during the second half of the 1960s – first half of the 1980s. The purpose of the article is to carry out a comprehensive analysis of the nonconformist artists’ expositions in the Ukrainian SSR during the period of Stagnation of the Soviet system. The background and origins of the exposition activity of nonconformist artists have been retraced. The main features of the first unofficial art exhibitions through the regional dimension have been described and the range of their participants has been outlined. The main methods of the Soviet authorities to counteract the holding of unofficial art exhibitions have been highlighted. It is noted that nonconformist artists created their own closed-type artistic environment with values that were alternative to the then society. That explains the holding of smaller exhibitions in certain cultural clubs, ‘on fences’ or in samizdat with a very limited number of visitors and almost complete lack of information about the expositions. The main form of nonconformist art representation was exhibitions within private spaces, for example, in the apartments of artists or their friends or relatives. At the same time, an important factor in the existence of underground expositions was the lack of possibilities and special permits for unofficial artists to display their own works outwards. The artists’ exhibition activities in the main centers of Ukrainian unofficial art have been analyzed, primarily in Kharkiv, Odesa, Lviv, and Kyiv. It is established that the first known ‘fence’ exhibitions have been held in Kharkiv in 1965 and Odessa in 1967. Despite their short duration, these exhibitions demonstrated the rise of a new aesthetic group of artists who differed from official ideological dogmas. The harsh repressive policy of the Soviet government towards nonconformist artists in Ukraine pushed some of them to move to other regions of the Soviet Union. For example, cultural life in Moscow and Leningrad was more lively, and access to Western artistic masterpieces of avant-garde and Postmodernism was wider. It is summarized that the polycentrism of Ukrainian artistic nonconformism was one of the distinctive features of artistic life in the second half of the twentieth century.