Given the icy cultural climate of Soviet-era Moscow, would-be gallerists were often faced with only one option if they wanted to exhibit independent art: showing it at home. They may have been cramped and difficult to find, but some of the best places to see underground art in the capital from the 1960s to the 1980s were the city's private apartments and studios.

As testament to the efforts of those dozens of enthusiasts and collectors who gave their backrooms and dwellings over to paintings, sculpture and performances, a citywide project titled "Apartment Exhibitions: Yesterday and Today" sets out to document and reconstruct much of this independent, little-known activity. The program of exhibits is curated by Oksana Sarkisyan of the Russian State University for the Humanities, and runs throughout February.
Aside from the reopening of a handful of the original venues -- including political satirist Dmitry Vrubel's apartment "No. 31" and the Sretensky Bulvar studio of the Society Russia collective of painters -- several established galleries across town are dedicating displays to the genre, including Russian State University for the Humanities' museum center, the National Center for Contemporary Art and E.K. ArtBureau, whose own contribution "APT-ART 1982–1984" opened on Jan. 25.

The original series of APT-ART exhibitions were held at the beginning of the 1980s in the single-room apartment of artist Nikita Alexeyev. These domestic happenings were not only significant for the Russian cultural scene, but ranked among the most innovative art events held anywhere at the time.

Filling a space no bigger than an average bathroom, a typical APT-ART show created a "total installation" of text-paintings, cartoon-inspired drawings, abstract graphics, collages, objects and photographs. Works by Alexeyev and his friends covered the walls and ceiling, carpeted the floor, and hung in midair.

Speaking at E.K. ArtBureau last week, amid some of the pieces originally shown two decades ago, Alexeyev called the endeavor as much a way of life as a scheme to get work noticed. "It was free, and a place to have fun," he said. "The official exhibition spaces were inaccessible to us. The only possibility was to create a structure for ourselves."

The exhibitions proved so popular that sometimes 500 people would visit over 10 days, despite the fact that the apartment near Leninsky Prospekt served as Alexeyev's sole living quarters. He even remembers that for a long time he didn't have a bed, but slept "in an inflatable boat in the middle of the room."

The decision to hang artworks all over the place was partly due to the tiny space, but also represented a consciously fresh approach. Alexeyev refers to APT-ART as a "prototype nightclub," where an array of different people -- including, he remembered, a German chemistry student who brought foreign magazines and records in a diplomatic bag -- were able to gather, exchange ideas and discuss the hot topics of the day.

The APT-ART happenings were not only about visual art. Visitors would also read poetry and prose, and listen to Russian rock bands inspired by ex-Velvet Underground frontman Lou Reed and the proto-punk singer Laurie Anderson. "Unplugged, of course," Alexeyev said.

An enthusiastic article on the artist's activities printed in the dissident magazine A-Ya in 1983 gives another side to the story, however. It ends with the ominous news that "on Feb. 15 ... the APT-ART was wrecked by KGB agents." Alexeyev said that police visited his apartment on several occasions. Despite the fact that APT-ART ran some 10 exhibitions, and even found itself reconstructed in New York in 1983 for a one-off event titled "APTART in Tribeca," the venture closed down in 1984, after a decision by Alexeyev and his friends to move onto new and better things. And partly, in his own words, because, "it became a little bit dangerous."

Others in Moscow were ready to take the place of APT-ART, however, and the program of "Apartment Exhibitions: Yesterday and Today" gives an impressively comprehensive overview of these, from the "Kindergarten" studio on Khokhlovsky Pereulok, where many of the city's performance artists hung out in subsequent years, to artist-run spaces that opened in the 1990s.

The First Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art is currently using some of the city's most prestigious venues, such as the former Lenin Museum, to host its main epic-scale project. For anyone seeking a more down-to-earth alternative, the Apartment Exhibitions program may provide the perfect antidote.

Apartment Exhibitions: Yesterday and Today" (Kvartirniye Vystavki. Vchera i Segodnya) is currently running at the Russian State University for the Humanities' museum center, located at 15 Ulitsa Chayanova. Metro Novoslobodskaya. Tel. 250-6193, and at E.K. ArtBureau, located at 4 Maly Kiselny Pereulok, Bldg. 1. Tel. 768-6591. Call ahead to book an appointment. For details of other locations, see http://other-art.rsuh.ru/kv-art/

By Romilly Eveleigh The Moscow Times, February 4, 2005 .
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/02/04/103.html

Идея проекта: Оксана Саркисян
Кураторы: Юлия Лебедева, Оксана Саркисян. Сайт: Роман Грецкий