Yuri Tatyanin (1963 -)
Tatyanin was born 1963 in Lipetsk, Russia where he continues to live and work. As expected, due the lack of financial support for artists during his youth, and despite his passion towards the arts, Tatyanin went on to initially pursue a more economically viable path. Hence, Tatyanin went on enroll and graduate from the Lipetsk Mechanical Engineering Technical School in 1982. Consequently, Tatyanin was also to develop his interest and passion for art whilst in the knowledge that he would be able to physically support himself and his family later on, if need be. So, between 1982-1989 Tatyanin worked at the Lipetsk State Academic Drama Theatre named after Leo Tolstoy. This period say Tatyanin become more comfortable in working with oil and the production of art works in general. Furthermore, this is also when the artist began to sign his canvases, where he shortened his full name to an abbreviation, to which he modestly added, "Genius of the Lipetskian Earth, Artist and Bookseller".
As an artist, Tatyanin initially focused upon traditional naïve characters, such as stray animals, whilst also exploring mythological characters such as mermaids. These enticing characters were eventually replaced by well known European artists and today's annoyingly popular anti-heroes, whom the artist calls "vampires". These are such artists as Joseph Beuys, who founded the concept of gesamtjunstwerk or social sculpture.
Due to his increased admiration and appreciation of late 20th century artistic movements, Tatyanin went on to found the Lipetsk Centre of Contemporary Art with art collectors Aleksandr Nazarov and Yury Sodorov. This still remains one of the only independent contemporary art centers in Russia.
Tatyanin straightforwardly brings artist and citizen together in the heavy black irony of the world around them. It is therefore difficult to evaluate Tatyanin's works through the usual analytic prism of composition and color, in as much as his ideas and unique philosophy are always the dominant elements in them. The artist himself recognizes this difficulty, labeling his style "intuitive neo-primitivism", even though it is doubtful whether the mutable prefix can justly be appended to the immutable idea of the naïve. If you wished to cast Tatyanin in a particular mold, then one might quickly call it naïve conceptualism. The artist, unique among all others, is both philosopher and man of words who can describe his freshly minted work telephonically, not worrying about its painterly qualities.
Tatyanin should be considered as one of the most relevant artist on the Russian scene today, often appearing on the evening news, while mornings are given over to his canvases. The artist calls the latter "Urgent Painting".
Selected Solo Exhibitions:
2011 Dead Hare: All we got: Erarta Museum and Galleries of Contemporary Art,
St. Petersburg, Russia.
2010 Designer Dolls, Museum of Fold and Applied Decorative Art, Lipetsk,
Russia.
2010 PROZAEK or Other Rabbits I Don't Have For You. Х. Л. А. М Gallery, Voronezh, Russia.
2009 Urgent Painting. SCOOP Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2008 We Love Militsya. Militsya Loves Us, pop/off/art gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2007 The blood-suckers will not get through!, pop/off/art gallery, Moscow,
Russia.
2007 Action Joseph Beuyes: freedom or T, State Centre of Contemporary Arts,
Lipetsk, Russia.
2005 The Good Artist Dead, pop/off/art gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2001 The Good Artist Dead, Exhibition Hall of the Union of Artists, Lipetsk,
Russia.
2000 New National Heroes, Exhibition Hall of the Union of Artists, Lipetsk,
Russia.
1999 Marginal Art (Together with S.Bugrovskim), Exhibition Hall of the Union
of Artists, Lipetsk, Russia.
1998 Funeral of the Bald Girl, Exhibition Hall of the Union of Artists, Lipetsk,
Russia.
1998 The Genius of the Lipetsk Land, «Dar» gallery, Moscow, Russia.
1997 Cats and Flowers (Together with S.Bugrovskim), Fund «Interaction»,
Lipetsk, Russia.
1997 Sabaka? Exhibition Hall of the Union of Artists, Lipetsk, Russia.
Selected Group Exhibitions:
2008 Sovcom auction, Moscow, Russia.
2007 Russia – Homeland of Elephants, pop/off/art gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2007 Action Art Belongs, State Centre of Contemporary Arts, Lipetsk, Russia.
2007 Art Moscow, 11th International Art Fair, pop/off/art gallery, Central House
of Artist, Moscow, Russia.
2007 The Encyclopedia of Art from Y (kovlev) to A (rshakuni), Voronezh State
Art Museum n.a. Kramskogo, Voronezh, Russia.
2005 The Sixth, pop/off/art gallery, Moscow, Russia.
2003 Collection of Brutal Arts, Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
1999 Window to Moscow, Victor and Sergey Popov Collection, Exhibition Hall
of the Union of Artists, Lipetsk, Russia.
1999 Pushkin's Images in Creativity of Naive Artists of Russia, Central House of
Artists, Moscow, Russia.
1997 Action initiation, Art-laboratory «Dominanta», Moscow, Russia.
1996 Modern Painting of Lipetsk Artists, Regional Museum, Rostovskay obl.,
Russia.
1996 Nu-March, Exhibition Hall of the Union of Artists, Lipetsk, Russia.
1995 Inter-Regional Exhibition of Naive Art, Kursk, Russia.
1994 Exhibition Hall of the Union of Artists, Lipetsk, Russia.
1993 Naive Art of Russia, «Na Solyanke» Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
1993 Five steps, Regional Youthful Library, Lipetsk, Russia.
Selected Public and Private Collections:
Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Russia;
The Russian Museum St. Petersburg, Russia;
Erarta Museum of Cotemporary Art, St. Petersburg, Russia;
Victor Bondarenko Collection, Moscow, Russia;
Mikhail Tsarev Collection, Moscow, Russia;
Boris Fish Collection, Moscow, Russia;
Victor and Sergey Popov Collection, Moscow, Russia;
pop/off/art gallery Collection, Moscow, Russia;
Gregory Starobinets Collection, Moscow, Russia;
Yury Sidorov Collection, Lipetsk, Russia;
Alexander Nazarov Collection, Lipet.