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Viktor Pivovarov is part of the older generation of nonconformist artists and one of the founding fathers of Moscow Conceptualism. A frequent theme for the artist is the poeticization of the everyday and its lyrical idealization. Pivovarov works in various genres, from large‑format paintings to small drawings, but his main medium is the conceptual album, one of the sources of which is his work as a children’s book illustrator, which he began in 1962. 

 The album genre comprises a set of numbered drawing sheets that are viewed in a defined order, where the narrative is a combination of visual and textual elements. Pivovarov created his first album, Staircase of Balls, in 1975, followed by Conclusions, Face, and Tears in the same year. After moving to Prague in 1982, Pivovarov began rethinking his artistic language. Albums and series dedicated to his friends and relatives, Moscow, and reminiscences about the period from the 1950s to the 1970s began to appear in his practice. 

 In the album Kabakov and Pivovarov the artist directly explores the phenomenon of Moscow unofficial art. Above all, this is a nostalgic nod to a past life, but it is also one of the first acts of reconceptualizing the mythologization of a local historical phenomenon which he witnessed. On the first sheet the “ovals” meet at a publisher and begin talking about the international situation. Then, having decided to go for a walk, they take a Chagall‑like flight over a city, fields, forests, and mountains. Their conversation moves on to the philosophical aspects of existence, with Pivovarov’s character emphasizing the mystery of the ordinary and of simple things, such as rocks, worms, light bulbs or matchboxes. Kabakov’s character grumbles about the fate of Russia, the phenomenology of fear, his decline, and creative predestination.

 Viktor Pivovarov is part of the older generation of nonconformist artists and one of the founding fathers of Moscow Conceptualism. A frequent theme for the artist is the poeticization of the everyday and its lyrical idealization. Pivovarov works in various genres, from large‑format paintings to small drawings, but his main medium is the conceptual album, one of the sources of which is his work as a children’s book illustrator, which he began in 1962. 

 The album genre comprises a set of numbered drawing sheets that are viewed in a defined order, where the narrative is a combination of visual and textual elements. Pivovarov created his first album, Staircase of Balls, in 1975, followed by Conclusions, Face, and Tears in the same year. After moving to Prague in 1982, Pivovarov began rethinking his artistic language. Albums and series dedicated to his friends and relatives, Moscow, and reminiscences about the period from the 1950s to the 1970s began to appear in his practice. 

 In the album Kabakov and Pivovarov the artist directly explores the phenomenon of Moscow unofficial art. Above all, this is a nostalgic nod to a past life, but it is also one of the first acts of reconceptualizing the mythologization of a local historical phenomenon which he witnessed. On the first sheet the “ovals” meet at a publisher and begin talking about the international situation. Then, having decided to go for a walk, they take a Chagall‑like flight over a city, fields, forests, and mountains. Their conversation moves on to the philosophical aspects of existence, with Pivovarov’s character emphasizing the mystery of the ordinary and of simple things, such as rocks, worms, light bulbs or matchboxes. Kabakov’s character grumbles about the fate of Russia, the phenomenology of fear, his decline, and creative predestination. 

Kabakov and Pivovarov

Gor Chahal is a mathematician by training, the author of poems and musical‑poetic performances, and one of the pioneers of multimedia art in Russia. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he was a member of Moscow’s art underground and rock scene. He was the founder of the performance groups Parallel Actions (1985–1987) and Theaterpost (1987–1988) and performed a series of actions with the art group World Champions (1988). In 1989, he played the lead role in Oleg Teptsov’s film The Initiated. In 1990, his debut solo exhibition took place at First Gallery (Moscow). In 1995 and 1996, he was a scholarship holder at the Berlin Academy of Arts and in 2004 at the Museum Quarter in Vienna. Since the late 1990s he has explored Christian themes, combining contemporary art, scientific methods, and theological discourse. In 2014, he became an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts and in 2022 a corresponding member of the Academy’s Department of New Art Trends. 

 The ironic painting I Love Jules Verne’s America dates to the period of his close friendship and cooperation with the art group World Champions. At that time the artists shared a studio and also conceived and performed joint actions which were absurd and spontaneous. They made fun of the intellectual practices of the older generation of Moscow Conceptualists and of Soviet state institutions that used outdated rituals and language. 

 I Love Jules Verne’s America was acquired from the studio by collector Pierre Brochet. The inscription which is the title of the painting is a categorical criticism of the contemporary United States and states that the artist considers nineteenth‑century America a much more attractive place than the capitalist version of the Ronald Reagan years. The small Polaroid at the center of the painting is a distorted portrait of Gor Chahal in a park. In the late 1980s, the artist frequently experimented with instant photography and the idea of lack of subjectivity, which may be precursors of his later interest in automated techniques.

 Gor Chahal is a mathematician by training, the author of poems and musical‑poetic performances, and one of the pioneers of multimedia art in Russia. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he was a member of Moscow’s art underground and rock scene. He was the founder of the performance groups Parallel Actions (1985–1987) and Theaterpost (1987–1988) and performed a series of actions with the art group World Champions (1988). In 1989, he played the lead role in Oleg Teptsov’s film The Initiated. In 1990, his debut solo exhibition took place at First Gallery (Moscow). In 1995 and 1996, he was a scholarship holder at the Berlin Academy of Arts and in 2004 at the Museum Quarter in Vienna. Since the late 1990s he has explored Christian themes, combining contemporary art, scientific methods, and theological discourse. In 2014, he became an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts and in 2022 a corresponding member of the Academy’s Department of New Art Trends. 

 The ironic painting I Love Jules Verne’s America dates to the period of his close friendship and cooperation with the art group World Champions. At that time the artists shared a studio and also conceived and performed joint actions which were absurd and spontaneous. They made fun of the intellectual practices of the older generation of Moscow Conceptualists and of Soviet state institutions that used outdated rituals and language. 

 I Love Jules Verne’s America was acquired from the studio by collector Pierre Brochet. The inscription which is the title of the painting is a categorical criticism of the contemporary United States and states that the artist considers nineteenth‑century America a much more attractive place than the capitalist version of the Ronald Reagan years. The small Polaroid at the center of the painting is a distorted portrait of Gor Chahal in a park. In the late 1980s, the artist frequently experimented with instant photography and the idea of lack of subjectivity, which may be precursors of his later interest in automated techniques. 

I Love Jules Verne’s America

In 1986, four friends decided to form an art group called World Champions. Despite its short life (the group disbanded in 1988), World Champions was one of the most striking artistic phenomena of the perestroika period. The backbone of the group comprised Gia Abramishvili, Konstantin Latyshev, Boris Matrosov and Andrei Yakhnin. They studied together at Moscow’s School No. 96 in Bolshoi Tishinsky Pereulok, where they were taught physics by a very special man, Evgeny Matusov. He organized meetings with interesting people for his students, including Boris Grebenshchikov, Sven Gundlakh, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov. Contact with these people grew into friendship and then joint artistic practice. 

 The “champions” selected irony as their main tool for dissecting both late‑1980s Soviet reality and the specific, closed world of unofficial art. They made fun of the unintelligible practices of the older generation of Moscow conceptualists and of state sport and public organizations, with their outdated methods of transforming groups of individuals into collectives. The group’s actions and demonstrations had an absurd and spontaneous character in which a sudden idea of a “meaningless feat” was immediately embodied, erasing the boundaries between art and life. The artists changed the direction of rivers, used shampoo and rags to clean the Black Sea cliffs and seafront, and created pictures and objects from worthless materials, with no interest in preserving them after they had been shown at a one‑day exhibition. 

 When creating drawings and paintings the “champions” parodied the team method of making state commissions for artistic products. Participants published a decree that defined in detail not only the image but also the quantity of materials available to the artist who would make it. The group’s garish, flashy paintings are stylistically similar to children’s drawings and lubok folk prints, comics, and posters.

 In 1986, four friends decided to form an art group called World Champions. Despite its short life (the group disbanded in 1988), World Champions was one of the most striking artistic phenomena of the perestroika period. The backbone of the group comprised Gia Abramishvili, Konstantin Latyshev, Boris Matrosov and Andrei Yakhnin. They studied together at Moscow’s School No. 96 in Bolshoi Tishinsky Pereulok, where they were taught physics by a very special man, Evgeny Matusov. He organized meetings with interesting people for his students, including Boris Grebenshchikov, Sven Gundlakh, and Konstantin Zvezdochotov. Contact with these people grew into friendship and then joint artistic practice. 

 The “champions” selected irony as their main tool for dissecting both late‑1980s Soviet reality and the specific, closed world of unofficial art. They made fun of the unintelligible practices of the older generation of Moscow conceptualists and of state sport and public organizations, with their outdated methods of transforming groups of individuals into collectives. The group’s actions and demonstrations had an absurd and spontaneous character in which a sudden idea of a “meaningless feat” was immediately embodied, erasing the boundaries between art and life. The artists changed the direction of rivers, used shampoo and rags to clean the Black Sea cliffs and seafront, and created pictures and objects from worthless materials, with no interest in preserving them after they had been shown at a one‑day exhibition. 

 When creating drawings and paintings the “champions” parodied the team method of making state commissions for artistic products. Participants published a decree that defined in detail not only the image but also the quantity of materials available to the artist who would make it. The group’s garish, flashy paintings are stylistically similar to children’s drawings and lubok folk prints, comics, and posters. 

Giordano Bruno

Easel Painting

2/III 43 — 4/V 85. Detail of the installation By the Kremlin Wall

Viktor Pivovarov is one of the founders of Moscow Conceptualism and a key figure within Soviet unofficial art. An illustrator by education, he had a long involvement with publishers, including the magazines Knowledge is Power, Jolly Pictures (for which he designed the logo with letter characters), and Murzilka and also the publisher Children’s Literature. This experience was the basis of Pivovarov’s experiments with painting, which would later be termed conceptual. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the genre boundaries of his work became permeable: text and image, transferred from book illustration to canvas or board, not only complement each other but are also in a semantic confrontation that draws the viewer into an ironic and subtle associative game. 

 Together with Ilya Kabakov, Pivovarov is the originator of the conceptual album genre. This unique form of artistic expression gave images that are static by nature a temporal impulse. The drawings were intended to be viewed in a strictly defined order so as not to disrupt the unity of the visual narrative. In this way, the album incorporated features of the literary work and the temporality of cinema or theater, while using means of expression exclusive to drawing. In a situation in which artists making “other art” could not freely exhibit, demonstrating sheets from an album in their studio or to a circle of friends and colleagues became a true performance. 

 The album Eros is a narrative about a romantic meeting that takes place in a half‑empty, very ordinary room. In Pivovarov’s poetics the interior, a space concealed from the outside world, becomes a reflection of a person’s spiritual life. The main character does not appear on a single sheet, but the viewer senses their presence through textual messages that alternate with the images: “I was desperately waiting for you,” “I thought you weren’t coming,” “…and such longing.” The melancholy of waiting is interrupted by the central erotic‑euphoric part, where figurative images disappear, making way for abstract forms that transform from sheet to sheet. The return to the room and the world of things occurs through the window, outside which a sunset sky can be seen that reflects the color palette of the abstract, rhythmic compositions. Full of existential lyricism, Pivovarov’s works explore the life of the human soul, with its doubts and worries.

 Viktor Pivovarov is one of the founders of Moscow Conceptualism and a key figure within Soviet unofficial art. An illustrator by education, he had a long involvement with publishers, including the magazines Knowledge is Power, Jolly Pictures (for which he designed the logo with letter characters), and Murzilka and also the publisher Children’s Literature. This experience was the basis of Pivovarov’s experiments with painting, which would later be termed conceptual. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the genre boundaries of his work became permeable: text and image, transferred from book illustration to canvas or board, not only complement each other but are also in a semantic confrontation that draws the viewer into an ironic and subtle associative game. 

 Together with Ilya Kabakov, Pivovarov is the originator of the conceptual album genre. This unique form of artistic expression gave images that are static by nature a temporal impulse. The drawings were intended to be viewed in a strictly defined order so as not to disrupt the unity of the visual narrative. In this way, the album incorporated features of the literary work and the temporality of cinema or theater, while using means of expression exclusive to drawing. In a situation in which artists making “other art” could not freely exhibit, demonstrating sheets from an album in their studio or to a circle of friends and colleagues became a true performance. 

 The album Eros is a narrative about a romantic meeting that takes place in a half‑empty, very ordinary room. In Pivovarov’s poetics the interior, a space concealed from the outside world, becomes a reflection of a person’s spiritual life. The main character does not appear on a single sheet, but the viewer senses their presence through textual messages that alternate with the images: “I was desperately waiting for you,” “I thought you weren’t coming,” “…and such longing.” The melancholy of waiting is interrupted by the central erotic‑euphoric part, where figurative images disappear, making way for abstract forms that transform from sheet to sheet. The return to the room and the world of things occurs through the window, outside which a sunset sky can be seen that reflects the color palette of the abstract, rhythmic compositions. Full of existential lyricism, Pivovarov’s works explore the life of the human soul, with its doubts and worries. 

Eros

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World Champions was a Moscow art group made up of a group of friends who had studied at School No. 98 and Krasnopresnenskaya Art School. The group included Gia Abramishvili, Konstantin Zvezdochotov, Konstantin Latyshev, Boris Matrosov, Andrei Yakhnin, and others. In 2021 there was a retrospective exhibition of the group’s work at Moscow Museum of Modern Art.

World Champions

Chahal Gor

Gia Abramishvili was born in Moscow. In 1988 he graduated from the Journalism Faculty of Moscow State Institute of International Relations. From 1986 to 1988 he was part of the group World Champions. Selected group exhibitions: The Quest for Self‑Expression: Painting in Moscow and Leningrad from 1960 to 1990, Columbus Museum of Art, USA (1990), In de USSR en Erbuiten, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1991); Kunst im verborgenen. Nonkonformisten Russland 1957–1995, Wilhelm‑Hack‑Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, documenta Halle, Kassel, Staatliches Lindenau‑Museum, Altenburg, Germany, Manezh Central Exhibition Hall, Moscow (1995); Wind Project, Aidan Gallery, Moscow (1996). He has been a member of the Moscow Union of Artists since 1994.

Abramishvili Giya

Viktor Pivovarov was born in Moscow. He studied at Kalinin Moscow Art and Industrial College and in the Graphics Department of Moscow Printing Institute from 1957 to 1962. He took part in the Biennale of Dissent (Venice, 1977). He is a recipient of the Innovation Prize in the nomination For Contribution to the Development of Contemporary Art (2017).

Pivovarov Viktor

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