Inal Savchenkov
Inal Savchenkov was born in Novorossiysk in 1966 and moved to St Petersburg in 1982. His formation happened during the Perestroika period, when the USSR was gradually loosening its hold and "underground" culture was on the rise. Savchenkov became friends with the legendary Leningrad "New Artists" led by Timur Novikov, starred in Yevgeny Yufit's necro-realist cinema, and participated in musical performances of Sergei Kuryokhin's "Pop Mechanics".
Inal Savchenkov's painting absorbed the current trends of the 1980s: neo-expressionism, comics, graffiti. In those years there was a whole wave of such "new" painting - bright in colour, brave in the interpretation of forms and choice of subjects, protesting against the surrounding greyness and excessive seriousness in art. In the 1990s, when quite different trends were emerging in Russian contemporary art, Savchenkov often travelled to Berlin and worked in studios with German neo-expressionist artists.
Among like-minded artists, his paintings have always been characterised by a kind of cartoonishness and kind-hearted humour. Savchenkov's plots can be read simply and at the same time complicated, they are always "very personal" and emphatically absurd. He has a number of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic characters created in his own way, some of which are permanent participants in his paintings, such as the fox. The artist creates his works as if "without thinking", captured by some memory, news, dream, fictional proverb, joke or even a religious and philosophical idea. Savchenkov sometimes takes years to complete his paintings, developing the plot, although they still look " momentary" in the end. Meanwhile, the balance of colours and an intuitive sense of form reveal a great artist.
All of Inal Savchenkov's artworks can conventionally be called cartoon shots, not only because of the specific manner of painting and fantastic characters, but also because of the potential for dynamics contained in their composition. How this works can be seen in Savchenkov's collage cartoons, which he made in the 1980s and 1990s together with the group "Engineers of Art", which he founded in the same period. In his works, as the artist says, he depicts a "perfect" moment from the "film" in his head, balanced compositionally and saturated emotionally. Savchenkov's works are in the collections of the Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery.
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BIG IN RUSSIA
Group exhibition 11 Dec 2024 - 26 Jan 2025 WinzavodDomestic art approached the large format, following the path of the Russian reversal or Russian invert: the artist tracked down and threw himself at the wolfhound of the century. The...Read more -
ZDRAVSTVUYTE!
Group exhibition 26 Jul - 7 Sep 2023OVCHARENKO presents a new collective project in the framework of co-operation with the auction house VLADEY. The name of the exhibition of OVCHARENKO artists "HELLO!" (ZDRAVSTVUYTE!) has a double meaning. The complexity and at the same time the beauty of the Russian language allows you to find in the simple word "Hello!" both a wish of good health and a greeting at a meeting. And the meeting at the exhibition will be held with marvelous artists and their works of art.Read more
For 33 years of his work OVCHARENKO, while the first exhibition of the gallery (then called "Regina") was held in September 1990, 278 group and solo exhibitions were held. In religion "33 years" are the age of Jesus Christ — the time of perfection, the period of life when the peak has been reached. Christ's rebirth occurred at the same time when he was 33, so " HELLO!" (ZDRAVSTVUYTE!).
Vladimir Ovcharenko, founder of VLADEY and OVCHARENKO: "The time in our country and in the world is not easy. And when was it easy? It is very complicated for artists now. Their world has completely changed. For many of them it has turned out to be tragic, while others continue to create magnificent works of art. We are happy to represent the best of the best, it is a great honour and responsibility. Moscow is a world-class cultural centre. And it always will be. It deserves new great art exhibitions. And they are coming!".
Over the last year and half OVCHARENKO in co-operation with VLADEY has frequently presented personal exhibitions of its artists, among them projects made by Alisa Gorshenina, Sergey Zarva, Alexey Kallima, Pavel Pepperstein and the PPSS art group, Ivan Razumov, Inal Savchenkov, Leonid Tshe and Nestor Engelke.
Artists: Victor Alimpiev, Sergey Bratkov, Oleg Golosiy, Stas Volyazlovsky, Erwin Wurm, Alisa Gorshenina, Mikhail Dolyanovsky, Sergey Zarva, Alexey Kallima, Egor Koshelev, Vlad Kulkov, Vladimir Logutov, Jonathan Meza, Ryan Mosley, Pavel Pepperstein, Jack Pearson, PPSS art Group, Daniel Richter, Inal Savchenkov, Maria Serebryakova, Semyon Faibisovich, Claire Fontaine, Leonid Tshe, Ivan Chuikov, Dmitry Shabalin, Nestor Engelke. -
INAL. LUMEN INVISIBLE
Inal Savchenkov 7 Sep - 8 Oct 2022 WinzavodOVCHARENKO together with VLADEY presents Inal Savchenkov's solo exhibition. Inala's name is part of the history of the Leningrad underground. He moved to St. Petersburg from Novorossiysk in 1982 and got into the very center of unofficial culture. Timur Novikov, Georgy Guryanov, Oleg Kotelnikov, Sergey Kuryokhin ... — together with them Savchenkov develops an original artistic language.Read more
Inal Savchenkov's works today are a unique opportunity to look at how the principles laid down by the "New Artists" at the end of the last century are developing and living in the modern world. In 2022, Inal presents the idea of virtualization of real space, which he calls "vector graphics": any object can be scanned and presented as a set of numbers, and you can set your vector for any object on the canvas. This approach to painting even today sounds like know-how, and was invented back in the 90s. Inal opens a new chapter in search of those years already as an honored artist with an instantly recognizable manner and his iconic subjects. Seascapes, penguins on an ice floe, a scene in the doctor's office, an anthropomorphic character at the piano… In 1988, it was the painting on the plot with the piano that got on the cover of the first youth issue of the legendary magazine "Art". Inal Savchenkov is the last "new" artist, and he is also the first symbol of the new time.
Personal exhibitions:
2022
Inal. Lumen Invisible. VLADEY Space. Moscow, Russia.
2021
Semi Realism. VLADEY Space. Moscow, Russia.
2019
Inal Savchenkov. New Moon. VLADEY Space. Moscow, Russia.
2011
Inal Savchenkov's Neo-Expressionism. The State Russian Museum. St. Petersburg, Russia.
2001
Inal Savchenkov. The State Russian Museum. St. Petersburg, Russia.
Group exhibitions:
2024
WELCOME! VLADEY. Moscow, Russia.
2023
Masterpieces of the Temple, or With Easy Steam! VLADEY. Moscow, Russia.
ZDRAVSTVUYTE! OVCHARENKO in cooperation with VLADEY. Moscow, Russia.
2018
MONUMENTAL. The Ekaterina Cultural Foundation together with VLADEY. Moscow, Russia.
Timur Novikov and the "New Artists". CCA Zarya. Vladivostok, Russia.
2017
LOVE. VLADEY Space. Moscow, Russia.
Libres Figurations - Années 80. Fonds Hélène & Édouard Leclerc. Landerno, France.
2016-2017
Nonconformism as a starting point works of 1960s-2000s from collection of Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Yeltsin Centre. Yekaterinburg, Russia.
2014
The Other Capital. Contemporary Art of St. Petersburg Today. Museum of Moscow. Moscow, Russia.
2012-2013
Without Barriers. Russian Art 1985-2000. The State Russian Museum. St. Petersburg, Russia.
2012
The New Are here! MMOMA. Moscow, Russia.
2011-2012
Passion Bild. Russische Kunst seit 1970. Kunstmuseum Bern. Bern, Germany.
2011
Classics and Modernity. Small hall of the Central exhibition hall Manege. St. Petersburg, Russia.
Artist and Cinema. Small hall of the Central exhibition hall Manege. St. Petersburg, Russia.
Gates and Doors. The State Russian Museum. St. Petersburg, Russia.
2010
Brushstroke. The New Artists and Necrorealists: 1982-1991. The State Russian Museum. St. Petersburg, Russia.
2009
The Russian Schizorevolution: an exhibition that might have been. Marres. Maastricht, Netherlands.
2006
The Last Romantics of the Soviet Union. Zverev Centre for Contemporary Art. Moscow, Russia.
2004
Domestic and Wild. The State Russian Museum. St. Petersburg, Russia.
2000
In the Footsteps of “Popular Mechanics”. The State Russian Museum. St. Petersburg, Russia.
1998
Sergey Kuryokhin International Festival SKIF-6. Leningrad's Palace of Youth. St. Petersburg, Russia.
1997
Kabinet. Stedelijk Museum. Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Red Colour in Art. The State Russian Museum. St. Petersburg, Russia.
1995
From Gulag to Glasnost: Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union. Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University. New Jersey, USA.
1993
The Other St. Petersburg. The Museum of Modern Art. Martigny, Switzerland.
1991
Jóvenes Artistas de Leningrado: el problema del cuerpo individual al fin de la era del totalitarismo tardío. Museo de Arte Moderno. Mexico City, Mexico.
1990
2x3m. Palace Bridge. Leningrad, USSR.
Strange Games of the Petersburg Avant-Garde.The Tomsk Regional Art Museum. Tomsk, USSR.
1988
The New Artists. The House of Culture named after Sverdlov. Leningrad, USSR.
DE NYA från Leningrad. Kulturhuset. Stockholm, Sweden.
1987
Without a Halo. Gdański Kantor Sztuki. Gdańsk, Poland.
Forum of Creative Youth. Leningrad Youth Palace. Leningrad, USSR.