Alexander Tsikarishvili’s collection

WHAT GAVE A START TO YOUR COLLECTION? DO YOU REMEMBER THE VERY FIRST PIECE OF ART YOU HAVE ACQUIRED?

I’m not an ordinary collector, since I am an artist myself. That’s why I find this question difficult to answer: the first piece in my collection was created by me.

DO YOU SUPPORT YOUR COLLEAGUES BY BUYING SOME OF THEIR ART OR EXCHANGING IT BETWEEN EACH OTHER?

I started this initiative at the dawn of the first “Sever-7” gallery, there were these modern art marketplaces. Their main idea was about making art accessible to anyone. There was also some exchange of roles: curator could become an artist or collector, as well as an artist could become curator or collector. All pieces were selling at quite affordable prices, even ones from famous artists, because it was all printed graphics. I bought something for my wife’s birthday, so we may call our collection a shared one. Some things got exchanged, some were gifted by our friends. Now our collection mostly consists of friends’ works.

Then we had a second initiative, an active drawing and perforative posing school. The artists of Petersburg were in quite separate groups back then, and they had some kind of poisonous atmosphere around them, and maybe they even still have it now. So the school was one of the places where the authors could meet at the drawing lessons, interact with some live sculpture and exchange some experience. Later we had this tradition of exchanging the art between each other, and sometimes hosted art markets. The last of these exchanges happened at YABA market on Sevkabel (a modern market and social cluster in one of the old districts of Saint Petersburg, — trans.): we haven’t had any successful sales, so we started exchanging pieces. Since we didn’t manage to sell anything, we decided to become collectors on our own.

CAN YOU TELL WHO USUALLY BUYS ART AT YABA MARKET? IT MUST BE NOT ONLY EXPERIENCED COLLECTORS, BUT SOME NEWCOMERS TOO?

There are not many buyers at all! (Laughs). Why is it even still going? Because there are from ten to twenty buyers-collectors who got used to buying stuff in this market. There are also some huge collectors too, like Vera and Lesha Prima and Sergey Limonov. One of them, Andrey Egorov, opened an art space Diode Night Gallery in Moscow. He collects graphics created by Grekht. Dasha Yartseva often buys Grekht pieces too. There were also some people from art circles who didn't have much money. Once a female artist came to the market, she didn’t plan to buy anything, but ended up buying several pieces. Those people are not very wealthy, they just love art, but there are not very many of them after all.

YOU SAID THAT YOU SHARE THE COLLECTION WITH YOUR WIFE. HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHAT YOU WILL PURCHASE AND DO YOU HAVE SOME ARGUMENTS ABOUT IT?

In fact, our tastes are the same and there are no disagreements. Sometimes Lisa asks to buy Grekht, I have doubts, but what should I do? — I have to buy it. By the way, Grekht is probably the most popular in our collection. Basically, these are our close friends: Tskhe, Chemakin, Grekht, Engelke, Dyakov, Shvetsov... We love to collect. There is such an artist — Vera Svetlova, she is a ceramist, who works in a studio at a psycho-neurological boarding school. People with mental disabilities create very interesting small plastic objects. We didn’t buy anything from them: Vera gifted me some of these pieces, and I went to study with her. I also like children's art: I collected the works of my daughters, and from Pyotr Dyakov’s daughter: Uliana Dyakova made some very cool sculptures in her childhood. My wife and I also collect small sculptures of the Galizini puppeteer!

ALL WORKS FROM YOUR COLLECTION HANG ON THE WALLS OF THE HOUSE OR ARE ANY OF THE WORKS IN STORAGE?

No, of course, a lot lies in folders and can be found somewhere else. I also handed over some works to the curator Anastasia Koteleva.

IS THERE ANY SPECIAL ROOMS FOR PICTURES?

There is a small warehouse, but it’s connected not to our collection, but to our YABA project, an online art store. Some of our art is also stored there. I don't like large pieces, especially large sculptures. I am unable to carry such weights.

SO YOU PREFER SMALLER FORMS?

I think so, mostly graphics.

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR COLLECTION IS ABOUT? DO YOU MAKE SOME SELECTION APART FROM BUYING PIECES CREATED BY YOUR FRIENDS?

As for the general theme, this is the new Russian mythology, a kind of fictional archeology. I have the work of the American artist Joshua Good, he is our friend. He is an archaeologist artist, and some funny stories are reflected in his art. For example, he might draw a Greek artiodactyl but with a Simpson's head. It is as if he is digging this hole, as if excavating and pulling out a confiscated artifact. Grekht is also a mythology: he has a whole gang with whom they are making a movie about Goreslav the Foreign. The guys create a full-length, black-and-white film, which will be shown in old Soviet cinemas or some post-Soviet Houses of Culture. Somewhere in the Leningrad region they even built a whole hut of this Goreslav, where everything — both furniture and ceramics — was made by the hands of Grekht and another artist, Vladimir. Vadim Mikhailov is also about his own mythology.

Probably the second line of the collection is Leningrad graphics. I have nowhere and no reason to, and I don’t have such spaces — to hang a large canvas at home, I always asked for everything small. With Tskhe, we somehow always exchanged the graphics of the period when he worked at the Detgiz publishing house. I also drew a little for the Chizh and the Hedgehog magazine. This period of Leonid is interesting to me: Spanish fairy tales, proverbs. I already have three kids to read them to. There are also some very cool illustrations with his wife Svetlana featured.

DO YOU INOCULATE A CULTURE OF COLLECTING TO YOUR CHILDREN? MAYBE THEY ALREADY MAKE DECISIONS AND CHOOSE SOME THINGS WITH YOU?

Not really, the older ones are no longer interested, and the younger ones are yet not interested. But they all create something: the older ones help me to embroider on pictures, and the younger one works with a dripping technique.

You just used the word "collecting", and it caused me some kind of rejection. I immediately remember the times when I worked in an antique shop. I thought of things as some kind of cargo, and of collecting them as some kind of evil. You kind of pick up, gather things around you and, apparently, in the end you are put in the grave with your favorite car, the best whiskey and the corpse of your dog, just like Egyptian pharaohs. It scares me. It seems to me that a person should always take a maximum of five sheets of graphics and go where he needs to go. And so, it turns out that many dump trucks of work will follow you everywhere — this awakes fear in me. There is also such a degree of collecting as our friend Sergei Limonov, who collects exhibitions. This is clearly some kind of life idea and will transform into some kind of institution. But that's another story.

DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH WORK OF ART YOU HAVE IN YOUR COLLECTION RIGHT NOW?

Maybe two hundred. This is if I want, I will walk, ask, I will find something somewhere. Favorite — somewhere around thirty or fifty.

THIS IS A LOT, MORE THAN FIVE SHEETS!

Definitely not five, because I took this milestone a long time ago.

DO YOU RESELL THE PIECES OR EXCHANGE THEM WITH SOMEBODY?

I don't know, if life forces me, maybe there will be such a practice, but currently I don’t do that.

DO YOU SET A COLLECTING LIMIT FOR YOURSELF - A CERTAIN NUMBER OF WORKS, FOR EXAMPLE?

I mostly see these pieces in my house. I have a few bulky ones. Among the sculptures there is a favorite work of Yegor Fedorychev: a ceramic tablecloth and an iron table from a Soviet cafe where they drank rag-flavored coffee and sold donuts. On it is an old telephone — also my friend’s. Well, there are still a couple of my sculptures at home, although I no longer notice them. Once I came to my parents' suburban house, where they have a small guest house, and I found twenty works of art inside. I had already forgotten about them at that time. I can also collect different things, it makes no difference to me: old arctic army boots, national hats or works of Tskhe.

DID COLLECTING CHANGE SOMETHING IN YOUR LIFE OR HAS IT ALWAYS BEEN WITH YOU? MAYBE, A DESIRE TO COLLECT SOMETHING CAME FROM CHILDHOOD?

Yes, this is such a game of soldiers, not in terms of militarism, but just a game, like Grekht’s. I had a period when I did not have my own apartment, but I still collected, folded and thought that, in the end, someday I would hang it all up. Lisa did the same. Then we just combined the collections.
I also have this method in art, I somehow weave my fabric: I constantly collect something. For example, now I have a huge amount of material for the exhibition. Often I have to deal with Avito (editor's note — like Craigslist), with old typewriters of the 50s, with some kind of coins — I get all this and insert it into my works. I love to collect clothes from the 40s and 50s: now I have a sculpture wearing an astrakhan hat. The collection even includes prostheses from the First World War! But I don't know where to put them. Although they are very beautiful.

DO YOU HAVE A BUDGET FOR BUYING ART? OR IS IT ALL SPONTANEOUSLY HAPPENING?

I think that after all, what we are talking about is a disease, to one degree or another. Sergey Limonov, for example, is seriously ill — I would say, completely ill. I, too, apparently get sick, because I’m not going to spend money on it at all, but every evening I sit on Avito and still put what I want to buy into the folder. Of course, it all ends up with me spending some amount of money per month. Of course, not as many as Serezha does, but I never plan these purchases. Unless, for example, I need to look for toy cars: I need an ambulance — I will find it.

WHOSE WORKS WOULD YOU WANT TO BE IN YOUR COLLECTION?

I have all the stuff I need. Of course, if I go crazy, I would like to buy a lot of things. But above all, apparently, another apartment! I would not want to buy, but would ask — Philippe Gastone. I really love Kader Attia or Huma Bhabha, in my opinion, a Pakistani female sculptor, she is very cool. There is also such an artist, Sergei Jensen, who works with fabric and painting. I would also ask de Kooning for something!

DO YOU SEE ANY FUTURE FOR YOUR COLLECTION, OR WILL IT REMAIN JUST YOUR FAMILY ARCHIVE?

The collection is the fabric of time. My children or grandchildren will learn from it with whom I was friends, with whom I lived, with whom we communicated, how our creative life went. I'm looking for atypical artwork, hence everything is valuable.

COULD YOU GIVE ADVICE TO THOSE WHO WANT TO COLLECT ART BUT ARE AFRAID OF SOMETHING?

There is nothing to worry about. If you have such a need, you will collect something according to your taste anyway. By organizing my art fairs, I wanted to show that everyone can start their own collection. Of course, I do not really understand when people buy artworks that cost millions. I have a slightly different vision: you may buy it for five thousand rubles, but it might be a valuable and interesting thing. Of course, it is also an investment: after all, artists become famous.