“An artist is a slice of the life of the heart”: an exhibition of the legendary Bob Koshelokhov opened in the mArs art space

The art space mArs has opened the exhibition “Chronicle of Bob Koshelokhov”, a famous Russian avant-garde artist who died last summer. The opening was attended by his contemporaries and friends, who warmly recalled many stories from his career.

The exposition in the mArs art space shows only a small layer of his work.

The curator of the exhibition, Yuri Ekimov, noticed that Bob Koshelokhov was not just an artist of some movement or style, he himself became a separate direction in art.

“Today, people who were personally acquainted and friendly with him, who collect his works, who exhibited with him, have gathered here. I met him when a large-scale exhibition of his works was being prepared, and a little later I ended up in the repository of his paintings – these are thousands of works and each of them is unique in terms of color and compositional solutions, powerful primitive archaic energy emanates from each. It is a colossal chronicle of metamorphosis and evolution. Koshelokhov was a pure painter, avoiding everyday and material issues, ”said Ekimov.

This observation is confirmed by one episode in the life of the master – a very short emigration to Italy, where the artist was provided with all the conditions for life and creativity, but he did not want to “change the” iron cage “to” gold “”. In the late 70s, Bob Koshelokhov founded the Letopis group, from which many famous avant-garde masters came out. Its main principles were “write your soul on anything and everything”, “every normal person is an artist” and “work, work and work”.

Yuri Ekimov also cited one of the master’s quotes: “An artist is a slice of the being of the heart.”

Bob Koshelokhov tried many professions before becoming one without whom it is difficult to imagine the St. Petersburg underground. His works are kept in the Russian Museum, the Museum of Nonconformist Art and the Erarta Gallery in St. Petersburg, in the Regional Museums of Sevastopol and Khabarovsk, in private collections in Europe, the USA, Japan, and South Korea.

At the opening of the exhibition, rock musician Vladimir Rekshan shared his memories of meeting Koshelokhov in the legendary Saigon cafe, where the artist surprised everyone with his philosophical reasoning, as well as the birth of the Pushkinskaya-10 art center, in which he was the most gambler in chess.

Also, the representative of the artist, Sergey Malinov, spoke about the last years of his life, when, due to an allergy to paints, Koshelokhov had to draw exclusively on a computer.

“Koshelokhov never redid his work, keeping every idea and every stroke in its original state. His pastels are known all over the world,” said Malinov.

The Chronicle of Bob Koshelokhov will be open for two weeks. Admission is free, visitors must present a QR code.