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Andrei Tolstoy. The particles of existence. Dreams and myths of Dmitry Ikonnikov. Monograph. 2010
Dmitry Ikonnikov long ago made a name for himself as a strong, independent artist, whose artistic style and idiosyncratic view of the world cannot be mistaken for anyone else’s. His work is exhibited frequently, and almost every time, the viewer is presented with work seen either in a completely new, or at least in a significantly new light. This renewal takes place not only because the artist expands to take in new themes and forms, but also because of the tireless way he immerses himself in problems that he has already engaged with in previous works, and the inexorable expansion of meanings that he gives to these ideas and problems when reflecting on them.
True to his educational background, Ikonnikov works exclusively on paper. However it wouldn’t be right to say that his compositions are purely graphic in nature. Firstly, these are usually large sheets of paper, and moreover are often fixed to a hard surface (for example, glued to a board). Secondly, the gouache favoured by the artist, usually in big colour planes, somehow loses its normal specific qualities – instead of being used in sweeping layers, it creates a subtle effect of translucence, almost transparency. But it also has varied textures, sometimes evoking the natural roughness of a plastered wall, sometimes the smooth mirrored surface of water, and sometimes tightly compacted sand. When looking at Ikonnikov’s works, one sometimes has the feeling that one is looking at fragments of a never-before-seen painting that adorns the walls of a not-yet-built building. This is reflected in the artist’s ability to express his work within a single compositional colour framework, which guarantees a holistic effect, and as a result ensures that the composition has an internal monumentality. Despite all this, Ikonnikov largely eschews didactism and over-exaggeration, which means that his work can be classed together with that of such great masters as E. Vuillard, P. Bonnard, M. Denis, and probably also A. Marquet and late-period V. Serov.
These names don’t come to mind by chance. Ikonnikov is engaged in a permanent dialogue with artistic tradition, and often retraces these traditions back to far away from the stage we are at now. And the artist’s recent works do not only create situations that occur before our eyes, but also stories that reveal themselves – or rather, tell themselves, right there in front of us. We begin to feel something archetypal about them; something eternal and universal. The artist creates a myth, and the viewer becomes a witness to this creativity, or rather, to the creation itself. The final works in this case are often no less energetic and expressive than the artist’s sketches, where the mythological nature often grows directly out of the compositional plans.
Recently, Ikonnikov has travelled a lot. He travelled before, but these travels were for the most part imaginary, almost somnambulant. Hazy silhouettes of palaces and embankments, cathedrals and bridges, parks and castles would appear on the paper, emerging through the veil of dreamy reveries. Now, among Ikonnikov’s works there are significant cycles dedicated not only to Moscow life “on the ninth floor”, but also to St. Petersburg, Paris and the Mediterranean.
One of Ikonnikov’s most recent projects bears the title “The fabric of time”, and consists of three cycles of works. The first is devoted to a seamstress, diligently working on her dilapidated Singer sewing machine. This dilapidation immediately gives the story more than just an everyday level of meaning and makes it more universal, as a result of which it becomes a kind of encyclopaedia of life in our country, which spreads across the whole gamut of emotions from celebration to loneliness and despair. In other words, it is the very same “fabric of time”, where every stitch and every thread matter. We should view the second cycle in the same way. It is called “Male stories” – the characters meet where the “Entrance from the courtyard” is, and can sit comfortably with their friends and drinking companions, on boxes or on around tables in the park, to drink and fantasise, and suddenly see an angel appear, either to sit and join them for a drink, or to try to steer the drinkers back round to their true path.
Almost all of these works feature various additions (banknotes, cigarettes, wine wrappers and so on) directly stuck onto the paper, and also a large number of often moralising comments, which evoke courtyard scrawlings and graffiti.
It’s also worth noting that the artist almost always provokes the viewer to find symbolic meanings in what at first appear to be ordinary everyday things. The various additions often evoke strata of cultural memories, and sometimes force archetypal subtexts and associations into the mind of the viewer, against their will. On the other hand, the arrangement of the majority of the additions that Ikonnikov uses, as well as much of the commentary, is full of subtle undertones which those not in the know may not appreciate at all.
Finally, there are the cycles dedicated to Paris and the “sweetness of doing nothing” (dolce farniente), on the Croatian and Montenegrin coasts of the warm Mediterranean Sea (this mood is quite justified in this case, as the artist mainly travels there on holidays to relax). The French capital is presented by Ikonnikov predominantly as a place where fantasies become reality, where “dreams of something more” come true, a common perception of this legendary place in the Russian cultural canon. Again, we see the mythological universalisation of the collective subconscious. This means that it is hardly surprising when among street and cafe scenes we suddenly see sketches of people who look like they should come from ancient myths – the satyrs, for example.
Nevertheless, in his work the artist gives a much more sober and objective view of various aspects of Parisian life, including acute observations about the values of the local tramps. Curiously, the Petersburg works manage to combine in a surprising way the everyday, prosaic nature of the Moscow cycles, and the higher dreaminess of the Paris works.
The Mediterranean works almost entirely fit into the mythical-continuation paradigm particular to Ikonnikov. Some of the works, detailing a naked man and woman on the seashore, or the naked woman with a huge bull next to her, immediately evoke the mythical works about satyrs and nymphs, or the no less archetypal “Seizure of Europa” as loved by the god of the heavens, who had taken on the form of a horned and hoofed beast. There is a sense that this is very similar to how the best artists of the 20th century viewed classical gods and heroes, and the characters in Ikonnikov’s works almost seem tired of carrying out the roles allotted to them, and are relaxing between takes of a film shoot or between episodes of a serial. These things evoke the already-mentioned feeling of dolce farniente, probably for this very reason. There is no doubt that before us we see characters from Ikonnikov’s own personal mythology, where eternal subjects and individuals boldly and sometimes unexpectedly mingle with the most palpable elements of contemporary life, which appear absolutely not as elements of everyday living, but with the pleasantly ironic attitude to life present both in the artist, and his characters.
Taken together, the current range of themes and forms in the work of Dmitry Ikonnikov make up a holistic, organic and vivid artistic phenomenon, that combines artistic traditions of different times, as happens in periods of artistic crisis, and imbues them with new discoveries. This was exactly the sort of period we found ourselves in at the turn of the 21st century, and it was Ikonnikov, puffing away on his pipe and with a crafty squint, who managed to capture this better and more accurately than many of his contemporaries.
Andrei Tolstoy
Professor of Art History
2010