Erik Bulatov

Acquired directly from the artist by a Swiss diplomat in Moscow in 1988

A gift from the above to his daughter circa 2005

Dating from 1988, the present work was painted during a crucial period in Erik Bulatov’s life. A series of solo exhibitions, the first of his career, in Switzerland, Germany, France and the Netherlands, led to his international recognition and success. The artist’s work, in which he had been addressing the absurdity of Soviet propaganda and the disconnect with reality since the early 1970s, suddenly hit the nerve of the time, when rapid changes were sweeping through the European continent.

The painting invokes the conventional system of traffic signs. Already in the early 1970s, Bulatov had started to included signal words in his compositions, overlaying landscape paintings with words such as Opasno (Danger) or Ostorozhno (Caution). In the mid-70s, with his seminal work Entrance - No Entrance, the subject takes on an exclusively written form. In Entrance - No Entrance, text is no longer a warning signal in conflict with the figurative element of the picture. Instead, the text itself is both conflicting and contradictory.

In the present work, words have been replaced by yellow arrows, painted onto the ground, pointing straight ahead and leading into the distance. They indicate rapid movement in one direction, perhaps into a yet unknown and uncertain future. Arrows appear in other works from the period, including Stop - Nonstop (1990, for an illustration see Erik Bulatov. Catalogue Raisonné, vol. I, 2011, no. 132, p. 145), which Bulatov painted onto the Berlin Wall as part of an international public art project. Here, a STOP sign is cut in half. This reveals a blue circle behind, to which white arrows are pointing. The work functions as a powerful metaphor for the move away from oppression towards freedom.

Yellow Arrows has been in the same family since it was acquired directly from the artist by a Swiss diplomat in Moscow, and it is offered here for sale for the first time.