OLEG VASSILIEV | First Walk After the Winter

signed and titled in Cyrillic and dated '1989' on the reverseoil on canvas‘We were interested in white as the holy light and as emptiness – not emptiness as death or nothingness, but as… an infinite space of light which is very positive, warm, with sacred energy… This is the metaphysical space in our world.’ (Ilya Kabakov quoted in ‘Memory Speaks (Themes and Variations)’ Oleg Vassiliev, Ilya Kabakov and Erik Bulatov: three names often mentioned in the same breath as being at the heart of Moscow conceptualism at its inception in the late 1960s and early 1970s. All three made their living producing illustrations for Soviet publishing houses while privately pursuing their vocation as independent artists, each facing up to the challenge of how to transcend Soviet reality in their work. Of the three, Vassiliev is the least overtly political in his work. Elegiac, nostalgic, mysterious, metaphysical are all adjectives commonly applied to his paintings, which seem primarily concerned with exploring questions of time, space and light. ‘Light can overcome time as if swimming against the current’ he wrote, and it is this ‘seepage of the transcendental into the here and now’ as Robert Storr puts it, that makes paintings such as 'First Walk after the Winter' so mesmerizing.

Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above in December 1989

Original canvas. There are some handling marks to the edges, a few very minor lines of craquelure and some minor staining to the center of the right edge. There is a very light dent to the center of the left edge. There is a very light layer of surface dirt and one or two flecks of dirt to the sky area. Otherwise in overall very good condition. Unframed.
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