“ In the 1950’s and 1960’s I was in my 20’s and I’ve tried to make a living as a painter. I painted stillife pieces which were sold through an art studio (which was state-sanctioned gallery ran through the artists’ union). I painted several stillifes on canvas and brought them to the art studio, and they sold righ away.”

“The pay was miserable, and this income was not consistent. So I have decided to earn more through ceramics. I started to learn more about ceramics, built the necessary equipment in my art studio, including the ovens. Ceramics was never utilitarian to me.”

“Every plate I made, however I used as a flat surface, akin to canvas, so every plate was a canvas/cardboard. I thought of ceramics the same way i thought of painting. I understood that in ceramics I was allowed to do what I was not allowed to do in painting (since within the Soviet Union abstract art was pretty much unlawful, with the only type of painting allowed – social realism – the painting style of the Party. Anyone not adhering to the style was destroyed (somtimes literally)). So I found ceramics to be as an “outlet.” The Communist and KGB leaders which would oversee every aspect of Soviet life at the time would consider ceramics as “craft” or “folk” art. Because of this, in ceramics I could be an abstract paintert that I could not be. My ceramics were not figurative and I could be true to myself and escape the constraints emposed on artists at the time. In the Soviet Union avant-garde painting was forbidden. Even impressionists were considered “avant-garde.” Natural forms and social realism were favored.” – Alexander Kedrin

This is part 1 of the 4-part video to be uploaded . It is entirely in Russian, I will try to add subtitles later.

Ceramic Piece

2×5 Meters each (depth 35-40 centimeters), two similar reliefs/sculptures standing next to each other.

This was the first abstract (non-figurative) sculpture in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, which at the time wa part of the Soviet Union.

Banya “Khamom” (Public bathhouse entrance) in Tashkent. The project was a collaboration with a russian architect Andrey Stanislavovich Kosinski, erected around the year 1979. The relief above the entrance is 90cm in diameter. The monochrome photograph actually depicts a color relief, with red and gold. The relief actually represents the streets of Tashkent, with the buildings originally designed by Kosinski.  Inside the actual building, the facade of which is depicted here, there were a dozen of plates on the walls. The building has been demolished during the current “reconstruction” of the capital of Uzbekistan, so the final fate of the relief is unknown.

This building was the only one, besides the Bogdan Khmelnitsky prospect of buildings designed by Andrei Kosinksi. While he had multiple, very beautiful projects designed for the capital, only these two where approved.

This was the first series of ceramic ornamental plates, with some influences of traditional art of Uzbekistan, that I have made. They were made in my studio. Later on, larger works were made at the studio at home, but some were fired at a ceramics factory.

This work also represents one of the first times that I have collaborated with an architect (Leonid Comissar).

Click on the image for larger view.

-Alexander Kedrin.