the object of coverage coming out of the country. well next it is the art of defiance as we put an artist who has become a legend in his own life time into the spotlight. the biggest issues get. face to face with the news makers. today will talk about art. called one of those rarely

born artists who become a legend in their own. his paintings can be found in top museums around the world his sculptures become landmarks such as the london new york san francisco of course moscow and st petersburg there's also a producer a filmmaker and what not my guest today is. a legend the risk call to the artist in painter his explosive three has led him to become one of the most acclaimed contemporary russian artists worldwide. he was expelled from the art school for failing to. she was expelled from our school for failing to conform to socialist realist norms. worked with. was subjected to compulsory treatment at the mental institution which was the

standard dealing with ideological dissidents at that time. she said. moved to new york in one thousand nine hundred nine the return of the work to russia began with the first exhibition there since he went into exile to continue to work in russian. political repressions and to the architects and builders of st petersburg to painting segues into national museums cultures and. today. mr xi thanks for coming to our program. let's walk down memory lane a bit we all know that you were expelled from the soviet union the nine hundred seventy one. of the citizenship.

what was your fishel reason for expelling you from the country. since i was not one of the chosen people. was quite a complicated one. i was arrested and then taken to the kind of state security for a so-called chat. explained to me that i had three options. first option which was to go into a man to asylum where i spent half a year. no it was the office of clinic us which was an experimental clinic actually one of the most horrible wants as it was under the jurisdiction of the state security services. they tested new psychotropic medication on us. did help. my mom hadn't gotten out on bail as i disabled i think i would have spent three years there she was told that she should be expecting her son back no sooner than

three years later and he says he would actually i wouldn't have the honor of talking to you today b.c. of the usually people left that place in a state of deadheads to go straight into the hospital for people with chronic diseases. who would you feel when you took those medications know if you're well it's not that we actually took them it was different all the time i was in an almost twilight state when they said there is experiments for example they would who'd had films on my head and shout out the names of western artists with gross mistakes. instead of picasso for example but they would say because of. my sense of humor help me i mean conscious. so they would shine the names together with things like modeling the land followed by a bride flashes of light i was seated in front of a huge color screen with some stripes moving on it in different ways. there could be complete darkness and then suddenly the screen would burst with right such were

some of the experiments. to me don't you think there's something like that yes when that's why when i got to france my friends advised me not to watch that movie because they knew my story though when i did watch it i found many similarities. so basically if they wanted to see creepy over your personality and your intellect . you see they try to catch us i mean the young people and to help us stick to the truth cough they first tried to crush us in certain organizations and read us. but them when they saw that you didn't give in a psychiatrist would give a cue if. the kid should be considered as if you were to dilution to western principles or not or your general of socialist thrillers or something else then you weren't

a dissident as such right now but i have always protested against being called a dissident you know no it wasn't like that with you i don't like it when someone says that she knockin is a dissident dissenting i was actually involved in very simple things like studying russian icons but it was considered as interest and mr says though it was also into group there was a book called at his group written by an author from the german democratic republic at those it was a very distressing fascination i don't know if you know anything about his books but he writes a lot about crucifixion to me using a very expressive catechism etc the main crime was my interest in a rented wall that says on sicily it was considered a crime yeah even if you were interested in impressionist because they praise the buddha ideology moreover every want to. make it a pain to the naked and gay people so when you were expelled from the soviet union nine hundred seventy one. before we start talking about. the

socialist literalism that you basically denied because as your word you sanction the soviet union which is now becoming very trying to special in the west its words fashionable in moscow and actual in russia people like that kind of warred that's. doesn't it make you said. you see i have never been opposed to socialist realism. on the contrary when perestroika began the small knowing the russian nature i was one of the first to write a letter to the ministry of culture warning them against bringing down the monuments over russia and suggested preserving the ones that are made by some real . like any. tomsky as works of aat. some of you know that people started to smash down stalin monuments and monuments

of a different political leaders. but those were done by some real. i actually seriously defend the school of socialist realism. because i had teachers like an amazing illustrator it was illustrations callao bring young to the truman rely on to come with him. the teacher was you know she was an amazing theatrical monster. i have always admired for. so i think what happened back then was a big mistake. russia is known for its extreme decisions. but it gets union collapsed was tragically what happened too quickly. and immediately everything that it was connected with it was declared very bad. well on the other hand it's well deserved when its. people also destroyed all the.

destroyed tortures. that's what they call you know it's in the old world. that's why i suggested not to denounce it so quickly because those sculptures were true masters of the school socialist realism. if you can't decide special order things which are clearly trouble again. the school of socialist realism world even if the world doesn't you know about it yet. greet a number of truly great. britain russia has all the rise to be proud of that. parody on that school like a world of meet this a lot of and sort of. for instance in the distorted linnean hugging mickey mouse and the marilyn monroe kissing stalin. or an almost pornographic by comrade unlimited well the naked stalin on the top of a naked lenin with little girls there as well. it's

a mess to take off what was going on. on the one hand it might be needed but it really has nothing to do with the serious school of socialist realism in. your story with fifty dollars it. has already be comically share. it with fifty bucks and. i didn't go to america i went to france. fifty dollars in your pocket when you got to france which was what hundred fifty francs at the time. was it hard to find your place you had to find in any local artist seen the artistic establishment did you feel like no one needs you over there. my fate was a difficult one in the sense. that but almost nine hundred seventy want. i was a vision of mine it was held by dint of it and his gallery and you know very nice

a well known gallery going to my old school my muse who because she was his muse cleaned up his entire property. to some litigation but she laid her hands on all his house his duty is everything he had ever created in his lifetime. something of a lady's anything by. poor good out. of our own stalk if you use it might not be today i'm. well we did she was in love with me and my work. came to france. and gave me as a gift a small shutoff and trumbull here. three days later she king to the chateau with a contract for ten years even though i was an absolute good as they say in russia today that is in the market. i was wise enough to see she was out to milk me. under its terms i was supposed to do as i was told. i had to give up my quest in

the area of metaphysical synthesis i was only allowed to do a gallon scenes and still lives because they were sold better than anything so on and so forth. do you mean you. refused to sign your contract. which you know i gave the chateau de up when i returned and three days later after reading the contract i said to my dear girls in my wonderous creature my sweet roly-poly i'm giving you back the key. planted blue and dreams of us travelling in india me seeing the world and not for me. i want exchange a plane or a gilded one. left for the great wide world to the screams about any crawling back in three days on my knees. she was yelling i was a soviet but not in the west jungle i would soon learn what it was like. but i said

to her proudly precisely because i'm a soviet my pride is a special one that i won't come back to you either on my knees or otherwise. spotlight will be back shortly after a break stay with. more

news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images cold world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to corporations rule the day. welcome back to spotlight i am just a reminder that today we're talking about all right my guest on the show is. that you said you had come to france with two hundred something francs in your pocket you and you're rich compared to your i'm

a christian to do you wish to offer you a contract for twenty years but here you're gone i know that and you would through to the altar darker so with what was left of your friends is that yes the states are you sure you didn't make it always cool or was it because of something green in your ability russian nature of five years i had handled some most strenuous and nested jobs summit your old girl in the club i was a menial work hematological and that implied that you did the dirtiest and hardest jobs that i bought it i bought a look at a script i was a hand to the city scrapyard surreal image with a pair of rubber boots on and a pitchfork in my hands i had to move restaurant and saw that eating house waste. so what i was handling those heavy speech after the first of may but it's because the first of my pattern rates were held in the palace where waialae and eleven other guys were in charge of the palace square of what they do with us so it was absolutely out of the question that i'd be scared of hard physical work there was

more than double the most important thing for me was my freedom to go to them and when the only encroached up on the holy of holies my creative freedom which was my conscious choice after all so i could have joined the artists union i could have made good money as a black and white artist i think i'm but did your really feel you support your first encounter with non freedom in the sheeple that contrary to your really feel that you war in the free world after all that the west did truly boast their freedom which the song. yes of course absolute freedom. of land. everywhere and you know still beyond that numerous as lenin's. for another and you fairly well that the conditions where i lived were just appalling there was no heating the windows were smashed. and painted the walls as good as i managed. there was no kitchen. anything. it was an abandoned me where i began my new life

and i was happy i was happy for one simple reason because i knew that no one would invade my friend says without even a search warrant no one would drum machine my books easels and letters at six in the morning and i knew that i wouldn't be taken for questioning in a van with the word up read on it as it happened. and most importantly i wouldn't be confined to a madhouse they didn't get me with god knows what in short i was wall when it happened. and where money or poverty was concerned i wasn't frightened at all i didn't come to us from the sky i didn't think i was a genius. because you said i didn't. know i'm describing the frame of mind i was in shock. and i found the other way about it . nor would i make a new shows

a ball. just marking time the big problem with some guys because at that time we were all nonconformists and had the same status regardless of how good. skills were but when we began making it to the west became clear that some were not quite so good painters others not so good sculptors and such from differences cropped up for me knowing full well that if i had to take a renewal take it without. thinking twice i even have an article entitled. i keep it in my. famous worldwide fame mr artist by the way one of his latest project is a full length career tune based on hoffman's fairy tales spotlights you know all the details. the fantasy world of hoffman is coming alive in the russian.

idea he's made. the famous adduced has been cherishing it since the mind in six days the stream has turned into the biggest project that there were films has worked on since the collapse of the soviet union no computer animation or special effects are used on the stop motion with its unique atmosphere to created shoemaking had to first make sketches for the one hundred fifty characters in the seventy eight minute. vision of hoffman's world is want to be trusted the russian audience has never denied the german writers in france. hoffman himself is the main character in the new cartoon during his lifetime he found refuge in the true work likewise the animated hoffman is travelling in the mystical world of his own tales which is produced in his own imagination. this particular fairy tale for children is also becoming this. should escape from real life.

you've been working on for some time now on the small orange film there's the you know. the fairy tale rider so many areas you could call it you promised it would hit their screens in two thousand and nine any time soon. the problem as usual. when making a piece by piece ten or fifteen minutes a film and then wait for the sponsors should all wait for the government to shell out it was not mostly this. the entire project has been stalled for several years because the russian government collects the money to sponsor the project. what is a ballpark figure that goes into fooling. peanuts i don't even say how much it was really never let me know but i know the conditions we've been working in. the little why don't you invest some of your and money. usually i have nothing but debts. i be quite happy for what i have in my pockets.

because it's used to each new not a new maureen's key theatre. not only that stage five bali's. yes. why do you like this german officer so much. let me explain the song of a very jealous woman and company and possibly even half of the family with my actress model and when he fell in love with her. hand in marriage under the condition that she'd follow him to the battle for. two and a half years my mother served with my father's cavalry division it was during the war during the war. but when your humble servant was conceived to the rule of cannons the time came for my mother to give birth i was sent to moscow

where i was born. after my birth mother again went to join father taking me along. the division of the baggage train and thus reached today's a kaliningrad where i grew up. at the. beginning. my father was the military commander. back became kaliningrad and the germans were removed my father was sand for the service to saxony. grew up in germany. nineteen fifty eight. my mother a well educated person was fond of the german romantics. and it was the german dramatics writings. the fairy tales influence in my mind. not the others. but i see the green brothers too they're not quite in the romantic category while. tales of white cruel. there is little romanticism in them and much

fantasy. you handle many productions including as a theatrical designer. what is your attitude more than music you seem to be a man who'd rather use something composed in our day. or would you. more in music there's a stylistic. you know you're not quite right there because my second larry. the magic not and elaborates as it were in the not correct. it is its first act at the y. and not cracka became the not correct but it was heels of several choreographers to fit it into a tchaikovsky score the most but it was unbearably tough it was illegible. he stood a story of the prince's spittle a part of the story of the magic of not a cracker to what he had decided to make a new scenario and i wrote

a new libretto. and i lost a friend who in my youth is in a very good we have a hard poser in the positive sense of the word sergei slim's. drive to school to my libretto for his wally but the more. system some unimaginable sounds and. i simply didn't know it. was like me to. prosecuted for not writing all the right way. when you were made an appearance in a mosque i mean those with children just people started saying that she knocking nice preaching supposed to give people education. do you really believe in this. week or are you more soup for you for all the art for art's sake approach.

he wants. to read. they would not have been such tyrants. truth it's a nice phrase and an interesting one. sometimes say that god can change mankind i didn't even change some individual people but i'm more involved and interested. but cannot position itself is a sort of messiah. and i don't think of myself as a missionary. i think that we do things that are required by the presence of hospice ayatollah's living. by society or yourself. but i cannot leave it without thought but you know there were times when i was painted at night and worked as a menial work enjoying the day time clearing snow knew for sure that my paintings would not be exhibited and would not make any money and i could not and still cannot live without it as a real artist. thank you thank you very much and just

a reminder that. it was my guest on this show today and that's it for now from all of us here if you want to have your lights or. think. that's it for now we'll be back tomorrow with more first. take. twenty years ago the largest country in the world to certain traces of. what had been trying. to teach began a journey. where did it take them. well

in search of progress emergency crews are looking for the unmanned a russian freighter that was taking supplies to the international space station but crashed back to earth in syberia. and different priorities rebels in libya may be focused on the capture of colonel gadhafi but western nations are rushing to get a slice of the country's oil pipe under the new government. and caught up in the information war while the u.s. and the e.u. are pushing for more sanctions against syria and journalists on the ground say there's a lack of objective coverage coming out of the country. well good evening it is ten am here in the russian capital i'm lucy catherine of and of course.