Victor Tsoi's works apart from music

Viktor Tsoi is one of the key figures of Russian rock. His work with the band Kino is practically folk and the musician's fanbase continues to grow.

The rocker's death has had significant However, many years later, new sides of Victor's personality are revealed to fans and listeners. During his life, the vocalist and guitarist managed not only to become a successful performer and songwriter, but also to influence the underground of St Petersburg as a artist. This side of Tsoi's work, as well as other works besides music, will be discussed in the article.

"Kamchatka" among the pipes

By the mid-'80s, the band "Cinema." The Leningrad rock scene, and, although the members of the collective completely focused on creating music and recording new works, such an "underground" existence could not go unnoticed.

It was common in the Union to suppress idleness, and so unemployed people could get into the behind bars. Such an account was also destined for Victor, who had no permanent job. In 1986, a producer and one of the founders of the legendary Leningrad rock club got a job in the boiler room of a house on Blokhin Street Sergey FirsovAfter a while, he invited Victor Tsoi to work for him. In one of the interviews, Firsov clarified that Tsoi's previous job prevented him from conducting concert life; he worked part-time as a washerman in a bathhouse, and his working hours fell in the late evening. The musician was torn between performing and working part-time, so Victor had to choose a job as a stoker in a boiler room "Kamchatka.".

"Kamchatka" soon became a creative haven Many famous faces of Russian rock: Alexander Bashlachev, Andrei Mashnin and other musicians and creators fleeing from the article "for idleness". Usually, Firsov and Tsoi invited their comrades to the boiler room because they could devote a few hours to work, and then create.

Many of the rock crowd of the 80s went to work in "Kamchatka" not because of their love for hard labour, but, you could say, because of the particular the atmosphere reigning within the walls of the boiler room. According to Sergei's recollections, the resting place was the "sandwich shop", where the musicians not only spent their free time, but also gathered to discuss the issues at hand creative moments. Thus, in this small room, songs were created, concepts of new rock bands were thought up, and the plot of the film "Needle", which became the sixth in Tsoi's career as an actor, was considered.

About two For many years Victor worked as a stoker. Later, the musician admitted that this job was not attractive to him, so he did not hesitate to gonewhen the opportunity presented itself. Tsoi said that at that time he had to find some kind of work to avoid being imprisoned.

Education is not a vocation

Victor went straight from school to the college, where he was taught the basics of the artistic of the craft. His talent would later develop into paintingsthat Tsoi creates in his spare time.

However, his abilities were not lost after the expulsion, and the future leader of "Kino" entered vocational school for a profession woodcarver. Although Tsoi did complete his studies, he only received a certificate of graduation due to failure, but was sent to work in the workshop at the Catherine Palace. However, even there the musician did not stay long, having fulfilled several assignments and abandoned the distribution.

Although Victor didn't become a graduate, he did learn how to cut out figurines netsukewhich he has perfected to the point of automatism, and also created from wood. crafts for his loved ones. The musician excelled in smaller works, but he also performed more large-scale works. The arch, made by Viktor as his graduation thesis, decorates one of the corridors of the Kino leader's former place of study.

Artistic thoughts

Victor was not only a born musician, but also a artist. The talents were apparent in childhood, and in his youth and adolescence Victor often created atypical paintings, leaning towards avant-garde and primitivist aesthetics in his creations.

A very important milestone in the musician's creative life was the union of the "Emerging Artists."Tsoi is still an important figure in St Petersburg. Tsoi is still an important figure in St. Petersburg's music scene artistic underground of the 80s, and the first landmark appearance of his work was an exhibition in the United States in 1988.

However, his potential developed rapidly from 1988 to 1990, when Victor moved to Moscow. Here he had more time and opportunity to write: he started working on more large He used canvases and more professional materials, and closer to the ninetieth year he worked exclusively with acrylics brought from foreign trips. The St. Petersburg period of creativity was spent under the auspices of creating new even for art theorists, despite the fact that Tsoi's work was on a small scale.

Even then, there was already a great deal of liaison of Victor's works and expressionists, neoclassicists and primitivists, and art historian Anastasia Postrigay noted that Tsoi's works are very close in expression to the works of the American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Also the technique used by the leader of "Kino" refers a little to the work of Van Gogh, who in his paintings preferred expression with contour and colour.

Big exhibition of Viktor Tsoi's works was held in 2020. The musician's lover Natalia Razlogova provided the organisers with a huge number of canvases written by the singer in the late 80s and shortly before his death. The main theme of the exhibition was the assertion that if the rocker had remained alive, he would have shown himself as a artist as much as a musician. Dmitry Mishenin, who facilitated the creation of the collection, stated that an important point in the creation was to show Tsoi the artist as a driving force of underground visual art.

There was a significant impact on the obscurity of the paintings demise musician, as he had no time to present them to the public himself, and it was not until twenty years later that the opportunity came to show the creations the maestro of Russian rock. After moving to the capital, Tsoi ceased to be part of the circle of St. Petersburg artists, and his work did not appear practically anywhere except for some instances where his paintings were used for the cover of the tribute album We're Out of the Movies and for the New Romantics exhibition.

Two years after this exhibition, the project was launched "Viktor Tsoi: the way of the hero"which represented biopic exhibition. It showcased works created by the musician throughout his life and collected by Victor's close friends and family. Of great importance was the fact that the view of the exhibits was carried out by people from other cultures: Joanna Stingray, Rashid Nugmanov, Joel Bastener and others. This helped in a new way to see the musician's work and discern of Tsoi the musician and Tsoi the artist.

Victor was undoubtedly talent in every sense, and this is clearly evident in his music as well as in his visual art. An innovator and expressive realist, he was able to express his thoughts through one of the most complex of arts - canvas painting. Despite the fact that the artistic experience of the musician for a long time has not been noticed by the masses, now fans of the leader of "Kino" have the opportunity to learn another side of the souls Victor Tsoi.