Victor Tsoi's works besides music

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

The rocker's death had Significant The singer and guitarist managed not only to become a successful performer and songwriter, but also to have an impact on the underground scene in St. Petersburg. 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 painter. 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-1980s, the group «Kino» has gained a foothold on the Leningrad rock scene, and although the members of the group fully focused on creating music and recording new works, such an "underground" existence could not go unnoticed.

In the Soviet Union there was a widespread crackdown on loafing, so unemployed people could get behind bars. Such was the fate of 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 on Blokhin Street Sergey FirsovFirsov, who after some time invited Victor Tsoi to work for him. In one of his interviews, Firsov said that Tsoi's previous work prevented him from leading concert life; he worked part-time as a bathhouse cleaner, and his working hours fell late into the evening. The musician had to be torn between gigs and moonlighting, so Victor had to choose a job as a stoker in a boiler room "Kamchatka.".

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

Many of the rock crowd of the 1980s went to work at Kamchatka not for love of hard work, but, one might say, because of special The atmosphere that reigned within the walls of the boiler room. According to Sergei's recollections, the "sandwich room," where musicians not only spent their free time, but also gathered to discuss 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 the career of Tsoi the actor, was thought over.

About two Victor worked as a stoker for a number of years. The musician later confessed that this job was not attractive to him, so he did not hesitate to goneWhen the opportunity presented itself. Tsoi noted that at that time he had to find at least some kind of work in order to avoid being imprisoned.

Education is not a vocation

Victor immediately after high school entered a college, where he was taught the basics of artistic craft. His talent would later develop into paintingswhich Tsoi creates in his spare time away from music.

However, his abilities were not lost after the expulsion, and the future leader of "Kino" entered a vocational school in the profession wood carver. Although Tsoi did graduate, he received only a certificate of graduation due to failure, but was sent to work at the workshop at the Catherine Palace. However, the musician did not stay there long either, completing several assignments and dropping out of the distribution.

Although Victor did not become a certified specialist, he did learn how to carve figurines netsukeI've perfected the creation of which I've also created from wood, which I've crafts for his loved ones. Smaller works were excellent for the musician, but he also performed more extensive works. The arch, made by Victor as his graduation work, decorates one of the corridors of the former place of study of the leader of "Kino".

Artistic Thoughts

Victor was not only a born musician, but also artist. The talent was already apparent in childhood, and in his youth and young adulthood Victor often created atypical The artist's paintings, leaning toward avant-garde and primitivist aesthetics in his creations.

A very important milestone in the creative life of the musician was the merger of "New Artists."The main characteristic of Tsoi's work is the fact that he is still an important figure in St. Petersburg. Tsoi is still an important figure in the St. Petersburg artistic The first landmark appearance of his work was an exhibition in the U.S. 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 began to work for more large I was working with more professional canvases and materials, and by the nineties I was working exclusively with acrylics, which I had brought back from trips abroad. The St. Petersburg period of creativity passed under the auspices of creating new even for art theorists, despite the fact that Tsoi did work on a small scale.

Even then there was a great deal of connection Victor's works and expressionists, neoclassics 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" is a bit of a reference to the work of Van Gogh, who preferred in his paintings the expression of outline and color.

Big exhibition of Victor Tsoi's works was held in 2020. Natalya Razlogova, the musician's lover, provided the organizers with a huge number of canvases painted by the vocalist in the late 1980s 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 painter as much as the musician. Dmitry Mishenin, who contributed to the creation of the collection, claimed that an important point in the creation was to show Tsoi the artist as driving force of underground visual art.

Significantly affected the obscurity of the paintings doom musician, because he did not have time to present them to the public himself, and only twenty years later had the opportunity to show creations the master of Russian rock. After his move to the capital, Tsoi ceased to be part of the circle of St. Petersburg artists, and his art appeared almost nowhere else but some instances when his paintings were used for the cover of the tribute album "We Came Out of the Movies" and for the exhibition "New Romantics.

Two years after this exhibition, the project "Victor Tsoi: The Hero's Way"which is baiopic exhibition. It featured works created by the musician throughout his life and collected by close friends of Victor and his family. It is of great importance that the view of the exhibits was carried out by people of other cultures: Joanna Stingray, Rashid Nugmanov, Joel Bastener and others. This helped to in a new way to see the work of the musician and Distinguish the personalities of Tsoi the musician and Tsoi the artist.

Victor was unquestionably talent in every sense, and this can be clearly seen 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 arts - painting. Despite the fact that the musician's artistic experience for a long time was not noticed by the masses, now fans of the leader of "Kino" have the opportunity to learn another side souls Victor Tsoi.