Pyotr Belenok

In Soviet Non-conformist art, Pyotr Belenok was a pioneer of photo-realism. In the 1960s he developed his

own variation of this international art trend, calling it panic realism. His collages, executed both on canvas and

on paper, reveal an almost cosmic space, invaded by gigantic vortexes, splashes and a small figure of a scared,

running man.

Exodus is a series of 150 works on paper created in 1969; the year marking the beginning of the mass emigration

of Soviet artists and intellectuals. During the next ten years many distinguished artists, musicians and scholars,

including Svayatoslav Rostropovich and Oscar Rabin, were forced to leave the country. The combination of the

dramatic rhythm of swirls with the fragile and vulnerable human figures makes Exodus a true political state-

ment about the tumultuous Brezhnev era.

Typical motif by the Russian artist in a gestural style of painting. Pyotr Belenok's figures move in cosmic spaces

in which they are pursued by phantoms and fictive creatures. Belenok deals with the human being of the mod-

ern society, which is haunted by uncontrollable catastrophes. Magma, rocks and extra-terrestrial substances

appear as threatening monsters overhead the people. Belenok once said about his works: 'Detailed observations

of the everyday person do not interest me; I observe the world and its problems from a neutral position in outer

space.'

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