COLLAGE IN THE NEW ART

ROOTS. Where should one search for the origin of the new collage?
A shrewd critic would hide them in the dark depths of history or say he has never seen anything like it. The technique is both old and new. It doesn't need mentioning: a folk quilt, Soviet avant-garde, folk conceptualism. Let's save paper on the arguments. Today collage is real. It has entered our lives, taken its deserved place.
COLLAGE IN MUSIC. It's beyond doubt that modern radio and television taught us not to mind it when the news is broadcast straight after Beethoven. That collision of the information of conflicting nature happens all the time. We get bored every time we notice likeness. However, combining ready forms has apparent advantages. Stravinsky and Shostakovich were inclined to use collage, but they lacked technical means. Kurekhin is bringing their ideas to life, while still clutching at the orchestra in his hands. Verichev has nothing but technical means. Collage is gaining momentum and starting to blossom. "Nulleviks" use everything there is, and end up with a desert. Non-computer trends (Tegin, Novikov, Vinogradov), having given up the traditional sound-making, combine their own achievements, keeping imitation in mind.
COLLAGE IN CINEMA. Popular music goes no further than impetuous sound montage. New cinematography, though very young, can't help using collage. Kondratyev, Ovchinnikov, Kotelnikov, Yufit, Verichev demonstrate some inter-linkage but they do so not without television. Helpless video threatens cinema from within its cradle; professional cinematography is consumed with attracting an audience.
PAINTING AND COLLAGE. This field of creativity has gathered most adherents. We find here those whom we already know from music and cinematography. The reason for turning to collage doesn't always lie in its efficiency, but rather in the expressiveness of the method. So, the technique draws together more and more forces. Cherkasov has ploughed up his own strip by the side. Filonov has grown a whole school of followers (Vermishev, Savinsky). Larionov got his fingers in the pie (coll. Sotnikov). Kotelnikov and Novikov were accomplices in this business as well: after having dug through the dustbin of American pop-art they blended it with the aesthetism that they had inherited from the sophisticated century. Koshelokhov dropped collage too soon and now his heirs - anti-anesthetists (Bugayev, Inal, Kozin and Maslov) are fighting with Kotelnikov for the right to catch it. The naive school (Batishchev, Tager's scholars, Zakhar, Gutsevich) is catching up with the makers of handicraft by its side.
Shutov, Kozlov, Vermishev, Ovchinnikov, Novikov - all work with a prettiness that is so well-calculated that it is almost computer-made. Taratuta, Krisanov, Guryanov, Allakhov, Reuter, Bogomolov, Chernobay, Borisov, Ovchinnikov, Belkin, Mitki.... complete the list with your own names.
PROSPECTS. Technicism is volumes of work as endless as they are useless. Lack of technicism is losing to the wear of time. Spreading the front wider is everybody's wish; the youngest are doomed to retaliate in return, but then: they are still too young.

Potapov. 1986