Grisha Bruskin
Russian-American artist Grisha Bruskin is deeply engaged with the mythologies of Judaism and Communism. During the 1970s and 80s, he was an underground artist in the former Soviet Union. Despite prohibitions against Jewish study and without a formal religious education, Bruskin learned Hebrew, Talmud, and Kabbalah as a means of psychic escape. In the Alefbet (1984) and Alefbet-Lexicon (1987) painting series, Bruskin uses a Hasidic text as background. Uniform figures wearing religious dress (prayer shawls, yarmulkes, tfillin) indicate holiness and faith in God. Each figure possesses an accessory or attribute such as a pair of wings, a lightning bolt, a cluster of grapes, etc.. All of the types make up a collection of mythic characters or symbols. Bruskin intended that the work be used for prolonged meditation and study. As critic Boris Groys points out, "Bruskin reviews the process of the twilight of the Soviet empire from the perspective of the New Testament, promising the decline and fall of all empires. But at that time he was enthralled above all by the aesthetic aspect of this decline: the aesthetics of the fall as it was."
Bruskin was born in Russia in 1945. Between 1963 and 1968, he studied at the Moscow Textile …
Russian-American artist Grisha Bruskin is deeply engaged with the mythologies of Judaism and Communism. During the 1970s and 80s, he was an underground artist in the former Soviet Union. Despite prohibitions against Jewish study and without a formal religious education, Bruskin learned Hebrew, Talmud, and Kabbalah as a means of psychic escape. In the Alefbet (1984) and Alefbet-Lexicon (1987) painting series, Bruskin uses a Hasidic text as background. Uniform figures wearing religious dress (prayer shawls, yarmulkes, tfillin) indicate holiness and faith in God. Each figure possesses an accessory or attribute such as a pair of wings, a lightning bolt, a cluster of grapes, etc.. All of the types make up a collection of mythic characters or symbols. Bruskin intended that the work be used for prolonged meditation and study. As critic Boris Groys points out, "Bruskin reviews the process of the twilight of the Soviet empire from the perspective of the New Testament, promising the decline and fall of all empires. But at that time he was enthralled above all by the aesthetic aspect of this decline: the aesthetics of the fall as it was."
Bruskin was born in Russia in 1945. Between 1963 and 1968, he studied at the Moscow Textile Institute, and in 1969, he became a member of the Artists' Union of the USSR. Bruskin's participation in the famous 1988 Moscow Sotheby's auction in Moscow brought him international renown when his piece, Fundamental Lexicon (1986), which depicted figures carrying emblems of official Soviet culture brought together on huge plates, was sold for a record price. He immigrated to New York in 1988. Bruskin has exhibited internationally. His most recent solo shows include Grisha Bruskin: Twilight of the Gods at Marlborough Gallery in New York and Grisha Bruskin: Alefbet, Tapestry Project at State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.
Courtesy of RoGallery.com
