EDUARD Semenovich GOROKHOVSKY (1929, Vinnytsia, now Ukraine - 2004, Frankfurt am Main, Germany). The classicist of Moscow conceptualism, the founder of the domestic “photo-based art”. The artist called a piece of paper and canvas "my unlimited space." The exhibition presents drawings, watercolors, etchings, collages, photograms, sheets of graphics, made in mixed media.
A lot of articles have been written about Eduard Gorokhovsky, a number of catalogs of his exhibitions have been published, so it seemed to us valuable to quote the artist’s statements about himself and his work. E. Gorokhovsky wrote: “I am convinced that art is created by some higher powers with the hands that these powers choose. Often the owner of these hands is not adequate to what they create, this misalignment can cause a poor impression of the exhibition and the presence of the author. These two things, the works themselves and their author, are so separated fr om each other that it is better for the author to stay away from his works." (For the exhibition in The State Russian Museum, 2004). From the exhibition catalogue "The Square, again the Square", 2001: " ... I have somehow become entrenched in the idea that a significant work of art has many degrees of freedom, whereas a mediocre work has only one. This is the timeless value of the thing that constantly gives an impulse to reflection, provoking its own judgment and interpretation.” E. Gorokhovsky recalled: “I graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of The Odessa Civil Engineering Institute in 1954 with honours, but my architectural career ended two years later in Novosibirsk, wh ere I was sent to work. I went into a free, but risky voyage into the ocean called "fine art". I started with a book illustration.”
E. Gorokhovsky moved to Moscow from Siberia in 1974, having met in 1972 a group of artists called “Sretensky Boulevard”. Here is what he wrote about that time: “Then, in the sixties and seventies, unofficial art was truly free, since it was not exhibited, not sold, and was absolutely not ideologized. Later, when Perestroika began, this art ceased to be a political and ideological crime; it, as it should be, turned into a commodity and gained its monetary value... The seventies were filled with the intensive work on the search for a new plastic expressiveness. Constant communication of artists with each other, discussion of what was done, friendly debates yielded results. Any exhibitions or publications at that time were out of the question. I think that everything done by that group of artists (I. Kabakov, V. Pivovarov, E. Bulatov and others) is characterized by purity and selflessness. That art was truly free. Then, together with Perestroika the difficult, painful process of Russian art integration into the world culture began.”
In 1973-1974, the artist’s creative concept and his own individual method were formed, represented by the manipulation of photography. In 1974 he painted a picture (canvas/oil) for the first time, being until that moment exclusively a graphic artist. Actually, from that time the phenomenon has appeared, or in the modern slang the “brand” Gorokhovsky. Eduard Gorokhovsky participated in about 250 exhibitions, his works are in museums and private collections around the world.
Open Studios
Free of Charge 
Starts at 10:00 