YA Project · Interview by Natalia Yankovskaya
Artist Igor Bitman: 40 Years in France — from banned exhibitions in Soviet Moscow to awards from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris
A conversation with the artist on unofficial art, emigration, painting and photography.
You were one of the youngest artists in the unofficial art movement. How did those forbidden exhibitions take place?
Artists who did not conform to Socialist Realism were not recognised by the authorities and could not exhibit in official spaces. The first exhibitions therefore took place in private flats—the so-called kvartirniki. In 1974 artists decided to exhibit outdoors on the outskirts of Moscow. The exhibition was destroyed by bulldozers, becoming known as the Bulldozer Exhibition: a brutal confrontation between the state and the new unofficial art.
How did you enter this milieu?
I was about twenty and probably the youngest. My father took me to an apartment exhibition near Kyiv railway station, organised by the artist Iosif Kiblitsky. I told him that I had finished art school and did not want to follow the canons of Socialist Realism. He invited me to bring a painting to the next exhibition; it sold immediately. Foreign journalists and diplomats were among the first buyers of unofficial art, and I began taking part in many of these apartment exhibitions.
You participated in the authorised VDNKh exhibition of 1975. What do you remember?
An organising committee included me because, as the youngest, I had no record with the political police. On the eve of the opening, works were prohibited and conditions multiplied; we negotiated with the Ministry of Culture through the night. The censorship could be absurd: a mounted bird was refused because its open wings might suggest the double-headed eagle; works signed in Yiddish were considered suspicious. Yet the exhibition opened, drawing an immense crowd, and became a major event for Moscow and for unofficial art.
What led you to leave the Soviet Union?
After a police check outside the Venezuelan embassy, the KGB invited me to ‘cooperate’ by reporting on my contacts. I withdrew from public events and exhibitions, then decided to leave. At the time the only legal route was the Jewish emigration channel, with a long and uncertain waiting period. I worked on portrait commissions and theatre sets while waiting for an exit visa.
What was the first stage of emigration?
My sister and I spent almost a year in Rome before choosing Canada, where it was possible to regularise one’s status more quickly. In Montreal we received support from Canada and Quebec, free French courses were available, and work could be found. After three years we obtained Canadian citizenship. I worked successfully with a gallery there, but I always wanted to live in Europe.
Why did you settle in France?
I left Canada for France in 1986 and settled permanently the following year. My French life began at the Cité Internationale des Arts, at a very creative time for the institution. In the late 1980s I experienced a decisive crisis: my postmodern paintings were full of literary references, almost like riddles for educated viewers. I stopped working for a year and reconsidered everything, even though that work had been commercially successful.
How did your European career develop?
For many years three excellent galleries promoted my work: one in Italy, one in France and one in the Netherlands. Between about 1995 and 2012, life seemed perfectly established. The 2008 crisis in Italy, a change of direction in the Netherlands and the eventual closure of the Paris gallery made sales increasingly difficult. In the United States I refused an exclusive contract that required sixty works a year when I could make at most twenty; today a small American photography gallery represents my photographic work.
What did China bring to your work?
In 2019 I joined a Franco-Chinese artists’ exchange in Suzhou. The city’s canals reminded me of Delft, and the energy of the organisers was striking: in twenty-four hours they assembled, framed and installed an exhibition, printed invitations and posters, and distributed them throughout the city. A portrait of a young Chinese student who was also my interpreter became the exhibition poster and was the only work sold. The experience awakened a lasting interest in Chinese art.
Do you consider yourself equally a painter and a photographer?
I do not know whether it is in equal measure, but over the last ten years I have continued my search for beauty through photography. From the beginning, photography was part of my creative process and often served as a form of sketching. Encouraged by photographers, I allowed it to become an autonomous practice: a parallel path through which I can continue my work by other means.