VLADIMIR NEUSTROEV

BIOGRAPHY

Vladimir Neustroev was born in 1948 and grew up during the 1960s and was influenced by the artistic culture of the time. Art turned into a vehicle for dogmas and other agendas, with Pop and Minimalism appearing concurrently as the most defining art movements of the decade. Pop Art in New York city embraced the culture of mass media and mass consumerism, with Artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Tom Wesselmann getting inspired by television, comic strips, billboards and other products of the rise of Capitalism for their artworks. On the other side of the country, the West Coast in California, the first elements of what would be known as Conceptual art were blossoming. The astronomical impact of the 1960s was truly astonishing across the globe. Representative of a time inspiring both hope and anger, the 1960s triggered an outburst of new ideologies and movements, truly exciting and spectacular. Historically established in the context of the Cold War, which would have a highly powerful impact globally, mainly defined by the Iron Curtain separating Europe both physically and spiritually, and significantly marked by the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The 1960s re-defined all pre-existing expectations on gender, race and justice, questioned education as well as morality and selfhood – for instance through the civil rights movement and second wave of feminism, as well as student political uprisings. The significant boom of mass consumerism also defined the era, engendering new trends in marketing and advertising. Minimalism developed the crucial idea that art should exist in its own reality, and not try to represent the physical world. Born of a desire to obliterate all pre-established notions about art, Minimalism turned into a radically progressive movement, highly influential worldwide, with artists such as Frank Stella, Donald Judd and Dan Flavin as key actors. Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland and Helen Frankenthaler were artists who sought to delve into some of the most fundamental ideologies of Abstract Expressionism, while eliminating the emotional and highly personal aspect it would often associated with it. This led to the creation of Colour Field painting, deeply relating to Minimalism. Minimalism became influential through the works of artists such as Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley, while Pop art was a fundamental by-product of the latter, at the same time critiquing and glorifying popular culture. The iconic contemporary art movements that echoed through the wave of radicalism of the 1960s also had their own nuances and scopes, particular to different regions or countries. Spatialism, for instance, was established in Italy by Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni, and its ideologies adopted by the Zero group in Germany. Throughout Europe, the ideologies of Existentialism deeply influenced artists such as Francis Bacon and Alberto Giacometti, who sought to depict the raw human emotions often associated with reflections on death and the lingering angst of the meaninglessness of life.