Yankilevsky Vladimir
The image of the male profile depicted in the painting “Portrait of a Young Man” is often repeated in the works of Yankilevsky. This work of the early period artist is a kind of self-portrait, this image often appeared in later collages and paintings of the artist.
The head, returned to the profile, appears in the early works of the artist of the 60’s and soon in his paintings becomes a symbol, constantly compared to the female figure. The artist himself considers the painting “Portrait of a Young Man” the first work that became the ancestor of a huge series of works written throughout his career.
Vladimir Borisovich Yankilevsky was born in Moscow. The son of the artist Boris Yankilevsky, studied at the Moscow secondary art school at the Institute. Surikov. In 1956, a strong influence on V. Yankilevsky was made by the exhibition of works by Pablo Picasso in Moscow. A year later, he entered the Moscow Polygraphic Institute. He worked a lot in the field of book illustration. In his student years, he took lessons from Eli Belyutin, one of the first teachers of abstract impressionism in the Soviet Union. In 1962, V. Yankilevsky participated in the infamous exhibition in the Manege, where he presented several of his most important works (Pentaptich “Nuclear Station” and Triptych N2 “Two Beginnings”), was a member of the circle of unofficial artists of the so-called “Sretensky Boulevard” (E Unknown, J. Sooster, I. Kabakov, E. Bulatov). In 1965 he arranged a personal exhibition at the Institute of Biophysics at the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was banned and closed by the authorities a day later. In the same year, the artist participated in two scandalously closed exhibitions in the Scientific Centers of Dubna and Protvino. 1962-75 participates in numerous “informal” exhibitions in Moscow, including several solo exhibitions. Exhibitions took place in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Germany, Italy, France. In 1975, he participated in the first officially authorized exhibition of “informal” art, organized in the beekeeping pavilion at the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy in Moscow. In 1980, V. Yankilevsky again became a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR, earlier expelled from it in 1971. In 1990, the artist moved to New York, then in 1992 to Paris. Vladimir Yankilevsky held more than thirty solo exhibitions, including a retrospective exhibition in Moscow in 1978 and 1987, an exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Bochum in 1988 and the Paris Center for the Arts in 1998, and a retrospective exhibition at the State Tretyakov Gallery in 1995. His work was shown at the exhibition “Russia!” at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2005 and Bilbao in 2006
The most famous are his paintings and drawings in the spirit of fantasy, where among the energy fields, “landscapes of forces” some “cyborgs” or “mutants” are acquired. Vladimir Yankilevsky sees the world divided into two fundamental principles: male and female. The male principle is extremely mobile, not stable, dynamic, depicted in his paintings in profile, while the artist sees the feminine principle directly, portraying in front, endowing it with stability as the basis of female strength. The image of the male profile depicted in the painting “Portrait of a Young Man” is often repeated in the work of V. Yankilevsky. This work of the artist’s early period is a kind of self-portrait, this image often appeared in later collages and paintings of V. Yankilevsky. The head, turned in profile, appears in the artist’s early works of the 60s and soon in his paintings turns into a symbol that is constantly comparable to a female figure. The artist himself considers the painting “Portrait of a Young Man” to be the first work that became the ancestor of a huge series of works written throughout his career.
The works of Vladimir Yankilevsky are in museum collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin, State Russian Museum, Center Georges Pompidou (Paris, France), Prague National Gallery (Czech Republic), Museum of Fine Arts Budapest (Hungary), Dresden National Gallery (Germany), Ludwig Museum (Cologne, Germany), and also in other museum and private collections.