TIMUR NOVIKOV

born 1958 in Leningrad

As early as 1977 Timur Novikov was a member of the "Chroniclers"

group. When it dissolved a short time afterwards Novikov founded

"The New Artists" (1982), which became known later as the "Club

of Friends of Mayakovsky".

In 1990 the "Movement for Beauty" was created, dedicated to Neo-

academism. More than any other movement, Neo-academism

demonstrated the influence of Novikov on the young scene in St.

Petersburg - and this became more intensive when he was

appointed director of the New Academy of Fine Arts in 1994.

Timur Novikov creates his pictures and photographs with a light,

graceful hand: minimalist but clearly devoted to aesthetics. He

also enjoys organizing exhibition projects from a conceptional

point of view. He developed his most unusual conception for the

marble palace in St. Petersburg; the Oscar Wilde Cycle, using

works by the photographers Pierre et Gilles and paying homage to

Tchaikovsky with a porcelain swan on a pedestal. He became known

to western audiences with his brilliant exhibition at the

Stedeljik Museum in Amsterdam in 1994. When he mounted an

exhibition in Berlin for the first time, the following comment

was made in one newspaper: "In the Raab Gallery there is an

exhibition of young artists from Leningrad who have stolen all

available materials from their mothers in order to make pictures

for the West." The works on show in the exhibition not only sold

well - the money was immediately invested in video equipment and

artistic materials. By then collectors in Berlin were delighted

to discover that the works on show in Berlin had been lent for

the Novikov exhibition by no less an institution than the

Stedeljik Museum.