Page 9 - Making Books

It is important to understand that Goppe did not come under the same banner, went mostly unnoticed by the
of age in the stagnant cultural environment of the So- people of the vast Soviet-Union.
viet Union; he was not raised on clandestine copies of
Nabokov’s Lolita, or Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. He The Soviet families in which Goppe grew up were not
belongs to a new generation that was the product of familiar with the Russian samizdat - self-publishing -
the tumultuous and excitingly diverse time of perestroi- editions, which were manually retyped in a limited num-
ka and the 1990s. As a young artist, Goppe could not ber of about five copies at most, as the carbon-paper
hope for a cushioned position in the old Soviet estab- would not allow for more . Those clandestine books
lishment, because it no longer existed. He realized that were small and hardly ever illustrated. It was content
he must undertake something new in order to create and not execution that was valued in these publica-
and define his own space in the new world of Russian tions. Professional publishing of private works, as was
art. His task was to add new space to the existing field, normal for artists’ books abroad, was not possible in the
to carefully balance between the old and the new and Soviet Union. All art that was not official in the USSR,
to call for innovation in expression. This means that, existed at the level of the kitchen or living room of the
when using text and imagery of the Russian Avant- precast concrete apartment buildings of the 1970s and
Garde of the 1910s and of the Moscow conceptualists 1980s. Goppe became involved with book printing and
of the 1970s, Goppe had to play by their rules, while book art seemingly by accident because he wanted to
trying at the same time to become a catalyst of transi- help a friend publish a book that had not passed cen-
tion, bridging time and space. Goppe’s initial sympathy sorship. The example of his fellow artist Leonid Tish-
for the uncensored literature of the Lianozovo group kov, whom he met in 1992 and who had already set
continues to this day. He is still interested in “trouble- up his own publishing house Dablus, convinced Goppe
makers” and likes to break out of political, aesthetic or that working with books and art was not only possible
any other convention. but that this field of art did fit him really well. Book art
has defined Goppe’s life ever since.
Before Perestroika, artists’ books were almost un-
known in Russia. In the Russia of the beginning of the In the first of almost three decades of his artist life of
twentieth century, the futuristic book was developed by making books, Goppe worked initially as an interior de-
the brothers Burliuk, Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Gon- signer furnishing official buildings. In his decorations,
charova, because artists and poets, art forms often co- tiles and ceramics played an important role. He had his
inciding in one and the same person, wanted to spread own ceramics studio at home, but also started his pub-
their artistic ideas and concepts to a broader audience. lishing house ‘V. Goppe,’ printing books with new po-
Not being able to find a publisher, they had to print etry and his own illustrations. In the year 2000, Goppe
their works themselves. Today, these printed works of published a catalogue of his works from this decade
art belong to the icons of Russian Avant-Garde. The (cat. 28), containing 94 items, 22 of which are ceramic
art of the Futurists was a free, uncontrolled and often sculptures or book objects made from clay or wood.
controversial art. The Stalinist idea of art was that of a Apart from 16 unique publications, Goppe printed and
state-controlled multiplication of words and images to published during this decade 56 books in editions rang-
propagate the communist ideas and their great leader. ing from 5 to 40 copies. His favourite techniques of il-
Here was no use for individual artistic expression. In lustrations were the linocut and the lithograph. His illus-
the 1950s, a first relaxation of the strict rules, known as trations to literary texts were narrative and decorative
the Khrushchev Thaw, led to a cautious re-discovery of rather than conceptual. The books were executed in
the art from the times before Stalin. But under Brezhnev the classical way of folded sheets, stapled into rect-
the Iron Curtain dropped again upon people and art, angular wrappers. Sometimes, as in Okna (cat. 10),
and the years of Stagnation, as they would eventually Goppe made a set of linocuts and put them in a carton
be called, saw the rise of the ‘samizdat,’ the self-pub- folder. Sometimes he used etching as a technique, or
lishing. Self-publishing artists Ry Nikonova and Serge engraving as in Bazar (cat. 9).
Segay were masters in redefining books as works of
art in Russia from the late 1960s onwards. Just as the His first three publications Goppe printed in 1990.
Avant-Garde poet Khlebnikov became a beacon for a These books are characteristic for his works of that time.
select number of followers in the 1910s, so Segay and The first book was a catalogue of his ceramics, sculp-
Nikonova were a source of inspiration for artists and tures and other plastic art created in 1989 and 1990.
poets of Russian conceptualism, especially for Dmitrii His second publication was a series of lithographs:
Prigov, in the 1970s. But their bookwork (as they like to The Museum of Love in Ulan-Bator. The sheets had a
call their works of art) was not widely known, and their printed border including a title and were filled with vari-
efforts to demonstrate that a book and a book-object ous drawings and water colours (cat. 1). His third book
are two very different things and as a rule cannot be put was a selection of works by five poets from Kineshma.
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