Andrey Bartenev. Biography, creativity, personal life

What do you know about a contemporary artist named Andrey Bartenev? We do not rule out that our readers still know little about this original creator. Despite the fact that he often appears on TV screens as an eminent guest of some talk show, ordinary people, far from the life of artistic bohemia, for the most part are completely unaware of either his work or his biography. We propose to fill in the gaps in knowledge and get to know the personality of this extraordinary, unlike anyone else person.

Who is he?

If we talk about belonging to a particular profession, then it’s so simple, you can’t define it in one word. Painter? Yes, you could probably say that. Bartenev is also a director, designer, fashion designer, sculptor and even a bit of a writer. All of the listed creative interests are included in the circle professional activity Andrey Bartenev.

He has a unique capacity for work and talent, dresses in bright outrageous costumes, wears colorful balloons and other unusual items on his head. He says that he sees fantastic dreams at night and has the ability to move to neighboring galaxies. He never changes his creative creed and does what he wants. Moreover, Andrei does not try to explain to others what he wanted to say or show in his installations, saying that his strong point is visualization, but the interpretation of what he saw is already the lot of the audience.

Today Andrey Bartenev's works are exhibited in the best foreign galleries. And he himself is more often abroad than at home in Russia. Here, as already mentioned, he is little known general public, but abroad, our unrecognized genius is literally carried on their hands.

short biography

Andrei Bartenev was born in the city of Norilsk in 1969. He tells reporters that as a child he dreamed of learning to play the piano, but, alas, the cramped conditions of the Soviet communal apartment did not allow him to place a bulky musical instrument in the apartment.

When the young man was 16 years old, he left his native Norilsk and went to study at the Art Institute of Krasnodar. There he acquired the profession of theater director. Well, then the future master of shocking went to conquer the capital. His artistic career began in Moscow in the late eighties.

Perhaps because Andrey spent all his childhood in the north, surrounded by white snows, he began to use in his work only bright colors. And the materials for the first art works were glass jars and plastic bottles illuminated by LEDs. In the early 90s, he, as they say, "fell into the stream" - the domestic cultural world, stunned by the unexpectedly surging freedom, discovered new opportunities and names for itself.

Andrei Bartenev first became famous in 1992, thanks to a performance he staged called "Botanical Ballet". This work received the Grand Prix at the Riga festival. In 1996 Bartenev became a member of the Moscow Union of Artists.

Performances by Andrey Bartenev

The master's unusual dynamic performances are especially popular with the audience. Seeing his sensational staging" The Snow Queen", foreign art critics wrote that his works combine fashion, art and performance art and revive the spirit of the Russian theatrical avant-garde of the 1920s. The Snow Queen performance featured moving sculptures and objects decorated with geometric shapes green, pink and bright orange. This reminded the foreign audience of Malevich and Kandinsky and caused delight.

Another world-famous performance by Andrey is called "I love you!". It is a kind of construction of many huge speakers, located one after another along a meandering line. The viewer is invited to pronounce the cherished words and then watch how they, having lived a short life, return to him with a reciprocal confession.

Andrey Bartenev: exhibition in Moscow

In 2015, a retrospective of Andrey Bartenev's works was presented to the audience. The exhibition was located in two buildings - so much space was needed to show the creative universe of the master, which he has been creating for 25 years.

As always, Bartenev's art installations were not static. The unifying element at that memorable exhibition was movement - shimmering, rotating and sounding objects turned the exposition space into a single mechanism under the control of the author of this splendor.

Andrey Bartenev: personal life

Journalists have repeatedly tried to find out from Andrey Bartenev about his personal life, but the artist always gets off with playful phrases and does not let anyone into his personal space. Our hero claims that he was truly in love only once in his life, and that was in kindergarten.

Once Bartenev even took part in the program "Let's Get Married" as a groom. But, as usual, in jest. Andrey himself could not be seen under the suit of huge yellow corn, huddled on top of him. And the release of that program was New Year's and entertaining.

"White crow"

Andrei Bartenev, whose photo you can evaluate in our article, has always felt like a "black sheep" in the community of people. He becomes a sensation always and everywhere, wherever he appears - so extraordinary are all his creative projects and the whole look is unusual.

To maintain your appearance Andrei has to spend an extremely lot of energy, because this is one of the main parts of his image. The combination of the most unimaginable elements in clothing, coupled with incredible colors and cuts, is his signature style. The layman literally plunges into shock at the sight of a man in a strange hat, an orange coat with apples and wonderfully shaped glasses.

The artist himself is a little upset that he is abroad appearance causes positive and curiosity among others, and in Russia often - aggression (several times the artist was attacked on the street with the aim of beating).

Final word

How good it is that among us sometimes there are such personalities as Andrei Bartenev - an artist who is not afraid of free expression. Often, very talented people are hiding behind a strange outrageous appearance, who simply cannot be like everyone else.

Russian artist, sculptor, designer, actionist, experimenter and creator of many provocative exhibitions and performances.

Andrey Bartenev. Biography and creative path

Andrey Bartenev was born in Norilsk in October 1965 in ordinary family living in a communal apartment. As a child, he dreamed of getting a musical education, but living conditions did not allow him to place a large piano at home. AT early years all his work, according to Bartenev, was limited to plasticine and scissors: the boy sculpted various figures and created collages from colored paper.

After graduating from school, Bartenev moved to Krasnodar, where he entered the Institute of Arts at the Faculty of Theater Directing. He worked in his specialty for about six months, after which he arrived in Moscow in the late 1980s, where he soon met the outrageous Zhanna Aguzarova. According to Andrei, the then director of the singer Sergei Gagarin helped him start his career in the capital.

Andrey Bartenev: Then there were world-famous acquaintances - Andrew Logan, Paco Rabanne, Calvin Klein, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Robert Wilson, Zandra Rose ... They became not only my good acquaintances and friends, but also an example of how you can model your life " . I love to dress and live according to my imagination... I dress the way I want to. Moreover, if in any European country my appearance causes benevolent curiosity, then in Russia a bright and unusual appearance provokes aggression.

At the beginning creative way Andrei was guided by the Russian classics and avant-garde of 1911-1914. In the mid-90s, Bartenev dedicated one of his performances to the avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich.

In 1992, at the festival in Riga, Andrey Bartenev was awarded the Grand Prix for his project Botanical Ballet.

Having gained popularity, Andrey became more and more a participant in various music festivals, arranging multimedia performances. In addition, the area of ​​​​occupation of the designer and fashion designer Bartenev: graphics, sculpture design, writing. He conducts master classes both in Russia and abroad - in America, Britain, etc. European countries. At one time he taught at the theater academy in Norway at the faculty of scenography.

Of particular interest to the audience are the unusual dynamic performances of Andrei, whose works are in Russian and foreign galleries, private collections, exhibited in major museums of contemporary art abroad. Among his brainchildren: the exhibition “Love haute couture!”, the illustration festival “Institute of Smile”, the projects “Sleeping Beauties”, “ Mineral water”,“ Underwear for Africa ”,“ Botanical Ballet ”,“ The Snow Queen ”, which, like other works, shocked foreign art critics.

Among the world-famous performances of Bartenev is the project “I love you!”, which is a dimensional structure of many huge speakers. They are located one after another along a curve. The spectator, pronouncing the cherished words, observes how the phrase, which lives a short life, returns back.

In 2015, Andrey presented a retrospective of his works created by the author over a quarter of a century at the Museum of Modern Art in Moscow.

Andrey Bartenev: I love public spaces: stadiums, shops, airports. I don't mind filling them with my shapes. How more people see them, the more they will be charged with my understanding of friendship and love.

In 2016, for example, Andrei's exhibition entitled "Give love!" opened in the shopping and entertainment center of the capital Kuntsevo Plaza. In the same year he worked as artistic director galleries "Here on Taganka", where he made successful exhibitions "Feet in the water, head in the clouds" and "Portraits happy people which were attended by a record number of people.

Andrei Bartenev is a member of the Union of Artists and the Academy of Fools of Vyacheslav Polunin.

At the end of February 2017, it became known that Bartenev would temporarily take the “throne” from March 1, on which, as part of the Fashion Sentence program on Channel One, fashion historian Alexander Vasilyev had been sitting since the summer of 2009, who replaced the former popular TV presenter in this place show Vyacheslav Zaitsev, who left the project for health reasons.

Artist, sculptor, fashion designer Andrey Bartenev was born in Norilsk back in 1969. The boy's childhood passed in a communal apartment. Andrei himself recalls that time as hungry and cold. And he calls his pets his main inspiration of those times.

Bartenev received his education at the Institute of Culture in Krasnodar. After graduation, he leaves for Sochi, where he becomes successful artist, creator of exhibitions and performances.

In the 90s, Andrei flew to Moscow by plane from Adler. He was met by Sergei Gagarin, director of the Bravo group. He not only introduced Andrei to his friends, but also told him how to live in Moscow. Gagarin advised Bartenev to dress more extravagantly. Andrei quickly realized what his Sochi charm lacked. Adding a little bit of a flea market, he easily fit into the circle of Moscow bohemia. First of all, Andrei went with his graphic works to Malaya Gruzinskaya, where the Exhibitions Committee was located at that time. There he was immediately accepted, and he met such people as German Vinogradov, Petlyura, and many other talented artists of that time. Their first group exhibition was also held there. On the advice of his new friends, Bartenev went to the Mars Gallery, where it all began.

Creativity Andrey Bartenev

Andrei's first big project of that time was "Rampage on Mount Ana-Dyr to the singing of Nikitinsky fish", in which he curated an exhibition of Sochi and Moscow artists. Bartenev himself danced on that project to the sound of music with a feather from the Sochi peacock. Then in the early 90s, all the newspapers wrote about Bartenev.

Bartenev's triumph in Europe began in 1993. There, Andrey with his Botanical Ballet gets into the reportage of Stern magazine. A full-page photo of Andrei, where he is all in buttons, standing in the subway with a glass flower and Andrew Logan's brooches, has spread all over the world. There was a call from the wife of Yuri Vizbor, who informed Andrei that he was invited to the festival in Frankfurt am Main. Later, Bartenev traveled non-stop to all cities in Europe, and in 1995 ended up in London, where he lived for the next 10 years.

In the 2000s, Bartenev moved away from large museums and galleries, and performance became his priority. His works in this genre have bypassed all the leading venues in the world.

Botanical ballet is one of Bartenev's most famous performances, with which he received the Grand Prix in 1992 in Jurmala at the "Untamed Fashion Assembly". He imitates the children's game of "sculpt from the snow" using cardboard and papier-march.

Another no less famous work of the master is the production of The Snow Queen. This whimsical performance of incredible fantasy uses colorful moving sculptures and objects. This work reminded the foreign public of the work of Kandinsky.

Another sensational performance by Bartenev is called “I love you!”. The spectators utter these three words, which then, with the help of a long row of huge speakers, arranged in a meandering line, return to him.

Personal life

Despite his kindness, smile and friendliness, Andrei tries not to let anyone into his personal life. It is known that he has no children. And the closest person has always been my mother, who passed away a few years ago.

Andrey Bartenev is a shocking artist, designer, fashion designer, and TV presenter. Russian creator of interactive installations and scandalous performances. Since 1996 Andrei has been a member of the Moscow Union of Artists.

Biography

The biography of Andrei Bartenev begins in Norilsk in 1965. From childhood, the boy was drawn to creativity: he dreamed of learning to play the piano, but since the Bartenevs lived extremely modestly, they could not afford such an expensive instrument. The family lived in a small room in a provincial communal apartment. But Andrei's craving for beauty has not disappeared anywhere: he begins to draw, sculpt, create collages and engage in other creative leisure.

After graduating from the 10th grade at the age of 16, Andrei Bartenev leaves his native city and goes to study at the Krasnodar Institute of Arts, where a few years later he receives the profession of a theater director. The south struck the artist with its warmth and riot of colors - in contrast to the cold northern Norilsk with its polar nights, eternal snows and the mysterious northern lights in the sky, Krasnodar seemed like a real tropical paradise. This greatly influenced not only the perception of the world of Andrei Bartenev, but also the perception of color and painting in general. His work has become something more than just painting. Andrei focused on the dynamics in his works, which became advantageous for him in the future - for good luck, this coincided with the ideas of the era into which the artist organically merged.

Moscow: first successes

Already at the age of 20, a young man goes to Moscow at the personal invitation of Zhanna Aguzarova and her director. Once in the capital, the already accomplished young artist Andrei Bartenev begins to actively cooperate and communicate with various young groups in different areas art and creativity. During this period, he staged his first performances, which immediately attracted the attention of not only eminent critics, but also ordinary onlookers who had not previously heard of the young talent.

Later, at the Mars Gallery, Bartenev exhibited his first serious works together with his friend Petliura. The list of Andrey Bartenev's works includes "The Great Koryak Gull" and "Rampage on Ana-Dyr Mountain to the Singing of Nikitinsky Fishes". At the same time, the author's performance "Botanical Ballet" was such a resounding success that Andrei goes to the festival in Riga, where he receives the Grand Prix for his performance.

world attention

The foreign press of the 90s watched with curiosity the development of the creativity of the eccentric Russian. Europe was delighted with his style of conducting performances, which resembled the works of the era of Russian avant-garde and futurism. But not only abroad noticed the talent of the impudent author - in 1996 Bartenev was admitted to the Union of Moscow Artists.

In the 2000s, Andrei Bartenev was invited to work at the Watermill center in the Hamptons by the founder of this organization, Robert Wilson. In the USA, Andrey demonstrated one of his most recognizable works - "Red Staircase". Real opera singers and orchestra members took part in this show, but instead of musical instruments they used empty tin cans. In addition, performers threw pasta from the balcony to the stage, which made a special impression on the audience.

In the West, performance art has emerged as a separate discipline. The Russian designer was able to find like-minded people among the representatives of the foreign artistic elite. Among his friends are such bright personalities as Calvin Klein, Paco Robanne, Zandra Rose, Andrew Logan, Robert Wilson, Jean Paul Gaultier and many others.

Bartenev-teacher

Bartenev himself believes that he is a born teacher: almost at the very beginning of his creative activity he received his first disciples. Perhaps this was facilitated by his experience as a pioneer leader in children's camps. Andrei always managed to establish social contacts and find mutual language with almost everyone he meets. Bartenev's students now receive high marks from their contemporaries, work as artists and set designers in well-known groups in the USA and Europe.

Creation

Andrey Bartenev paints his paintings in mixed media, resorting to decoupage, graphics, pastel painting, collage. Among the most famous works artist - "Self-portrait in a wedding dress of a bird of paradise", "Calmness of two clowns", "Girl with two fireworks", "Portrait in boots", "Self-portrait in the role of Arnold Nijinsky", "I am a fairy, I am a beautiful fairy". Stylistically, his paintings are inclined to an extreme degree of abstraction, and his sculptures completely drive the ordinary man in the street crazy.

However, the artist manifests himself truly widely by creating spectacular performances. Among his most famous performances are "Faust", "The Snow Queen", "Underwear for Africa", "Sleeping Beauties". Andrey also took on the role of the organizer of the Smile Institute illustration festival, as well as the Love Couture! exhibition. His performances have always been a resounding success, attracting the curious eyes of art critics and ordinary art lovers.

Theatre of Drama

Such a versatile creative person as Andrei Bartenev could not help but try himself as a theater actor. Back in the early 2000s, being on a sharp rise in his career, he took part in the production of Shlem.com, recreated based on the novel by the notorious and also extremely eccentric writer Viktor Pelevin. In this experimental performance, the authors set themselves the goal of combining the performance itself with video projection and communication of viewers in the Internet space. The production took part in the NET Festival of Contemporary Art, but the show did not have the expected success and did not impress the critics. However, this event showed Bartenev as an artist who is in continuous search for new means of self-expression and non-obvious forms of art.

fashion designer

Most Russian viewers know the artist as a shocking designer Andrei Bartenev, who often appears in the media in his bright and amazing outfits. Andrei regularly participates in social events, where he appears in unusual costumes. He can be found in a giant berry costume or a fantasy costume that resembles the appearance of an alien. Tall (184 cm), the artist looks much younger than his years, which he actively uses, being an excellent model for his author's experimental outfits. But no matter how strange Andrei looks in his amazing costumes, it always looks impeccably stylish, although categorically unusual. As if descended from fabulously futuristic illustrations, Bartenev catches the eye, shattering the familiar picture of the ordinary world. Perhaps that is why Andrei Bartenev became one of the temporary presenters in "Fashionable Sentence" - for an unusually subtle sense of beauty and a bold approach to everyday things.

Personal life

Andrei Bartenev carefully hides his personal life. In some interviews, however, he says that in a parallel world he has a friendly and a strong family consisting of three husbands and one wife. It is difficult to understand whether the artist is joking or speaking seriously - with such original personalities, in general, it is often difficult to figure out what's what. But as for children, he has no offspring even in this " parallel reality". Perhaps this is because the fashion designer himself remains a child at heart. Speaking of real family: Not so long ago, Bartenev lost his mother, who was the closest person to him. The artist experienced this loss hard, but with his inherent share of bitter optimism and a bright look into the future.

Bartenev now

Today, Bartenev's art actions are held in the capital, mainly in entertainment centers. The eccentric chose a riot of colors, a lot of bright balloons and various lighting effects in his tools. All Bartenev's works, especially the most recent ones, are filled with joy and positive emotions. The costumes of the latest performances are distinguished by modesty and simplicity - they are designed primarily not to interfere with the free movement of the actors.

In 2016, Andrey held several actions: “Give love!”, “Portraits of happy people”, “Feet in the water, head in the clouds”. These performances were a resounding success and the maximum return of the viewer.

At the beginning of 2017, the viewers of the first channel were delighted with the news that Andrey Bartenyev, who would replace Alexander Vasilyev, would become the new host of the Fashion Sentence program. But Andrei was taken only as a temporary host, but he managed to collect several wonderful images and helped the participants of the show to reveal themselves personally.

An eccentric fashion designer and designer, artist and actor, teacher and author of wonderful articles on the history of art, Andrey Bartenev not only shocks the public, but also puts deep meaning into his work. The tastes of the artist in choosing outfits can be treated differently, but it is foolish to deny that, one way or another, he has a unique sense of style, on the verge of alien, unearthly. Be that as it may, Andrey continues to create, focusing on an exceptionally positive impression, for which he is worth thanking: in this sometimes gloomy world, such a crazy bit of joy can not only shake and encourage, but also make you believe that the world is not so monotonous and boring, as it seemed earlier.