Alexandr Zhdanov; Soviet Dissident Artist and Barfly
Hyfler/Rosner
July 22, 2006 Saturday
Matt Schudel
Alexandr Zhdanov;
Soviet Dissident Artist and D.C. Barfly
Alexandr Zhdanov, a Soviet dissident artist whose life and work were
marked by difficulty, defiance, determination and more than a touch of
madness, died July 18 of a heart ailment at Howard University Hospital.
He was 68.
In the 1970s and 1980s, he was part of a group of independent-minded
underground artists who challenged the authority of the Soviet Union's
communist officials and sometimes paid a bitter price for rebellion.
His uncompromising stance as an artist and as a free-thinking dissident
reached the gates of the U.S. Embassy. Then, two years before
perestroika brought an end to the Soviet regime, he was thrown out of
his homeland.
In 1989, Mr. Zhdanov settled in Washington, where he made haunting,
sometimes grotesque, paintings and built a reputation as a serious
artist and an often-drunk bohemian. Known to all as Sasha, he was
burly, wore a white beard and spoke only a few rudimentary words of
English, most of them profane. He often appeared in Adams Morgan bars
with fresh paintings rolled under his arm, then bartered his artwork
for vodka, ranted in Russian, leapt on bandstands and left his
acquaintances puzzled, angered and charmed by his mercurial presence.
"He was that raw, authentic beatnik species," said Stefan Sullivan, a
Washington writer who first met Mr. Zhdanov in Moscow shortly before he
was expelled from the Soviet Union.
"He was sort of like a dancing bear," said Bill Duggan, owner of
Madam's Organ, the Adams Morgan restaurant where Mr. Zhdanov went
almost every night, when he wasn't banned from the place. "He could
look like a little kid with a glint in his eye, or he could look like
the devil."
As an artist, Mr. Zhdanov adopted an expressionistic style to depict
the stark landscapes he knew during his youth in the southern part of
the Soviet Union and Siberia. His early works were often dark and
earthy, but in the United States he discovered bright acrylic paints,
which brought a new light to his work. He had shows in galleries across
the country, and dozens of his pieces hang in a collection of Soviet
dissident art at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University in New
Jersey.
Some of Mr. Zhdanov's work was purely abstract, and he painted rugged,
de Kooning-like portraits. But he was best known for his brooding
nocturnal landscapes, which featured the moon, leafless trees and
mysterious figures lurking in the gloom. He said the figures
represented Pan, the mischievous Greek god of the wild, but some
observers saw them as veiled images of himself.
"It was as if people were fleeing through the forest at night," said
Alla Rogers, a Washington gallery owner who gave Mr. Zhdanov a solo
exhibition in the early 1990s but refused to take him on as a regular
client because he was so hard to deal with.
"As crazy as he was, he was not a vicious person," Rogers said. "He led
a very difficult life, but he was a dedicated artist and he was true to
his vision, always."
Alexandr Pavlovich Zhdanov was born Jan. 11, 1938, in Vyoshenskaya,
Soviet Union. His ancestors were Cossacks, a group known for its
combative independence, and his father was a member of the Soviet
military.
Mr. Zhdanov was expelled four times from the Grekov Art School in
Rostov-on-the-Don but managed to graduate after six years. In 1973, he
moved to Moscow and within a year was part of a group of artists who
used a wooden fence as an exhibition until authorities knocked it down.
The incident, which became known as the "Bulldozer Exhibit," was among
the first overt acts of defiance by Moscow's artistic underground.
In 1982, Mr. Zhdanov's stepdaughter, a member of the Soviet Olympic
synchronized swimming team, defected and made her way to Virginia.
Authorities offered Mr. Zhdanov a studio and a dacha if he would demand
that she return, but he refused.
"I didn't want privileges from those scum," he told The Washington Post
in 1993, spitting for emphasis. "I only wanted to paint, or to be
heaved out with my art. Worse than taking me out and shooting me, they
spit on me."
During the 1980s, his vigorous artwork was featured on U.S. television
news, yet he was not allowed to show his work in official galleries or
museums. He and his wife, Galina Gerasimova, staged periodic hunger
strikes, and on Oct. 22, 1987, they chained themselves to a tree
outside the gate of the U.S. Embassy.
Soviet agents handcuffed them together and dragged them away, breaking
Gerasimova's leg in the process. They were banished for "artistic
incompatibility with the Soviet Union" and given a month to leave the
country.
After living for about year in the Russian immigrant community of
Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, N.Y., they moved to Washington and
eventually settled in a rough neighborhood on North Capitol Street.
Gerasimova, a mathematician in the Soviet Union, cleaned houses and
looked after children to support her husband as he struggled to restart
his career.
After the collapse of communism in 1989, his art was exhibited in
prestigious Moscow galleries, and in 1993 his former country gave him a
one-man exhibition at the Russian Embassy.
His changing fortunes only left Mr. Zhdanov embittered. He alleged that
the State Department, in a conspiracy with the KGB and CIA, refused to
turn over 1,500 paintings he left in Moscow. His wife wrote hundreds of
letters and once marched with a sandwich board in front of the White
House to rally support for her husband. The State Department could find
no evidence of an agreement, and many of the paintings were later found
intact in a Moscow apartment.
On the open market, his paintings have sold for almost $50,000, but Mr.
Zhdanov had a way of undercutting his best interests. He quarreled with
gallery owners, sometimes demanded that collectors return his paintings
and often sold artworks worth thousands for a $50 bar tab.
"He had the arrogance of someone a little bit removed from reality,
which he was," said Rogers, the art dealer.
In recent years, Mr. Zhdanov often retreated to paint at a small house
near Front Royal, Va., but the rural peace was almost too much for him.
Soon enough, he would be back at Madam's Organ with more paintings to
sell.
"In the 15 years I've had that bar," said Duggan, the owner of Madam's
Organ, "he never bought a drink or a meal -- and he earned every one."
Survivors include his wife, of Washington; his stepdaughter, Vassa
Olson of Locust Grove, Va.; and two grandchildren.