Explore: APTART 1982-84

In the first APTART exhibition, also known as the “Autumn Show”, took place in the apartment of Nikita Alekseev, which was the base for many APTART activities. In the image below, we see the window on the back wall of the apartment covered in fabric to provide space for artworks. During the inaugural exhibition, this area was dominated by the work of SZ (Victor Skersis and Vadim Zakharov), mostly from their Produktsiia (Production) series. Courtesy George Kiesewalter.

Hanging from the ceiling were pans as part of SZ’s work Headbutts. On the right, Stul ne dlia vas – stul dlia vsekh (A Chair is Not for You, A Chair is for Everyone, 1982) by TOTART (Natalia Abalakova and Anatoly Zhigalov). Courtesy Archive of Margarita and Victor Tupitsyn. The rear wall of the apartment 433 featured many works by the Mukhomor group (see image below). These included the mixed-media sculpture Roman (Novel, 1982), an attempt to transform a refrigerator into a conceptual ‘novel’. Its plot was distributed across the refrigerator’s door, panels and internal shelves, and expressed via variously coloured text, images and objects.
Courtesy Archive of Margarita and Victor Tupitsyn