Artistic Design in Soviet Tatarstan on the Example of “Group No. 17”

Abstract

The article is devoted to a little-studied page of the late Soviet art of Tatarstan: the activity of design artists of the 1970s-1990s — “Group No. 17” (E. Golubtsov, V. Nesterenko, A. Leukhin, O. Boyko, R. Safiullin, V. Vyaznikov, and A. Yakupov), whose works represented the characteristic features of the technical aesthetics of the Senezh studio. The purpose of the article is to identify the context and facts related to the creative activity of the participants of this association, outline their range of interests, and study their projects. The first part of the article analyses the activities of the Senezh studio and its influence on the formation of young artists, those of Tatarstan in particular. The second part of the article presents the history of the emergence of the “Group No. 17” creative association in Kazan, its composition, forms and principles of operation. The third part of the article is devoted to the creative heritage of the design artists. For the first time, an attempt is made to generalize and systematize both realized and unrealized projects of the association, some of which are characterized. The author of the article investigates the main approaches and the nature of the Tatarstan design artists’ creative activity and highlights the originality and value of the group’s design projects, which brought the world-class high aesthetics to the masses.

Keywords

• late soviet art
• soviet design
• artistic design
• art associations
• senezh seminars