A State of Unrest in Soviet Art : Works from the former Communist nation are being brought to the United States, but the market has been weaker than expected

Scenes from inside the Soviet Union were scattered everywhere at the Ayzenberg Gallery, hanging against the high walls like strange windows into a fast-splintering nation. On one canvas, painter Aleksei Sundukov’s scene of calm claustrophobia had the masses crowded and colorless in their gray coats and hats, accented only by the red of their lips, Communist Party symbols and mysterious wounds.

Elsewhere, the image of a strong woman standing proudly against a tall field of wheat shared wall space with abstract landscapes and a blood-red expression of raw sexual tension. And wandering cheerfully through all this was Dr. Rupert Perrin, ready for the night’s celebration of this first showing of contemporary Soviet art from his collection.

The dozens of paintings surrounding him at the La Cienega Boulevard gallery were only a small part of the estimated 1,500 works culled from the former Soviet republics and crowded into the rooms, hallways, closets, cupboards and basement of Perrin’s seven-bedroom Los Angeles home. This collection had been his obsession since the mid-1980s.

“People hear about Soviet art, but they are not aware of the quality of the work from most of these artists,” Perrin said in November. “It’s all a question of exposure. I’m as convinced now as I was five years ago, when I really went into collecting it rather aggressively.”

This show was also an important one for the Ayzenberg Gallery, which had opened two years ago with the intention of dealing exclusively in new art from the Soviet Union, now the Commonwealth of Independent States. But the combination of a weakened American economy and some skepticism about the value of new Soviet art caused a less-than-expected interest from local collectors, forcing the Ayzenberg to broaden its repertoire to include California and other artists.

The multi-city Nakhamkin Gallery, a chain specializing in contemporary Soviet art, already had closed virtually all its locations, including the one on Rodeo Drive. Other dealers in the relatively young Soviet art market met the same fate, many of them victims of what some veteran art dealers labeled as hype or a fad that was based more on interest generated by dramatic political events than by aesthetic value.

“We expected interest to be bigger for Russian art,” said Michael Ayzenberg, owner of the Ayzenberg Gallery. “The American public saw Russian art as a fad. . . . Interest was, and is, there for Russian art, but I think because it’s Russian, not because it’s art.”

Consequently, Perrin finally was moved to show--and sell--some of the Soviet art collection he had spent the last several years gathering. Perrin said he hoped to mount a larger show of about 200 works this spring. The European art community has proven more open to the artwork, the collector said, noting that Sotheby’s has opened an office in Moscow.

If art from the former Soviet Union “is not accepted, then that’s a big mistake,” argued Jennifer Jaskowiak, exhibitions coordinator for USC’s Fisher Gallery, which has become a strong supporter of art from St. Petersburg, formerly Leningrad.

A year ago, the Fisher Gallery presented “Keepers of the Flame: Unofficial Artists of Leningrad,” a group show of paintings by 25 dissident Leningrad artists. And on Jan. 15, the gallery opened a solo exhibition of paintings and installation works by Sergei Bugaev, another Leningrad artist who is better known as Afrika.

“Some of the new artists coming out of Leningrad do need some attention,” Jaskowiak said. “Not because they’re from Leningrad, and not because they come from a country that is going through so much turmoil--but to see if they’ve got the staying power.”

Ironically, by the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the future Soviet Union had established an influential and highly valued tradition of modern art accomplishment, including the avant-garde paintings of Russian expatriate Marc Chagall. And in the early days of the Soviet Union, artists were encouraged toward experimental expression, in what many hoped would be an art that further broke with existing class distinctions.

Famed painter, photographer and graphic designer Aleksandr Rodchenko was a creative leader in the new agitprop--agitation and propaganda. And thousands of avant-garde posters were issued by the government from 1917 to 1923, most of them illustrating blunt messages about patriotism with dynamic strokes of abstract constructionism.

But by the 1930s, Stalin had decreed any art not sanctioned by the state a crime, and many from the Soviet avant-garde movement were killed in purges. The only allowed purpose for art in the Soviet Union was to reinforce state power. All that was left was the uniquely Soviet style of Social Realism, which generally depicted the happy worker, or “healthy, strong women, life is beautiful,” said Ayzenberg, who was born in Kiev. That genre now represents “dark times.”

“It was second nature for people to do this Social Realism, and to accept it,” he added. “So for a while, it was all the artists knew how or thought of doing. Maybe they did think of doing something new or experimental, but they would never say it. They were afraid.”

That atmosphere would change dramatically by the mid-1980s with former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s perestroika , or policies of openness.

The legacy of the early Soviet Union’s avant-garde poster design was the subject of an exhibition last year at what is now the steve turner gallery on Beverly Boulevard at Fairfax Avenue. The show collected rare posters from the time of the revolution and after, most of it abstract propaganda that gallery owner Steve Turner said could be “difficult to understand.”

Turner still deals in the Russian avant-garde, including posters by Michael Dlugacz, work that enjoys broad critical and academic support. But in judging the contemporary work now emerging from the Commonwealth of Independent States, Turner said bluntly: “I don’t take it seriously yet. . . . I personally haven’t been impressed by 99% of what I’ve seen.”

He added that while in London two years ago, he was approached by about 25 people who each pulled him aside and said: “You like Russian art? Come with me; I’ve got Russian art.” And then Turner would be led to a parked car filled with paintings.

“I do think there is a skepticism among dealers,” Turner said of the established galleries. “It doesn’t mean there isn’t good stuff. And it’s unfair to judge them before giving them a chance. It will be sorted out, but it could take 10 to 15 years.”

Excitement over new Soviet art, coming in the immediate wake of perestroika , perhaps reached its peak among collectors during the Sotheby’s Moscow auction in 1989. Sales that had been estimated to total about $1.2 million for contemporary art instead reached above $3 million, with individual paintings by such artists as Grigori Bruskin earning in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The effect of those kinds of numbers on an artistic community that in an earlier era struggled just to get art supplies was profound and distorting, Ayzenberg said. Many veteran painters in the Soviet Union began asking unreasonable prices for their works. But few of the same artists who earned high bids at the Sotheby’s auction were able to repeat that sales level.

“That was a glitch in the whole system,” said Tim Yarger, director of the Bowles/Sorokko Gallery, a Rodeo Drive contemporary art dealer that also handles a couple of Soviet-born painters. “That was a firecracker going off and having a rippling effect.”

At Bowles/Sorokko, where renowned painter and Russian exile Mihail Chemiakin is the subject of a solo show that began this month, Yarger said that if a collector is buying only for aesthetic reasons, “then it really doesn’t make any difference” if that artist ever has any more exhibitions or establishes a value for his work.

“However, many people do make their collecting choices on more than just aesthetics,” he said. “They would like to buy into an artist.”

What complicates things further, Ayzenberg said, is that “a lot of people became artists simply to make a buck, and a lot of them do not deserve to be called artists. They create an unhealthy competition in the Soviet art market. But there are truly talented people who have been accepted by the West.”

Other forms of art culled from the republics have been met with far less controversy in the United States.

For the last two years, painter and former Disney animator John David Wilson has traveled to the Ukraine to supervise Kiev animators at Red Apple Inc., an American-Soviet company. And after each trip, Wilson returns to his Shinbone Alley gallery in North Hollywood with as many animation cels as he can carry.

Animation from the republics, Wilson said, is often distinguished by its delicate, hand-painted lines, rather than the state-of-the-art computer techniques commonly used in the West. “These guys are really wonderful animators.”

Wilson has also met with many fine art painters in the former Soviet Union and had hoped to promote their work in Los Angeles. “They all want to come here,” Wilson said of the artists. “But I have been unable to interest the West Coast galleries. I wish I could somehow get them aware that there is a great mine of artistic people out there.”

At Russian Connections, a 2-year-old store on Fairfax specializing in folk art, political posters and a variety of gift items from the republics, owner Mark Foks has discovered that his fortunes are closely tied to the political machinations of his former country.

“When there was a military coup in Russia, I had a lot of customers,” said Foks, who then virtually sold out of his “Gorby posters, Gorby dolls, Gorby pins. Right now, nobody’s interested in Gorby.”

He seemed proudest, though, of his broad collection of folk art: ornately decorated wooden boxes, the red-and-black Khokhloma-style carvings, painted eggs and a variety of works made of Baltic amber. Displayed safely behind the store’s cash register were a pair of icons that Foks said dated back 100 years, with the image of the Madonna and child etched onto a metal canvas.

“Folk art is exactly Russian without any politics,” said Foks, a native of St. Petersburg. “What began in the 14th or 15th Century nobody can change.”

In an upstairs loft at Russian Connections, Foks has devoted space to contemporary Russian art. But interest in the paintings and drawings has been disappointing, and he plans to phase out the fine art soon to make room for more folk pieces.

Among his fine-art collection are 100 graphic prints by the late painter Aleksandr Arefiev, whose work was included in last year’s “Keepers of the Flame” show at USC. Foks said simply: “I can’t find anyone who wants to spend money on this.”

Steve Turner explained that the continuing skepticism directed toward Soviet fine art comes in part because “there’s so much all at once.”

But Jaskowiak likened this new tidal wave of Soviet contemporary art to events in the late 19th Century, when art from Japan’s previously closed society became available and ultimately influenced the Impressionists of Europe. Artists in the former Soviet Union “hadn’t been able to get out of their country before, so now they’re just taking that opportunity,” Jaskowiak argued. “People who have been working in Leningrad for years, and are known there, are just not known here.”

Perrin hopes to see more of these contemporary Soviet artists publish limited-edition prints of their works, as a way of promoting themselves and Soviet art in general. “All of the important Western artists now are out of range,” Perrin added. “They get prices into the millions, even in this very bad market.”

Still, the collector said he had no hesitation in undertaking the Ayzenberg show, and in parting with some of the paintings he’d spent the last decade gathering. “The thing that excites me the most is being able to acquire more art,” Perrin said. “So when I sell it, I’ll just go out and buy more.”