[Image: Aleksandr Rodchenko (1924, 1965) collection of the Pushkin Museum]

Where did the series about the Russian Avant-garde begin, is a question I am asked from time to time. I had been working as a consultant for a documentary film company in Russia advising them about foreign distribution for their films. It was during this time especially that I learnt about making films in Russia. I had worked on feature films in Russia before, for instance “Grushko” in St Petersburg, and two other films in Moscow, ending with “The Stringer” Participating in these projects gave me some rich experiences and significant insights into film making in Russia. The work with the documentary film company, however, gave me some real hands on experience of working in Russian studios and some good contacts which encouraged me to start making my own films. I wasn’t sure at first what to make films about, which subjects to tackle so to speak and then by chance I heard about an exhibition of the Costakis collection in Moscow. Costakis collected paintings and works of art from avant-garde artists of the 20s and 30s who largely left Russia and tried to eke out an existence in the various capitals of Europe. After the war Costakis travelled around Russia and Europe collecting these paintings, sometimes picking them up for 50 dollars or a bottle of wine or so legend would have it. In a word he singlehandedly rescued hundreds and hundreds of paintings to amass what became a priceless collection of avant-garde works which he donated to the Russian State.

In the beginning Costakis collected the Masters of the Dutch School of Landscape Painters but modernist works by Picasso and Matisse soon fell within his field of vision. In 1946 he came across three paintings in a Moscow studio by Olga Rozanova . He described how, in the dark days after the war these brightly coloured paintings of the lost Avant-Garde: “were signals to me. I did not care what it was… but nobody knew what anything was in those days”.So struck by the powerful visual effect of the strong colour and bold geometric design which spoke directly to the senses, that he became determined to rediscover the Suprematist and Constructivist art which had been lost and forgotten in the attics, studios and basements of Moscow and Leningrad. He hunted for pictures which had been ‘lost’, some that were rolled up and covered with dust. He met Vladimir Tatlin and befriended Varvara Stepanova. He tracked down friends of Kasimir Malevich and bought works by Lubov Popova and Ivan Kliun. He particularly admired Anatoly Zverev, Russian expressionist whom he met in the 50′s. Costakis said about Zverev “it was a source of great happiness for me to come into contact with this wonderful artist, and I believe him to be one of the most talented artists in Soviet Russia.”

By the 1960 George Costakis’ apartment in Moscow had become a place for international art collectors and art lovers in general to meet and exchange ideas and opinions, as some called it, Russia’s unofficial Museum of Modern Art. The same year Costakis, with his family, left the Soviet Union and moved to Greece , but he agreed that he should leave 50 per cent of his collection in the State Tretyakov Gallery of Moscow. In 1997 the Greek State bought the 1275 works and they are now part of the permanent collection of the State Museum of Contemporary Art, in Thessaloniki, Greece.

It was this story which first inspired me to make a film. The passionate quest of Costakis, I believed, would make an excellent documentary film. I became even more convinced after I saw the exhibition of his collection in Moscow some time in 1998. It seemed to me that there was something unique and intriguing in the geomtrical and abstract colours and shapes. They seemed to have a dynamism and energy which I had not encountered anywhere else or in any other artistic tradition. However the logistics for the film failed to gain any traction. All the same I still continued to research the subject of the Russian Avant-garde and as part of these researches I came across Alexander Rodchenko, the painter and photographer. People often asked me why in particular Rodchenko became the first film I made. “Why Rodchenko?” they would say. There were two basic reasons which attracted me to the idea of making a film about Rodchenko. Firstly Rodchenko abandoned painting altogether to take up photography. Easel painting is dead he maintained, only the camera can reflect the social and visual realities which were emerging at that time. It was this idea of a painter almost violently going against his own art which I thought would make a good film. The second reason is that Rodchenko’s experiments in art and photography helps establish a working visual grammar for anybody undertaking a film especially if it is ones first serious film. “The visually coherent “look” which the film has was already present in Rodchenko photographs. His understanding of the compositional values in any image, such as volume, contrast, depth, balance, proportion etc is a perfect introduction to any film maker. One other point which is worth making is that Rodchenko saw Moscow not as a place to live and work but as a territory for study, that is a space exploring new visual and aesthetic frontiers. He would walk around Moscow photographing the new buildings and objects appearing on the streets, finding new angles and perspectives to illuminate the mundane and make the spectacular commonplace. As I followed in his footsteps, literally, I got an excellent “feel” for the material. Moscow no longer remained a bleak, cold and alien environment I had experienced when I first arrived but a city with immense visual and creative possibilities.

When I was in Germany filming “Kandinsky and the Russian House” I was invited by a director friend, Peter Goedel who lived in Munich, to the film festival which was going at the time of filming. I had met Peter at another film festival in Toronto a year or so earlier and this meeting was one reason why I decided to go ahead and make a film about Kandinsky. Peter’s superb film “Tangier -Legend of a City” won three awards at Toronto and it was he who invited me to Munich when he heard that I was thinking of making a film about Kandinsky.

When I mentioned Kandinsky at the Munich Film Festival, people often talked about him as if he was a quasi European painter in the Matisse or impressionist mould and didn’t seem enthusiastic about acknowledging that Kandinsky was Russian at all. However if you look at Kandinsky’s work, the light that he found even in Southern Bavaria is very similar to a Russian light, the light of the Steppe. This is true I believe of even the most abstract of his paintings. Even as I look out of my window on a bright sunny Moscow morning I see Kandinsky’s colours and light everywhere. Anybody who has spent a long period of time in Russia will, in my opinion recognise this. The Argentinian and Irish artist Carmen Casey, who lived in Moscow for more than six years, commented to me that one of the difficulties she found about working in Moscow when she first arrived, was the sheer intensity of the light (on a sunny day of course) which she wasn’t used to and had never encountered befere. When I tried to explain this to people they would look at me blankly while I rambled on about my theories, especially the one that Kandinsky is the quintessential Russian painter. As he himself said, “Moscow is the tuning fork for all my painting”. And that is despite the fact that Kandinsky spent many years in all the European centres of artistic excellence of that time; Munich, Paris and finally Berlin at the Bauhaus. He always, I believe, returned artistically to his Russian roots . Why did he leave Russia it might be asked. In some ways it doesn’t make sense to ask such a question. Every artist must continuously expand their horizons and seek inspiration by travelling and through studying other cultures. Kandinsky came from a section of Russian society who would have been familiar with all the philosophical and cultural trends of Europe as well as Russia and would have been drawn to Europe as a result. However, the fact that Kandinsky no longer painted in Russia and had moved to Europe made him no more a European painter and no less a Russian painter.
Where ever artists find themselves they always see the world with their own eyes and interpret what they see from their own inner understanding.
An other factor here is the eastern influence in European painting which at that time was not such a strange thing as one might imagine. The collector of Central Asian Ikats or multi coloured robes,Tair Tairov, believes that the abstract patterns of these textiles and robes inspired a generation of artists in Europe. Picasso, Mattisse, Whistler and many others were all influnced one way or another by eastern art in particular Japanese art. It could be said that eastern art with its emphasis on the abstract was a componatnt part of the rise of abstract art in Europe and America. Kandinsky apparantely himself remarks how these multi-coloured robes infleunced his artistic development.

The film “Kandinsky and the Russian House” was released in 2007 and is part of a series of 6 films about the Russian Avant-garde.

Its time to really take stock of what was the outcome of the whole Japan trip. The first thing to say is that we achieved at least 95% of the goals we set our selves plus an extra 20% of other goals which were fulfilled through the chances and opportunities thrown up by simply being in Japan for such an extended period. Ultimately these things aren’t quantifiable in any meaningful sense but it gives some idea of scale. For instance after visiting Oshima with Akira Suzuki and meeting the curator of the Island Museum in memory of Gomo Kimuro we decided to interview both of them and the connections they have with the Island and its culture.I hadn’t really intended this, I really just wanted to look at the Island and film a bit especially as David Burliuk spent time there painting with his family. It unclear how to use this material but there are various possibilities which are worth pursuing.

As for the main task in hand, that is the two films about Japanese art which are in progress (One traditional one contemporary), the material which we have shot and coupled with the extensive research we were able to complete in Japan have broadened and given depth to a project which was already at a well developed stage. The situation as it stands now is that I have to extend the post production stage for a much longer period than I expected but in the long run it will be of over all benefit to the project.

At the moment its too early to reveal the substance of the films in question simply to say that they will concentrate on Japanese art seen from an unusual perspective and contemporary art in Japan. The films will be linked thematically so that from time to time there will be a seamless crossover from one film to the other but at the same time the two films will stand alone as separate entities and can be viewed as such. Editing is progressing at a slow but steady pace and unfortunately you can’t rush these things, its laborious,time consuming but rewarding. Time will tell.

The Avant-garde series is selling well in most outlets. The Pompidou centre in Paris ordered more discs and negotiating with Guggenheim about Kandinsky film.

Just a few days left before we leave Tokyo. We extended our stay by ten days in order to fit everything in and even with that we wont get everything done. I have shot almost everything I wanted and research wise covered an immense amount of ground. However fatigue is setting in. Constantly on the move and organising each stage of our programme without any back up infrastructure takes its toll. Not that I’m complaining, that’s how I wanted it. Even during my time working on feature films in Europe and Africa before becoming an independent film maker the sense of fatigue in yourself and others usually became apparent after about six weeks into a shoot. We were in Russia for four months in the early nineties so its possible to imagine how people felt after that length of time.The director shot the last few weeks from a wheelchair closely followed by the first assistant director. It was a disconcerting sight to see them both being wheeled around the set but working perfectly normally otherwise. This is different of course, when you are doing things for yourself you can set the pace that you want and the demands of being attached to a large crew with 20-30 actors at one time are a far cry from what I am doing now.