Oleg Vassiliev

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

K. Vassiliev, N.Kolodzei (Eds.), Oleg Vassiliev: Memory Speaks, St. Petersburg, Palace Editions, 2004, illustrated p.130

Original canvas. There is a light layer of surface dirt and some light abrasions to the edges of the work. There are two lines in the l.r. portion of the work and in between the two white windows there appear to be some restored surface scratches. The latter corresponds with an area of restoration to the reverse. Unframed.
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"A heedless touch, or a direct gaze, can dim the light of the past. The act of looking at the past can easily destroy it. The act itself is like chasing a ghost. But the chase is based on more than a hunter's drive to catch an escaping prey; it is also motivated by the need for roots, the urge to re-enter the house one once left."
Oleg Vassiliev, 1991

If the personal memory of the nonconformist artist Vassiliev expresses itself in watching the sun go down behind a monument to Lenin, then Before the Sunset is perhaps one of his more politically loaded works. This is "Soviet reality, inextricably intermixed with a romantic theme ..." as Vassiliev wrote in 1991. However, it is not only the historical timeliness of the decline of communism which make it unique, but also the creative and personal circumstances in which it was painted.
Produced just one year after Vassiliev's emigration to the United States, Before the Sunset is one of his very early politico-historical works. Whereas in Moscow, his artistic development was influenced by the search for an artistic concept, in New York Vassiliev was more concerned with moral issues. Vassiliev needed to leave the Soviet Union behind and create the physical and psychological distance to contemplate his history and memories. It almost seems as if after his own emigration, painting as a result of internal immigration was no longer necessary.

As a mediator between time and space, the window is a key factor in Vassiliev's work. This idea was developed in his and Erik Bulatov's studio in Moscow where wide windows opened onto the vast panorama of city roofs. Here, the two friends discussed the problems of reality and image, illusionary nature and canvas space. However, just as in icon painting, the perspective of Before the Sunset is reversed. All the light comes from within the pictorial infinity which opens the windows, almost like an explosion towards the viewer. Vassiliev's 'here' and 'now' is black and void of meaning before the recollections of the past illuminate his reality. As Bulatov wrote of Vassiliev's works on black in 1996: "Images, associations whose source is often hard to trace, emerge in our consciousness as though from black darkness. The thoughts complete these images. Hence, the black background. Life and art. Art and life."