Ovchinnikov Vadim

Vadim Ovchinnikov was born in Pavlodar (Kazakhstan) in 1951.

In 1973, after military service, he came to Leningrad, where he began to study painting on his own, working as a guard at the Arsenal plant security department and at Gorvodokanal. In 1982, he joined the Experimental Fine Art Society. Since 1983, Ovchinnikov has been a member of the New Artists group, and his work includes a variety of self-expression techniques: collage, objects (Chukchi Poems), mail art, and hand-drawn animation films.

Ovchinnikov's paintings of the mid-1980s influenced the emergence of "neat tendencies" in the art of the New. Ovchinnikov was a member of the literary section of the Vladimir Mayakovsky Friends' Club (pseudonym - Vladimir or Vladeymir Okinichev) and together with Vladislav Gutsevich prepared the literary almanac "Novost" for publication. He was equally gifted in painting, graphics, literature (he was a prose writer and poet, the author of the conceptual texts "Appeals" and "From the Positions of Life Experience"), music (he played various instruments, recorded musical collages, was a member of the musical groups "Virtuosos of the Universe", "UO"), was a theorist of "New", consistently embodying in his own work the principle of Larionov's everythingness: art is Everything, discovered by the artist in any material and belonging to everyone. In 1986-1988, Ovchinnikov headed a children's art studio, called the "Friendship Club". During the perestroika era, he traveled to the United States, from California to New York, and painted a series of American paintings. In 1993, the first exhibition of Ovchinnikov's paintings was held at the Russian Museum (Marble Palace). In May 1996, Ovchinnikov died. In 1998, the Pushkinskaya 10 museum and workshops opened with an exhibition of paintings and a presentation of the book "Vadim Ovchinnikov. Works"; in 2002, at the Marble Palace, at Ovchinnikov's exhibition "Painting. Mail Art", letters, collages, and paintings from the collection of the State Russian Museum and private collections in St. Petersburg were exhibited; the Museum of Communications began its art collection with an exhibition of Ovchinnikov's letters.

Vadim Ovchinnikov's works are in the collections of the State Russian Museum, the Pompidou Centre, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMoMA), the Pavlodar Art Museum, FoudationA, Articulate Foundation, Kai Forsblom Gallery, and private collections in Europe, Asia and the USA.

Personal Exhibitions:

1987 Cinema "Aurora". Leningrad 1993 Walk. Marble Palace, State Russian Museum. St. Petersburg 1995 Life of Plants. Gallery 21 Art Center "Pushkinskaya 10". St. Petersburg 1995 War Games. Gallery 21 Art Center "Pushkinskaya 10". St. Petersburg 1995 Outskirts. Gallery 103 Art Center "Pushkinskaya 10". St. Petersburg 1995 Temptation of St. Anthony. Gallery 103 Art Center "Pushkinskaya 10". St. Petersburg 1995 Stranger than Paradise. Gallery 103 Art Center "Pushkinskaya 10". St. Petersburg 1997 Untitled I, Untitled II. Gallery 103 Art Center "Pushkinskaya 10". St. Petersburg 1998 Works. Gallery 103 Art Center "Pushkinskaya 10". St. Petersburg 2000 Mail art by Vadim Ovchinnikov. St. Petersburg Archive and Library of New Art (PAiBNI). Art Center "Pushkinskaya 10". St. Petersburg 2002 Painting. Mail art. Marble Palace, State Russian Museum. St. Petersburg 2004 Messages by Vadim Ovchinnikov. A.S. Popov Central Museum of Communications. St. Petersburg 2006 OV-OV. Gallery 103 Art Center "Pushkinskaya 10". St. Petersburg 2006 What is destroying us. PAiBNI. Art Center "Pushkinskaya 10". St. Petersburg 2008 Art belongs to everyone. Gallery D 137 St. Petersburg 2008 The Worlds of the Ovchinnikov Brothers. Art Museum. Pavlodar 2016 Nirvana Adits. St. Petersburg Museum of Art of the 20th – 21st Centuries 2021 Illegal Party. Navicula Artis Gallery. Art Center “Pushkinskaya 10”. St. Petersburg