Ales Pushkin ( Aliaksandr Mikalaevich Pushkin; Belarusian Алесь Пушкін; 6 August 1965 – 11 July 2023) was a Belarusian non-conformist painter, theater artist, performer, art curator, and political prisoner. He was a member of the Belarusian Union of Artists.
Biography
Education
In 1978, at the age of 13, Pushkin enrolled in the Republican Boarding School for Fine Arts for talented children named after I.O. Akhremchik in Belarus. His class teacher was Peter Sharyp. After graduating the school in 1983, Pushkin continued his studies in monumental and decorative art at the Belarusian State Theater and Art Institute. In 1984, he was drafted into the Soviet army. He served in Afghanistan and was demobilized in 1986, after which he resumed his studies at the Art Institute. In 1990, for his diploma, he created a monumental painting "The History of His School" in the lobby of the Republican Boarding School for Fine Arts. The painting covered an area of 215 square meters and took six months to complete; it is still displayed there. The painting depicts Francisk Skorina, Mikhail Kleofas Oginsky, Adam Mitskevich, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Vladimir Vysotsky. For this work he was admitted to the Union of Artists of the USSR.
Social movement
In addition to the active art exhibition that began during perestroika, Ales Pushkin took an active part in the Belarusian movement of national revival. It was the time of the emergence in Belarus of such historical and cultural youth organizations as "Toloka", which engaged in the restoration of monuments, and educational activities related to the revival of the Belarusian language and national symbols. In 1988, as a 4th-year university student, Ales Pushkin organized the first circle of the Belarusian Popular Front.
Pushkin was a laureate of the second Charter'97 National Human Rights Prize in the category “For Courage in Art” (1999).
Arrests
In 1988, for participation in organizing a rally timed to coincide with the autumn Day of Remembrance of Ancestors, Ales Pushkin was arrested for 15 days. On 25 March 1989, during the celebration of the 71st anniversary of the founding of the Belarusian People's Republic, Ales Pushkin carried out the first manifesto of Social Art in Belarus: 12 posters that contradict the state ideology were planned to be displayed in front of the Belarusian Government House. One of the posters depicted the BSSR flag from 1951 with an inscription in Belarusian "Dosyts 'satsyalistychnaya', adrodzim people's Belarus!" ("Enough 'socialistic', let's revive people's Belarus!"). A group of protesters walked from the Theater Institute to the House of Press, where the artist was arrested along with 130 people. The authorities reacted with a campaign in the press against the artist. On 31 March 1989, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR by decree amended the Administrative Code: increased responsibility for the use of unregistered symbols, such as flags, emblems, and pennants. Pushkin was sentenced to two years of probation and five years of disqualification.
As the author of the manifesto of Social Art, Pushkin carried out his first high-profile performance in 1989, for which he was sentenced to two years of probation; he conducted more than a dozen performances thereafter. The most famous of them is "Pus for a President" (1999), during which Ales Pushkin overturned a cart with manure in front of the administration of Lukashenko. For this performance, the artist was sentenced to two years of probation.
Vitebsk period
After graduation, Pushkin was assigned to work in Vitebsk, Belarus. Over time, having found premises for his own workshop, he began to prepare the exhibition “Social Art. Declarative Art ". The exhibition was preceded by the performances "November 7", "Vitebsk Behind Jail Bars", "Spring", "Liberty", and "Love". Another manifesto of Social Art was declared on 25 March 1991, on Freedom Day, when Ales Pushkin rode around Vitebsk on a donkey, holding a dove, to the sounds of a brass band. Then, the dove was released with the words: “It will bring us freedom!"
On 23 March 1993, in Vitebsk, Pushkin opened one of the first private non-commercial galleries of contemporary art in Belarus, "At Pushkin", which existed until 1997. The gallery was about 50 square meters and was located near the Marc Chagall Museum.