The Desert of Forbidden Art (2010) Movie Script

(peaceful music)

Savitsky: I found

these paintings

rolled up under the

beds of old widows,

buried in family trash,

in dark corners of

artist's studios,

sometimes even patching

a hole in the roof.

I ended up with a collection

that no one in the

Soviet Union would

dare to exhibit.

These were forbidden

works by artists who

stayed true to their

vision, at a terrible cost.

(peaceful music)

Marinika: Russian

museums can't live

with the idea that such

a wonderful collection

was taken out from

Russia to this provincial

place somewhere in

Uzbekistan, God knows where.

Stephen: It really

wasn't that long ago

when what we now call

Uzbekistan was one of the

most spectacular centers

of world culture.

The silk road ran right

through that region,

but for a period of almost

a century Uzbekistan

had been just distant

province of the Soviet Union.

When the Soviet Union

collapsed I was asked to

cover this region that

nobody in the world really

ever thought about.

So, I decided I'm

going to get in a car

and find out what's out there.

For those people who

consider Uzbekistan to be

hopelessly exotic and remote

how about Karakalpakstan?

It's an independent

republic within Uzbekistan.

In order to go there you

have to cross this enormous

desert where there's

nothing but camels to see

and fly infested truck

stops once in a while

along the road.

(exotic music)

(splashing water)

The principle city in

Karakalpakstan is Nukus.

I had, I guess, assumed

that the Nukus museum

would be to museums in

the world what Nukus

is to the world.

Kind of a dusty,

provincial town.

It didn't take me more than

a few minutes of walking

around this museum

for my jaw to drop.

(dramatic music)

The fact that there's such

a collection in this place

and such a concentration

of art makes it

far more interesting

than if you would see the

same paintings in a series

of galleries in Germany

or in New York.

So, how did this happen?

(solemn music)

Savitsky: I was born

into a life of privilege.

I even had a proper

governess imported

from France.

The little girl with the

bow is me, groomed in

the high fashion of the times.

My father was a wealthy

lawyer, while my mother

spent her days

presiding over tea.

My brother went to

military school and I

was supposed to follow

in his footsteps and

serve the czar.

But then the

revolution broke out.

(gunshots)

Our life turned upside down.

We were no longer

the ruling class.

One by one our friends

and relatives began

to disappear.

We had to hide our

aristocratic roots and

blend in with the proletariat

that were now in power.

I had to prove that I

was ideologically pure.

So, I took a working class

job as an electrician.

But I dreamed of

becoming an artist.

I got my opportunity

when I joined the famous

Khorezm Archeological

Expedition.

It was the greatest dig

in Soviet central Asia,

as important as the discovery of

Tutankhamun's Tomb or

the Treasure of Troy.

(exotic music)

My job was to draw what

could not be photographed.

Here in the desert for the

first time I felt a wonderful

sense of freedom.

There was no one

in sight except for

tarantulas, scorpions

and archeologists.

An ancient civilization

lay buried in the sands

of the desert near Nukus.

We were literally walking

on top of antiquities.

(wind blowing)

Savitsky: While everybody

slept during the

midday heat I painted.

The desert trains the eye

to be especially sensitive

to subtle and intense

variations in color.

(peaceful music)

It is the best school for

the painter who strives

to grasp the full power

of how color sounds.

Savitsky: If an artist's

of Falk's stature tells you

you're no good you know

you'll never be great.

Savitsky: I destroyed all

my works and cut my ties

to the art world.

I decided to return to the

desert and start a new life.

(twangy music)

Marinika: I knew Savitsky

from my childhood.

My grandmother was always

full of irony when she

saw Savitsky saying, "Oh,

again he came to ask for

this old stuff."

Savitsky: I discovered that

the folk artists of this

small nation lost in

the sands had an amazing

sensitivity to

patterns and colors.

Marinika: This is the

classical costume of Karakalpak

fiance', which is exactly

the same denim cloth that is

popular all over the

world now and Karakalpaks

were using this cloth for

more than three centuries.

Stephen: When the

Soviets were in power

they felt that the ethnic

traditions of all these

nationalities in what

was then the Soviet south

should be repressed.

You shouldn't be

Karakalpaks or Uzbeks.

Then if you had traditional

clothing you should hide those.

You should get rid of those.

Savitsky saved a lot of that

stuff that might otherwise

have disappeared.

Marinika: I remember in

those days Savitsky was

called a rubbish man

because he was collecting

all these garbages people

thought, washing it

in garage and he was

telling fairy tale stories

about the beauty of those

old rags or costumes

that were everywhere.

Savitsky: These treasures

would remain forever in

my garage unless I found

a way to get the local

communist party boss to

go against party policy.

Savitsky: I finally

had my museum,

but as an artist I still

longed to see paintings.

Around that time I came

across an art catolog

from the early days

of Soviet Uzbekistan.

Savitsky: I was surprised

that I had never heard

of Volkov.

If a work so haunting had

fallen victim to censorship

what else was out there?

(solemn music)

Savitsky: I traveled all

over Uzbekistan searching

for masterpieces that

the history of our times

had condemned to obscurity.

I found a whole multinational

collective of artists.

Some were Uzbeks, others

came from distant parts

of the Soviet Union.

They came here after

the revolution.

For a brief period of

time in the 20s and 30s

they painted freely,

far away from the

Kremlin's censorship.

Uzbekistan became their

second motherland.

Voiceover: I know about

the classical case

with the great French

artist Paul Gauguin

living like the natives

on the island of Tahiti.

I got the idea of repeating

his experience with myself.

I started learning

the Uzbek language.

Then I got from the

library the Koran.

Three months later,

I told my landlord

that I would like

to convert to Islam.

My landlord was rather puzzled.

He couldn't understand

why would a Russian artist

convert to Islam.

I told him that

I liked the faith

and wanted to live

according to Muslim customs.

Marinika: Upon his conversion

he changed his name

to Usto Mumin which in

Uzbek means faithful master.

He penetrated into this

culture very deeply.

He started oriental philosophy.

He was very keen on Sufism.

His art is synthesis

of Italian Renaissance,

Russian icon painting

and oriental miniature.

(upbeat music)

Savitsky: The artists

strove to find the most

contemporary methods

and forms to depict

the Uzbek people

and their culture.

(dramatic music)

Stephen: So you began

to have a kind of

a cross fertilization

of one of the great

world class schools of art,

the Russian Avant Garde

with this other more

interesting locally based school

and the influences that

created the Russian

avant garde merged and

melded with the influences

that came out of central Asia.

(dramatic music)

Marinika: Mikhail Kurzin

came also to Uzbekistan

in the beginning of 1920s.

If we look at his first

impressions of Uzbekistan

they are full of sarcasm,

irony, grotesque.

He was the master

of these things.

So this was the new,

this is the old.

The old symbolized the

tradition of Islamic country

when man was allowed to

have up to four wives.

We can see two wives

following their master,

and they're wearing

veils paranjas.

Sarcasm of Kurzin is in

the fact that the two

traditional wives are

combined with the new Soviet

kind of wife in the

new clothes, in the

new way of behaving.

Stephen: Part of the

revolution that Soviet rule

brought to central Asia was

the liberation of women.

Stephen: Central Asia had

been stuck in a far distant

past and when the Soviets

arrived it was like a

dawning of a huge new era.

Life changed in every

way for the people

that lived there.

(exotic music)

(triumphant music)

Stephen: The Soviets

decided that they were going

to turn central Asia into

the region where all the

cotton for the entire

Soviet Union was going

to be produced.

(triumphant music)

Cotton is a very water

intensive project, and so

the Soviets built a huge

network of extremely

inefficient irrigation

channels so that huge amounts

of water was just lost,

and they sucked this water

principally out of the rivers

that fed into the Aral Sea.

This was one of the

world's largest inland seas

and had been since

time in memorial.

It just dried up.

(solemn music)

This Aral Sea disaster

is truly one of the great

environmental catastrophes

of the 20th century.

Savitsky: As I was walking

across the wasteland

of our Soviet dream,

I pitied Volkov

for his idealism.

(solemn music)

Male voiceover: The

artist Volkov, more than

anybody else, has gone astray.

Volkov doesn't see

anything but colors.

(solemn music)

The audience saw

staring at them from

the walls, roughly

sketched monsters,

a deliberate

distortion of reality.

(cheering)

(upbeat music)

(opera music)

Stephen: You had these

paintings of hardworking

peasants and factory

workers all of whom would

be very healthy and vibrant.

They were supposed to

convey the satisfaction

and the thrill that people

felt being Soviet citizens.

(upbeat music)

John: If an artist wished

to work outside the system

of Soviet socialist

realism then that artist

would inevitably be

removed from that system

like a microbe from

the healthy body.

(solemn music)

Yevgeny: In my dream

I saw a creature,

his eyes like the

barrels of a gun.

I called the painting

"Fascism is Advancing."

(cheering)

Marinika: It was a kind

of a future vision of

the threat that was coming.

The fact that Lysenko

finished his life

in mental hospital means a lot.

Many artists were forced to

be sent to mental hospitals.

Marinika: Savitsky was

criticized for this very

painting

when it was hung on the

walls of the museum.

The inspection came

and said you must take

away this anti Soviet work.

It's degenerate painting

so there is no place

for it in the museum.

Savitsky: Anti

Soviet? Of course.

Of course.

Degenerate?

(sighs) No way.

The next day after the

commission left I put it on

the wall again.

It was too great a

work of art to hide.

Marinika: Here is

another painting from our

collection done by Komarovsky.

He was studying icon painting.

Unfortunately his life was ended

during Stalin's repressions.

For the only reason

that he believed in God.

(solemn music)

Alexander Nikolaev

was also repressed.

The reason was his

nontraditional sexual

orientation.

John: He was arrested and

imprisoned

for homosexuality,

which was considered

to be a crime in

Stalin's Russia.

Marinika: Two years

ago, a new information

about this painting came to us.

We realized that this was

only part of the painting,

made by Mikhail Kurzin.

And the whole painting

looks like this.

So it was a big

discovery for us.

Very unexpected.

We don't know who

cut the painting.

The photograph came

from the KGB archives,

and now we look at this

painting with new eyes.

In Kurzin's caricature

of western capitalism

the millionaires cradle

their symbols of power

against a background

of exploited workers.

At first glance it's hard

to understand why the

Soviet Secret Police

objected to this criticism

of capitalism, but as

you take a closer look

Kurzin's workers bear

a striking resemblence

to the ones in

Stalin's labor camps.

They are the same slaves.

In Kurzin's vision of

socialism the workers crowd

a tunnel going nowhere.

You see the self portrait

of Kurzin holding a coffin.

So, this is annihilation

of hopes, of the dreams

of an artist in that society.

(dramatic music)

Male voiceover: November

16th, 1936, interrogation

of the defendant Mikhail

Ivanovich Kurzin.

Question: Tell the

investigator about your anti

Soviet speech at the

exhibition of the artist Malt.

Answer: I don't remember

the matter of my

anti Soviet speech

because I was drunk.

Marinika: Mikhail Kurzin

tried to follow the Soviet

path, painting fake,

joyous peasants,

but he couldn't stand it.

He used to say that even

in the capitalist world

the artists are living

better than here.

Voiceover: From the

interrogation of the witness,

Alexander Nikolaevich

Volkov, encouraged to testify

against his fellow

artist and friend Kurzin.

"In conversations with

me Kurzin said that the

USSR doesn't allow freedom

of expression pointing

out that there are greater

opportunities for artists'

creativity in

capitalist countries."

Male voiceover: Witness

Alexander Nicolaevich

Volkov, "I am convinced

that Kurzin is an

anti-Soviet artist and

human being, hostile

to the Soviet rule and the

politics of the party."

Voiceover: From the

testimony of Mikhail

Ivanovich Kurzin, "I

plead guilty that I being

drunk expressed my

anti-Soviet opinion and

said artists throw away

your brushes and palettes,

arm yourselves, attack the

Kremlin and kill Stalin."

Marinika: We are speaking

so much about the

artists who were repressed

in Stalin's time,

all those terrible stories,

how they were sent to

gulags or somewhere

driven mad, but when we

come to our own personal

life I realize that we also

have very many tragic

stories around us.

My father had a

very difficult life.

His father was shot in

1938 as the enemy of people

being the president of

Karakalpakstan and he

just wanted his people

to blossom, to flourish.

(solemn music)

(sawing)

(solemn music)

Marinika: Nadezhda Borovaya

was sent to concentration

camp as the wife of an

admiral who was repressed.

(solemn music)

Even children were sent

to concentration camps.

To women's colonies.

Once in 1983 Savitsky

prepared a big portion

of the works for the

attention of the commission

from the Ministry of Culture.

He was to persuade them

to give money to the

museum so that he

could pay the owners.

One of the artists that

was put on the agenda was

Nadezhda Borovaya.

Savitsky was very tricky.

He said that these were

Nazi concentration camps.

Showing all those people

who had the drawings

with the numbers

on their foreheads

and terrible scenes of

lives of those prisoners.

So the commission was persuaded.

They decided to pay money

to Nadezhda Borovaya

and after the commission

went away Savitsky

came to me and whispered

into my ear with a...

with a smile on his face

that these were Stalin's

concentration camps

and I was so shocked.

(solemn music)

I couldn't understand at

first what he was saying.

Then later I realized the extent

of danger he exposed himself.

Savitsky: Borovaya's

works were unique visual

evidence of the repressions.

I had to make sure

that one day people

could see them.

(solemn music)

Marinika: My father was

invited to work for the

Regional Communist

Party Department and he

advised Savitsky to be careful.

My father was saying,

"Oh, one day you will

get into the jail."

But Savitsky's

obsession was so strong

he couldn't stop.

Savitsky: The Bolsheviks

were destroying our culture.

Nothing was sacred.

Centuries old treasures

were vanishing in front

of our eyes.

Savitsky: When I

discovered Alexei Rybnikov

he was completely

unknown as a painter.

John: Rybnikov was a

very interesting man.

He was very close to the

very major Avant-Gardists.

In fact, in doing exactly

what Kandinsky and Chagall

were doing at the same time.

Therefore, any museum

that has any piece by

Rybnikov is blessed.

Savitksy: Rybnikov led a

secret life as an artist.

He was a follower of

Natalia Goncharova.

She was the most

famous female artist

of the Russian Avant-Garde.

Luckily for her she left Russia.

Marinika: Savitsky

heard about this artist

Ural Tanskybaev who

was recognized by the

regime as the master

of socialist realism.

He was awarded

many state prizes.

Savitsky: At first I didn't

want to go to Tanskybaev.

He was a fat cat, enjoying all

the perks of a people's

artist of the USSR.

In return he painted

what he was told.

But then I discovered

that Tanskybaev had

been one of Volkov's

favorite students.

Savitsky: So, I went

to Tanskybaev's studio.

The works were boring,

but I saw immediately

the hand of someone

who knew how to paint.

He was a bit suspicious

of my motives until

we found that we both

admired Uzbek folk culture.

(peaceful music)

He showed me watercolors

of village life that he'd

done as a young man.

I asked him if these

were all he had.

Marinika: Ural Tanskybaev

took Savitsky into the

attic, opened a big chest

and Savitsky couldn't

believe his eyes.

(exotic music)

Savitsky: I had stumbled

upon a world created

by the mind of a genius.

These works that hadn't

been exhibited for many

years shocked me with

their originality.

Marinika: We can see his real

soul in his early paintings.

Savitsky: He told me

how much he admired

Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Seurat.

But his subjects came

from the oriental culture

around him.

Marinika: Tanskybaev said

you can take everything

what you like and you

can pay when you can.

Savitsky: I quickly took

every single work before

Tanskybaev changed his mind.

Marinika: Nukus was so far

away, far from political

cultural centers maybe

Tanskybaev thought

that who will see

these paintings there.

Marinika: Elena

Korovay was very much

interested by the life

of Jews of Bukhara.

Not the fact that they

were isolated and living

in ghettos, but she saw the

beauty of their occupation.

We can see wonderful

indigo colors of her dyers

or tailors of Bukhara,

carpenters.

We have the whole

series of these works

that were created by

her during her stay

in Uzbekistan.

Marinika: Korovay

lived in poverty.

She had a lot of

troubles and problems.

Savitsky took these

paintings from Elena

Korovay herself

already in Moscow.

Elena: For me Karakalpaks

are invented creatures

with their city Nukus

in a land far away.

And there's Savitsky with

the eyes of a hooligan,

persuading me that I am obliged

to donate to his museum.

He looks at the paintings,

attentively, meticulously.

Examines them again and

again, at a distance

and up close, but

doesn't get tired.

As any fanatic he

is boring, a little,

pretending to be interested

in what I have to say.

But I know the only thing

on his mind is getting

all my works for his museum.

(footsteps)

(laughing)

(upbeat music)

Savitsky: I would leave

Moscow with piles of aging

canvases and boxes of drawings.

I was such a sight that

no taxi would stop for me.

And the porters

grumbled when I appeared

at the train station.

(upbeat music)

Savitsky: I traveled across

mother Russia for three days,

until the train tracks ran out.

Then I'd camp out and wait

for a truck to transport

me and my treasures across

the desert to Nukus.

(solemn music)

(wind blowing)

(solemn music)

John: It seems very

strange that he would have

such enough money to have

bought all the paintings

that he bought, these are

thousands of paintings.

Yes, he had state

subsidies for his museum,

but those state subsidies

were meant to be used for

financing expeditions

into the desert,

not to be buying

silly Russian art.

(solemn music)

Savitsky: One can

find art anywhere.

All you have to do is look.

(solemn music)

Marinika: So, Savitsky

was grabbed by Dr. Efuni's

staff and brought against

his will to Moscow to

Efuni's hospital, and when

they checked his lungs

they understood that

this is the end.

Marinika: The whole

ward was given to this

unusual patient.

They even allowed

him to leave the ward

if he needed.

So we know that Savitsky

managed to collect

two containers of paintings

and graphics while he

was staying in Efuni's hospital.

(solemn music)

Marinika: We use these

trays because the climate

is very dry in summer.

It can be plus 50 in the shadow.

And we need some kind of

humidifiers for the paintings.

This does not help much

we know, but there is

no way out at present.

That's why we are using

this primitive method

of putting vessels

with water everywhere.

When Savitsky came

to me and said,

"I want you to be director,"

I couldn't say no to him

(solemn music)

The Nukus museum has been

my life's work for 25 years.

I am the granddaughter

of the first president

of Karakalpakstan.

Karakalpakstan is a very

poor country and the

only treasure that it

has now is this museum.

When Savitsky was

gathering this art that we

have it was not accepted

by the communist regime.

Nowadays also we live

in a very complicated

community, which

requires from us not only

energy, not only strength

but also some kind

of flexibility, with radical

Islam around us, nationalism.

Some people are more

progressive minded.

Some people look back

to the past and it's

very difficult to survive,

to preserve this collection

for the future.

Stephen: Central Asia is

really not a stable region,

and Uzbekistan is in

a very turbulent area.

Of course it borders

on Afghanistan.

Some of the same

trends that you see in

Afghanistan have also

emerged in Uzbekistan.

Marinika: Remembering

the events in Afghanistan

when those radicals destroyed

Buddha statues in Bamiyan.

This means danger

for our collection.

Stephen: The influence

of Islamic fundamentalism

could grow substantially.

How that would affect a

collection of art that is

abstract, modernistic and

that is run by a woman

could be a little

bit disturbing.

(solemn music)

Marinika: You can

see piles of canvases

that are hanging like this.

They are real masterpieces

but they were never

shown to anyone because

they need to be restored.

They need to be framed.

When we look at these

wonderful paintings

we understand that people

are missing so much.

They can't see all these

treasures, and we have

thousands of works like

this in our storages.

(solemn music)

Stephen: When I found this

museum story I realized

this could be a great piece

for our Sunday Arts page.

The Arts and Leisure section

of the New York Times

has a unique place in

American intellectual life.

When any story is given

huge prominence on

the front page of that

section it's naturally

noticed in the cultural world.

I realized that this was

going to be an exciting story.

There were going to be

a lot of people choking

on their English muffins

over breakfast on

Sunday when they read this one.

(solemn music)

Marinika: The collectors

from the west started

to come in their private

planes, bringing bags

of money, showing this to us.

Of course they had

very good taste.

We understood this immediately.

They wanted the best pieces

and all the foreigners

used to say, "Why don't you

sell one or two paintings?"

It was a tradition for

western museums to sell

something from their

collection in order to

settle their problems.

Remembering the

biographies of the artists,

they were so unhappy during

their life they found

shelter in Nukus and even

to think of selling them

somewhere was very

difficult for us.

Stephen: I visited another

museum in another city

full of artifacts from Uzbek

history, fantastic fabrics

and weavings, suddenly

a guy came over to me

and this was the

museum director.

I pointed to a weaving and

I said this is a spectacular

piece of art.

And he looked at me and he

said, "You want to buy it?"

I said, "What?"

He said, "You want to take it?

How much would you pay for it?"

So essentially what

he was saying is,

"Come loot my museum."

The idea that you'd be

an impoverished director

of an impoverished museum

that had piles of stuff

that it couldn't even

exhibit, but you wouldn't

sell a single piece must

have been unique to Marinika.

Marinika: If we start

selling something some people

would be interested in

selling the rest with official

excuse of buying something

for the country in such

a difficult economic situation.

For example, buying

tractors or some equipment

for the industry of our country.

(solemn music)

Marinika: After Mikhail

Kurzin was released

he was already a

very ill person.

(solemn music)

He had no right for a job.

He had no means for life.

When we look at these

wonderful dumplings

it's interesting that

the paintings were done

by the person who was

suffering from malnutriiton.

He had suffered so much

and food was the only

zone for him where

he could be free.

(solemn music)

(car engine)

(solemn music)

Savitsky: I like to think

of our museum as a keeper

of the artist's souls.

Their works are the

physical expression of a

collective vision that

could not be destroyed.

(wind blowing)

(solemn music)

The Desert of Forbidden Art (2010) - full transcript