Selections - "pierrot in the studio" by art toulinov
art toulinov
Artist Statement
My greatest satisfaction comes when an image can elicit an emotional response or memory for the viewer, because I have delved deep into myself in making it, and we have found our common humanity.
I was born between two rivers in Tuapse, Russia, a seaport on the Black Sea. From a young age, I was sculpting, painting and drawing. After graduating from Moscow State University with a degree in law, I worked as a lawyer. During that time, I founded a small physical training gym. I had begun weight training when I was 19. Considered to be a western influence, there were few gyms in Moscow in those years. So, I launched my own. I continued to practice law and kept the gym going, until I immigrated to the United States in 1991.
I arrived in New York City with $40 in my pocket and not knowing any English, determined to start a new life and leave my law profession behind, even though my mother was a highly respected lawyer in Russia. She had drafted part of the Soviet constitution. Instead, I was following my father’s adventure seeking ways. He traveled the world as a geologist, working on the Aswan Dam in Egypt among many other major projects.
My first job was pumping gas at the station by the Holland Tunnel. To learn the language, I watched television on a small black and white television I had spotted in the garbage - mostly I Love Lucy reruns. During the first year, I pounded the pavement up and down Manhattan finding jobs. I kept in shape working out by myself and carrying heavy furniture for several moving companies.
By the second year, I was working the cash register at a large department store, when David Barton, owner of the most prestigious gym in the city approached me. We talked, and, seeing the shape I was in and learning my background, he asked me to be a trainer at his gym. Hardly understanding a word he was saying, I still got the gist of it and happily accepted his offer. Soon I was training celebrities, artists and many of the who’s who in New York at the time.
My first serious discussion about photography was with the renowned Hollywood photographer to the stars, Len Prince. One training session, I suggested how I would photograph him, and he jokingly commented that maybe I should seriously consider being a photographer myself. While it took a long time to grow, a seed was planted. The famous model and cousin of Prince Charles, India Hicks, lent me her Nikon camera to work with, mostly for outdoor photography at the time. I did not realize it then, but I was training my eye by working with all types of people for the photographic work I would make in the future.
That was in 1993, but it wasn’t until 1997 that photography became my passion, and my work took a serious bent. I have had no formal art training, but I have had wonderful mentors through the years that have taught me a great deal.
When I told my friend, the photographer Marcus Leatherdale, whom I met and trained at the gym, about my improvised photo studio and frustration with the rectangular format, he invited me to his studio in Dumbo and introduced me to the Hasselblad square format, giving me his extra camera to try out. I loved it. When I felt comfortable using the camera, Marcus invited me to try shooting in his Dumbo studio, showed me how to use the strobe lighting and volunteered to be my model. I never looked back. I still shoot only black and white film with a Hasselblad camera designed in 1948 and print the images myself in a refined silver gelatin format.
Like Marcus, my main mentors turned out to be people I would train at the gyms where I worked. I met Mark Markheim, who owned a photo lab in Tribeca, and Paul Cavaco, who was Fashion Editor of Vogue Magazine. I would bring my most recent photos to our training sessions for them to critique. Advice from such talented and giving people contributed greatly to my growing body of work.
Ever since Marcus introduced me to studio work, I have worked exclusively in the studio, using a black backdrop to create a small theater for the objects and people that I portray. My work has been heavily influenced by classical literature. So, it was natural to create stories with my images, stories that evolved over the years to express emotions and experiences common to us all.
For years, I found models to photograph, people from all walks of life, and enjoyed scouring flea markets for props to help tell a story. One day, I discovered two antique puppets, one male, one female, at the New York City Flea Market. I had no idea what I’d purchased. Over the next four years I photographed them, unaware that I was tapping into one of the great archetypes in the collective unconscious, one that has inspired artists of all disciplines since the 16th century.
Right away, their shoes fell off, and then the paint on their faces began to chip. Soon, I began working only with the male puppet, which increasingly reminded me of myself – balding, cracked, beat up and not a young man anymore. There was freedom to portray my emotional struggles and those of others in a deeper way and evoke my persistent themes of isolation and loneliness, nostalgia, morbidity, the struggle with ambition and the irrelevance of labor to success.
I still did not realize the collective unconscious was speaking to me, when I began to photograph the female puppet. A different emotion was elicited working with her. I found myself portraying a romantic and often conflicted relationship between the two, as she became a strong and independent character. I began exploring their relationship with each other: their love for each other, their misunderstandings, their inability to communicate or reconnect. Most importantly, their passion.
After working with the puppets for four years, they were falling apart, and I went on the Internet hoping to find another pair. That’s when I first learned their names, Pierrot and Columbine, and their rich history. What I learned astonished me. Somehow, I had known Pierrot and Columbine all along.
The archetype of Pierrot, as a melancholy, solitary, naively romantic and sensitive soul, first began to take physical embodiment in 1660 in Moliere’s play Don Juan at the Palais-Royal Theater in Paris. Seven years later, Moliere’s acting troupe joined with the Commedia dell ‘Arte, which performed in pantomime, and Pierrot’s character evolved as it grew in popularity over the next thirty years.
Pierrot’s character became even more well established, as he became beloved beyond France and Italy. The mime Jean-Gaspard Deburau was most responsible for solidifying his relevance. By the 18th century, Pierrot had gained enough stature that his character began to show up in the arts as a symbol and a muse for the likes of the writers Jules Lafforgue and Flaubert, and composer Arnold Schoenberg.
Later painters, who also took inspiration from Pierrot included Seurat, Cezanne and Picasso, to name just a few whom he has inspired down through the centuries and up until the present time. Charlie Chaplin’s conceived of his “Little Tramp” character as a sort of Pierrot. David Bowie declared that throughout his life and his work: “I’m Pierrot, I’m Everyman … I am using myself as a canvas and trying to paint the truth of our times.”
Searching the Internet, I was surprised to find many different images depicting Pierrot and Columbine through the centuries, but there was only one pair of puppets exactly like mine. Though they were vintage they looked brand new. It was fun to see them as they were in their “youth,” but in their mint condition they looked too much like dolls. Mine looked beat up by life and so worn out that they had become timeless, as if they’d existed forever, and suited my deeper work much better.
My aged puppets are retired now, but the story of Pierrot and Columbine will live on. They have always been a part of us all.
Art Toulinov at Throckmorton Fine Art , NYC
Art Toulinov Biography
Whether sculpting the light falling upon finely chiseled human bodies or the bodies themselves, Art Toulinov has forged his artistic career by using his talents to capture both the brightness and darkness of life in high resolution black and white.
An American citizen today, Toulinov emigrated to the U.S. from his native Russia. His art education began as he was welcomed into New York’s artistic community by several leading gallerists and other mentors who realized his skill and talent when they first saw the magnificent portraits he was creating.
Toulinov’s hand-developed silver-gelatin prints are in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum, as well as in the private collections of many photography connoisseurs.
Art Toulinov
Art Toulinov Exhibitions
Toulinov’s work is in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum, as well as in many private collections, and has been shown in galleries in New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Norfolk, VA, Germany, Monte Carlo and Canada.
EXHIBITIONS
2024
Commune Gallery
Group Show
Norfolk, VA
2023
C2 Architecture
Solo Show
Germantown, PA
2022
White Columns Gallery
Group Auction
New York, NY
2020
Bethany Arts Community
Solo Show
Ossining, NY
2019
X Gallery
Group Show
Harlem, NY
2018
Imperfect Gallery
Group Show
Germantown, PA
2017
Mitchell Algus Gallery
Group Show
New York, NY
2009
Walter Randel Gallery
Group Show
New York, NY
2008
Design Crib
Group Show
Miami, FL
2007
Art Basel Miami
Design Crib
Miami, FL
2006
Patrick Lehman Gallery
Toronto Arts Festival
Toronto, Canada
2005
Gallery Tovar
Installation in Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo
Toronto Arts Festival
Patrick Lehman Gallery
Toronto, Canada
2004
DJT Fine Arts
Solo Show
New York, NY
Photo New York
Solo Show
New York, NY
Hamilton-Selway
Group Show
Los Angeles, CA
Patrick Lehman Gallery
Group Show
Toronto, Canada
Toronto Arts Festival
Patrick Lehman Gallery
Toronto, Canada
2003
DJT Fine Arts
Group Show
New York, NY
REPRESENTATION
2017 to the Present
Spencer Throckmorton Gallery
New York, NY
2004-2007
The John Stevenson Gallery
New York, NY
Exclusive Representation
DJT Fine Art
New York, NY
Exhibit A
New York, NY
ARTICLES
Art511
Camera Arts
M Magazine (featured)
Hudson Reporter (review)
Art Slant (featured)
Book Launch at Throckmorton Fine Art, NYC