After college, the first person who really influenced me was Seryozha Anufriev. My mother was friends with him. And he was the first who affected me in terms of… He was different back then. Now he has become a bit more grounded, but back then he was somehow unreal. And he explained something to me, and it became very easy for me in life because of that, I started to move inwardly toward something, although I don’t even remember now what he told me then. Later I read about it in other books – about Hermeticism, about other mystical teachings. He was one of the first to explain to me that art is some kind of parallel reality, it is not necessarily painting on canvas – still lifes and all that – but rather a kind of parallel reality. The second person was Sasha Roitburd. There was always some oppositional struggle between them; they always found some young people and together they kind of mentored them. Anufriev would drift into psychedelic spaces, while Roitburd explored the carnal joy of life more. A little later, Igor Gusev appeared, literally two or three years later. They were the first who influenced me, and the first thing I received from the world of new art was Moscow conceptualism, of course, for me it was something very… It was 1988 then. Conceptualism was just beginning to flourish. The first magazines started to be published. For me, it was pure pleasure. Then Roitburd began working with Kyiv, and that was the second influence on me. And I constantly had this dilemma: Moscow or Kyiv with its artists – it was always warm there, they were all very kind people, very cool. But there is a family there, the concept of family exists, you enter some common family. And entering this family, you immediately fell into some strange, very unpleasant dependence. I am a freer person. I hung out with them for some time, then ran away because some tension arose related to Munich, a trip to Germany. And I moved to Moscow for a while and communicated with artists there. They were not conceptualists, they were guys from Petrovsky Boulevard – kind of an underground, there were Petlyura, Garik Vinogradov, various musicians… This culture is a strange community, very heavy, very dark and infernal actually. It was very scary there. I left after a year because everyone there was on edge, something heavy was always happening, and it was very scary. Although later it all ended and gained social status and became what it is today. Postmodernism, of course, had a strong influence on me. It is still a very total trend – essentially, everything happening on earth now falls under this definition. It has not been properly described yet. But everything falls into it. Nothing new can be invented. Only mix everything in new proportions. I have always liked modernism very much, I really liked decadence, neoclassicism was very appealing, impressionism. That is, many things that inspired me – very many. And then suddenly at some point, I started to be inspired by my own works. Maybe about ten years ago. When you make your own works, you realize that you are moving beyond those people you looked up to. They have already expressed themselves. And now you must express yourself. And my task in life now is to express myself.Comment type: Published comment
Author: Dmytro Dulfan
Bibliography:
Holubovsky E. “Unclear Greed”: Dmitry Dulfan [Electronic resource] / E. Holubovsky, E. Demenyuk // ART UKRAINE. – 2010. – Access mode to the resource: http://artukraine.com.ua/a/quotsmutnaya-alchbaquot-dmitriy-dulfan/#.V58szLiLQhc.
Sources: Holubovsky E. “Unclear Greed”: Dmitry Dulfan [Electronic resource] / E. Holubovsky, E. Demenyuk // ART UKRAINE. – 2010. – Access mode to the resource: http://artukraine.com.ua/a/quotsmutnaya-alchbaquot-dmitriy-dulfan/#.V58szLiLQhc.
