Georgy Guryanov

Georgy (Gustav) Konstantinovich Guryanov (; 27 February 1961 – 20 July 2013) was a Soviet and Russian musician and artist.

From 1984 to 1990, Guryanov was the drummer, arranger, and backing vocalist in Kino and participant in Sergey Kuryokhin's Pop Mechanics. From 1990 to 2013, Guryanov worked as an artist. From 1993, he was an honorary professor at the New Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg.

Biography Georgy Guryanov was born on 27 February 1961 in the maternity hospital of the Petrogradsky District, Leningrad to Konstantin Fedorovich (6 July 1914 - 26 October 1993) and Margarita Vikentievna (22 December 1924 - 9 February 2013), both geologists. Even before school, he began to study music at the Kozitsky Palace of Culture, where he learned to play the balalaika, domra, piano, and guitar.

From 1974 to 1976, Guryanov studied at secondary school No. 363 in Kupchino. In 1975, he graduated from the city art school No. 1. In 1976, he entered the V. A. Serov Leningrad Art School , but left the school after a year.

Guryanov lived in Moscow for part of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Starting in the late 1980s, Guryanov traveled substantially. He visited Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, Budapest, New York, Los Angeles, Cadaques, and lived for long periods in Berlin, London, and Spain (having studied Spanish since 1993). He called St. Petersburg, Madrid, and London his favorite cities. In his final years, he lived and worked on Liteyny Avenue in St. Petersburg.

Music From 1978 to 1979, Guryanov played bass guitar in Sergey "Sam" Semyonov's band. In 1983, he briefly played in Andrey "Swine" Panov's punk group, Avtomaticheskie udovletvoriteli. In 1985, he helped record the drum parts for the band Narodonoe opolcheniye's album Novogodiye . In the mid-1980s, he was the drummer for the band Igry .

In 1982, Guryanov met Viktor Tsoi. From 1984, he started playing in Kino as a drummer, arranger, and backing vocalist.

Guryanov was distinguished by his manner of playing on the drum kit while standing.

In the 1980s, Guryanov also began to collaborate with the duo New Composers , pioneers in the field of electronic music in the USSR. In the second half of the 1980s, musicians from Kino and New Composers collaborated on the album Start.

In 1984, together with Timur Novikov and Igor Verichev, Guryanov performed in the "Ballet of Three Lovebirds" by Daniil Kharms to the music of New Composers. From 1985, he was part of the industrial group of Sergey Kuryokhin's Pop-Mechanics, in which he also participated as a drummer and vocalist.

Guryanov played in Kino until the band's break-up following Tsoi's death in August 1990. At the time of Tsoi's death, according to Guryanov, the group was preparing to go to Tokyo to meet with an influential Japanese production corporation.

In the late 1980s, he turned his attention to the culture of techno, house music, and the club movement. In the early 1990s, Guryanov helped organize the first Russian raves: "Gagarin Party" at the VDNKh and "Mobile Party" at the Krylatskoye stadium in Moscow.

Painting In 1979, Guryanov met artist Timur Novikov. In 1982, he became one of the first members of the New Artists group. Guryanov took part in the action "Zero Object" with Novikov.

In 1986, Guryanov, Novikov, and Sergey "Afrika" Bugaev founded the Club of Friends of V V Mayakovsky .

In 1990, he took part in the project "Youth and Beauty in Art" (conference and exhibition), held by Timur Novikov and Dunya Smirnova at the Leningrad House of Scientists.

In 1991, he participated in the exhibition "Academism and Neo-Academism" in the Marble Palace (Museum of V. I. Lenin), alongside artists such as Novikov, Denis Egelsky, and the young couturier Konstantin Goncharov, who created the "Strict Youth" fashion house. Goncharov had made outfits for Guryanov and the other members of Kino. An exhibition of Guryanov's work titled "Willpower" ran at the Regina Gallery, Moscow from 1 November to 30 November 1994.

In September 1995, Guryanov took part in the exhibition "On Beauty" at the Regina Gallery, Moscow, curated by Dan Cameron.

In 1997, Guryanov took part in the exhibition "Kabinet" at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

In 1999, he became part of the New Serious movement, organized by Timur Novikov.

Guryanov was most known for his images of athletes, sailors, and pilots. According to Maria Engström, these works follow in tradition of Andy Warhol's pop art as well as the Socialist realist works of Aleksandr Samokhvalov, Aleksandr Deyneka, and Ivan Shagin. Other references in Guryanov's work include the photographs of Alexander Rodchenko and films such as A Severe Young Man, Querelle, and Death in Venice. Guryanov's 1990 work Self-Portrait was sold at the Sotheby's Contemporary East auction in June 2016 for 143,000 GBP.

Film and television Guryanov appeared as himself in Kino's music videos and in the cult films such as Ya-Hha , End Of Holiday , Rok , and Assa. According to the director Rashid Nugmanov, Guryanov was considered for a role in The Needle, but Guryanov turned it down.

In 1989, Guryanov helped found Pirate Television alongside Yuris Lesnik, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, and Timur Novikov. and remained home in critical condition. He died at the age of 52 on July 20, 2013, in St. Petersburg.

The funeral service took place on July 25 at the St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Guryanov was buried at the Smolensk Cemetery.

Memorial On February 27, 2014, Guryanov's birthday, the first exhibition dedicated to the artist and musician was opened in the Pushinskaya 10 Arts Center at the Museum of the New Academy of Fine Arts, with the support of the gallery D137. The exhibition, titled "My artwork - Me myself" , featured works by friends and contemporaries such as Timur Novikov, Viktor Tsoi, Evgeny Kozlov, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, Denis Egelsky, Edyge Niyazov, Metsur Volde, and Andrey Khlobystin. It was curated by Andrey Khlobystin. A catalog dedicated to Guryanov was prepared for the opening of the exhibition.

In August 2017, the AST publishing house (Moscow) published the book “Georgy Guryanov: I Am Art,” written by Metsur Volde.

Works in collections Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg New Museum , Saint Petersburg Triumph Gallery , Moscow Private collection of Rinad Akhmetchin Private collection of Shalva Breus Private collection of Pierre-Christian Brochet Private collection of Victoria Markina Private collection of Regina and Vladimir Ovcharenko, Moscow Private collection of Ekaterina and Vladimir Seminikhin, Moscow