Timur Novikov is a unique figure in his multifacetedness and significance in the art world; his contribution to the development of culture cannot be overestimated. His creative activity included work in various genres such as painting, graphic art, film and music. In addition, he was known as an exhibition organizer, engaged in educational activity, did a great deal as an art theorist and even founded the New Academy of Fine Arts, which in its own way revered the classics and became part of the Leningrad Free University. He actively participated in covering the art issues of his time, founding together with other artists the magazine "Kabinet".
In 1999, together with Alexander Medvedev, he wrote and published the books "The Abduction of Europe" and "The Abduction of the Mind", and in 2001 he took part in the Punin Readings (Saint Petersburg State University) with a paper titled "Two Histories of Contemporary Art." Novikov was an active representative of the unofficial artistic community and one of the founders of cultural movements such as the "New Artists." Later they expanded beyond visual art with the arrival of composers, joining with the groups "Kino" and "Pop-Mechanics." They played music and staged performances, and were also ready to turn any object into art using ready-made techniques. Their main goal was to transform the world by aesthetic means. Possessing a unique sense of style and an understanding of the viewer's psychology, Timur applied his talent not only as an artist and designer, creating unique stage images for the band "Kino".
In 1987 Timur took part in creating the film "Assa" as an actor and production designer. In collaboration with director Sergei Solovyov he received the first-ever award for production design in Soviet cinema, becoming the first media artist in the USSR and the ideologue of "Pirate Television." Besides "Assa," Novikov acted in the films "Rock," "Two Captains-2," "Woe from Wit," and also participated in staging several plays and a ballet. And in 1999 he became the director of such well-known films as "The Nightmare of Modernism" and "The Golden Section."
Together with Andrei Khlobystin in 1998 he published the newspaper "Artistic Will." At the initiative of Novikov and Khlobystin the "Artistic Will" movement staged the performance "Burning of Vanities" at the Kronstadt fort — in front of a large crowd Novikov burned one of his works, making a reference to the "bonfires of vanity." The action was dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the execution of the Florentine preacher Girolamo Savonarola:
In his art Timur Novikov sought to expand the boundaries of customary standards and to introduce new elements. His works were characterized by abstraction, intuitive imagery and mastery of minimalist elements, and bore resemblance to neo-expressionism. Perhaps Novikov's nature, obsessed with creative activity, required some ordering—self-limitation—which found outlet in a new language of artistic expression: minimalism, clear straight lines, the whole composition "cleaner, straighter, simpler." Thus he created the series of landscape collages "Horizons," using the principle of recomposition and secondary use of materials:
"My works are simple — they are not overloaded with information; rest — that is what I try to give the viewer. In reality a person rests when contemplating a landscape... Every time I work, I compare it [the landscape] with the space above the bed — will it be possible to see it every day? Will it not spoil the mood?.. Comfort of perception is one of the most important tasks I set for myself when developing the pictorial system," used in the "Horizons."
The artist used fabric as the main material for his works; the horizon line was created at the junction of two different pieces of fabric, and the landscape was intuitively read thanks to a tiny object added within the scale field of the created scene. By including a single detail on the canvas a forest with a running deer, a submarine at sea, a city embankment, Egyptian pyramids, a camel traversing the desert, a rising sun, a lake with a swan, etc., would come into view. Based on the "Horizons," Timur Novikov developed the theory of sign perspective, which, according to his followers, became the language of a new art close both to contemporary digital aesthetics and to ancient hieroglyphics and archaic art.
"Sometimes it is difficult to enter a landscape. These landscapes of yours are such that it is difficult to leave them," Brodsky said of his works.
Over time the artist's works changed — simple types of fabric and minimalist forms gave way to new subjects and a new manner of execution. On canvases of costly fabrics — silk, velvet, brocade — symbolizing historicity and the world of classical art, medallions appeared with reproductions of past paintings, photographs of classical sculpture, antique cameos, portraits and embroideries. Yet the distinctive taste in composition and his artistic manner make the master's hand easy to recognize.
