Religious themes in creation of Russian artists in 1990’s

The understanding of contemporary religious art, developing within the secular tradition, requires a careful analysis of the artistic practices of the late 20th century. In course of studying the principles of interpretation of the Christian heritage in contemporary art, it is necessary to address to the origins of the current cultural and historical situation, in which the subjects of the church return to the avant-garde of artistic thought, to study the key interpretations of Christian subjects within the creative approaches of Russian artists who worked in the 1990’s: members of the group «Inspection „Medical hermeneutics“», Alexander Sigutin, Vitaly Komar & Alexander Melamide, Alexander Kosolapov, Vladimir Dubosarsky and Alexander Vinogradov. In contemporary art of the 1990’s a several basic principles of the incarnation of Christian images and stories coexisted: a mystical appeal to conceptualism («Medgermenevty»), the ideological meanings of the concept in the spirit of pop-art and soc-art (Komar & Melamid, Sigutin), «commercialization» mass images (Kosolapov), «household aestheticization» (Dubossarskii & Vinogradov). Having generated actual artistic interpretations, the themes of the Christian tradition took a significant place in the artistic life of Russia. The peculiarity of Christian art of the late XX century lies not only in didactics and in embodiment of religious motifs, it is important to express personal experience and individual understanding in the process of creativity of ideas and values of the Christian faith for modern artist.