Text: Ekaterina Kenigsberg
In the middle of 1980s he settled down in a specific kind of art emigration, and even after the ages changed he did not want to get back.
At the times of bright pictorial stories from the fields and construction sites of socialism it was not possible to find the works of an outstanding representative of cultural underground Viktar Piatrou at the reporting and anniversary exhibitions. He had to look for another way to live, work and exhibit. One of such solutions became an establishment of a group of independent contemporary art "Forma", created in 1987. It was the first significant victory of the Belarusian underground, because the existence of any art group outside the union of artists had been unconceivable recently. Since 1988 till 1990 the works of “Forma” were exhibited in new independent and unofficial galleries: in one of the research institutes in Minsk, the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Troitsk (Russia), as well as in the galleries and museums in Russia, Poland and Estonia. There was also the first experience of joint exhibitions with French artists.
Later "Forma" was replaced by Minsk independent art group «M-Art», initiated by Piatrou. Since 1990 till 1992 the group had organized six exhibitions in Belarus, Lithuania and France.
Viktar Piatrou was one of the creators of the independent art gallery “The 6th line” in Minsk. This happened in 1992 when Belarus became an independent state. Independent nonprofit art galleries, exhibition halls started to open first in Minsk and Vitebsk and later in other cities of Belarus. Prosperity of exhibition movement fell on 1990s-2000s: new art forms appeared, unprecedented earlier art actions took place.
The independent art gallery "The 6th Line" displayed the works by Belarusian underground artists Ludmila Rusova, Igor Kashkurevich, Viktar Piatrou, Olga Sazykina, young representatives of the Minsk School of Photography Igor Savchenko, Galina Moskalyova, Vladimir Shahlevich. It was in “The 6th Line” where you could witness the first week of performances and face brilliant curator projects, see modern German and French photography, Polish painting and drawing.
Viktar Piatrou has never had his own studio. Sketches and preparation for performances were carried out at home, in an old three-room apartment in Minsk. It was much more difficult to paint there. Little works did not require a large space, but the creation of large paintings was difficult. Nevertheless, in 1997 in such conditions the artist created the “Apocalypse. Warning”. The work was painted with oil on paper, rolled on the floor in the largest room without furniture. The perspective was estimated from the height of an ordinary household ladder. The work (the original size is 430×445 cm) was created specifically for the independent art gallery “The 6th Line”, which had 7 meters ceilings and interior space of the former gymnasium. Bright, fire red, disturbing work attracted; dual, joint, embraced figures explode the space. The work "Apocalypse. Warning" has become a kind of an icon of changes in the field of fine art of Belarus in late 1990s.
Unfortunately, “The 6th Line” was closed in 1998 and since then Viktar Piatrou has not exhibited his paintings in Belarus.
The definition "first" or "one of the first" characterizes any kind of the artist’s activity. Since 1988 Viktar Piatrou has started to make performances and he was one of the first artists in this field in Belarus. Incomprehensible, informal, unacknowledged by Soviet artistic institutes performance could easily fit into the rooms of Polish galleries, which started to display the creations of Belarusian underground actively. And since 1999 Viktar Piatrou has become a permanent organizer and participant of international performance festival “Navinki”, which is held annually in Minsk in late summer and early autumn. Some of his recorded performances are included in the exposition of the Pavilion of the Republic of Belarus.
Viktar Piatrou also concerns himself with painting and graphics. His "Marfa and Maria" (150×180 cm, 2008) is made with traditional oil on canvas, but this work has common color gamut and saturation with his old work “Apocalypse. Warning”. The works "Christ on water" (2010), "Looking out of the window" (1997), "The Couple on the Snow" (1997), "The Couple in the Sky" (2004), represented at the exhibition, are made with oil on wood, cardboard or hardboard and reflect different periods of creativity of the artist. In the past five years due to development of digital technologies, Piatrou started actively to draw with the use of computer. The works from the series “Thousand and one picture on a computer”, you can see on a screen in a varying succession, and one of them," The Couples "(2009) - in a printed form.
In 2003 V.Piatrou said that the creation of traditional paintings was a habit and certain nostalgia for the irrevocable and distant way you can not return. Technologies and methods are changing over the time, but the artist's self-improvement, his desire for renewal and the constant search for new paths does not change.