REVIEWS:

“Tokarev has created the part of the contemporary Russian avant-guard which will make our epoch famous, as Russian avant-guard of the 20s did in its time.”

Maitre Claude Robert, Comissaire Priseur,
Ex-President of the Drouot Auction House Board of Directors, Paris

“Russia had three great artists in the 20th century: Chagall, Tyshler, and Tokarev.”

Yury Osmolovsky, Art critic,
Secretary of the USSR Union of Artists

“If your collection of paintings could use some additions, pay attention to Alexander Tokarev. He is one of the last living Russian masters from the once powerful avant-guard trend.”

Ogoniok Magazine, August 2002

“Alexander Tokarev is one of the most intellectual and at the same time ironic artist of our time. His work is an intricate combination of icons and popular art (lubok) with the best traditions of the European and Russian avant-guard.”

TV Channel «KULTURA», October 2004

“His paintings speak with a peculiar intonation characteristic of Odessa: a combination of enthusiastic elan with the urge to chuckle at most solemn events.”

Ah… Magazine, March 2002

“Alexander Tokarev and Ivan Bukovsky are without doubt among the best contemporary artists in Russia and the Czech Republic. They are concerned with eternal topics: man and time, man and history, man and art. Their view of the world and themselves is filled with irony. Their works are full of deep philosophical meaning and incredible energy.”

Jaroslav Basta,
Czech Ambassador to Russia, 2004

“Tokarev takes up in his painting the general problem of our reality vs. our desires, where there occurs in our human psychology a great need for 'mediation' to resolve the huge philosophical contradictions that cause our anxiety and are even as a result typically quite taboo to our consciousness. His Art acts as a mediator for us when in the paintings he proposes flight as the resolution of the apparent irreconcilability of our desires with our human boundedness - we are so pitifully grounded ordinarily. He crosses the boundaries between earth and space using images of flight, birds, religious symbols, mythical references, textured light, transfiguration, and explosion in order to surpass our confinement inside our corruptible flesh and our own limited power during our confining, because finite, lifespans. He fights the threat of thanatos with eros, and in his art obliteration is defeated by generative power, and the resultant images may thus manifest the erotic and speak of the delights of pleasure when we can be free, when we can 'fly'.”

Professor Harvey Pitkin, Columbia University, NYC

SELECTED ARTICLES AND REPORTINGS:

THE TIME OF EROS AND THE TIME OF THANATOS: Analysis of a Painted Text

Professor Harvey Pitkin New York, January 1995

Tokarev composing

Mikhail Lazarev, Art Critic, Editor-in-chief of “Iskusstvo” Magazine (“Art”) 1991

The Alien

Alexander Kabakov, “Junost” Magazine, April 1993

“Crackpots” by Alexander Tokarev

Lyudmila Solnyshkina, Michael Levin, TV Channel "KULTURA" Moscow, 2004

Uniting the Incompatible

News Service of the TV Channel “KULTURA”, Moscow, 2004