Genia Chef

In 1961, five years after Nikita Khrushchev denounced Joseph Stalin's crimes in his Secret Speech at the Twentieth Party Congress, Vladimir Scheffer was granted permission for the family to return to Moscow.

During his studies, Genia Chef began working as an illustrator for the Soviet popular science magazine "Znanie-Sila", which provided a platform for nonconformist artists such as Yulo Sooster, who is considered a precursor of Moscow Conceptualism.

Chief editor of the experimental magazine was Yuri Sobolev, a figure of the Moscow underground art scene and author of the animated films "Once upon a time there was a Kosyavin", "Butterfly" and "The Glass Harmonica".

After studying at the Moscow Polygraphic Institute, Genia Chef lived mainly from book illustrations, as did other nonconformist artists in the USSR of the time (e.g. Ilya Kabakov, Oleg Vassiliev or Erik Bulatov).

At that time Genia Chef created works in which he staged familiar figures from Russian history such as Leo Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky or V.I.Lenin in landscapes of the Spanish Mediterranean coast.

A comprehensive solo exhibition at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg entitled "Glory of a New Century" in 2011 presents numerous key works from both creative periods.

In their performance on the occasion of the exhibition opening, both artists compete against each other: Genia Chef as knight with lance and shield, Vladimir Sorokin as Neanderthal with notebook and wooden stick.