Risking being denounced as an 'enemy of the people,' Igor Savitsky rescues 40,000 forbidden fellow artists' works and creates in a far desert of Soviet Uzbekistan a museum now worth millions.
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00:00Welcome to Independent Lens. I'm America Ferreira.
00:03Who hides 40,000 banned works of art from the KGB in plain sight?
00:08So how did this happen? The fact that there's such a collection in this place?
00:12These are independent filmmakers Amanda Pope and Chavdar Georgiev.
00:16They stumbled across an art collection in Islamic Uzbekistan,
00:20created single-handedly by a penniless man in a land suspicious of Western art.
00:25A story of Islam, Stalin, the Silk Road, and the Russian avant-garde
00:29hidden in some of the greatest art the world has barely seen.
00:32The Desert of Forbidden Art, next.
00:45This program is made possible by
00:48the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
00:50the National Endowment for the Arts,
00:53and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
01:23I found these paintings rolled up under the beds of old widows,
01:46buried in family trash.
01:54In dark corners of artists' studios,
01:59sometimes even patching a hole in the roof.
02:06I ended up with a collection that no one in the Soviet Union would dare to exhibit.
02:16These were forbidden works by artists who stayed true to their vision
02:23at a terrible cost.
02:46These were works that no one in the Soviet Union would dare to exhibit.
02:55They say, why was it impossible to make such a museum here?
02:59It was impossible.
03:01Only in the sand, where no one could get to,
03:06it was possible to make it.
03:16Russian museums can't live with the idea that such a wonderful collection
03:32was taken out from Russia to this provincial place somewhere in Uzbekistan,
03:38God knows where.
03:47It really wasn't that long ago when what we now call Uzbekistan
03:52was one of the most spectacular centers of world culture.
03:56The Silk Road ran right through that region.
04:00But for a period of almost a century,
04:03Uzbekistan had been just distant province of the Soviet Union.
04:09When the Soviet Union collapsed,
04:11I was asked to cover this region that nobody in the world really ever thought about.
04:19For those people who consider Uzbekistan to be hopelessly exotic and remote,
04:25how about Karakalpakstan?
04:27It's an independent republic within Uzbekistan.
04:34The principal city in Karakalpakstan is Nukus.
04:42I had, I guess, assumed that the Nukus Museum would be to museums in the world
04:49what Nukus is to the world.
04:52Kind of a dusty provincial town.
04:56It didn't take me more than a few minutes of walking around this museum
05:01for my jaw to drop.
05:12The fact that there's such a collection in this place
05:16and such a concentration of art
05:18makes it far more interesting than if you would see these same paintings
05:22in a series of galleries in Germany or in New York.
05:26So how did this happen?
05:37I was born into a life of privilege.
05:40I even had a proper governess imported from France.
05:46The little girl with the bow is me,
05:49groomed in the high fashion of the times.
05:53My father was a wealthy lawyer
05:56while my mother spent her days presiding over tea.
06:00My brother went to military school and I was supposed to follow in his footsteps
06:05and serve the Tsar.
06:08But then the revolution broke out.
06:11Our life turned upside down.
06:15We were no longer the ruling class.
06:19One by one our friends and relatives began to disappear.
06:24We had to hide our aristocratic roots
06:27and blend in with the proletariat
06:30who were now in power.
06:34I had to prove that I was ideologically pure.
06:39So I took a working-class job as an electrician.
06:44But I dreamed of becoming an artist.
06:58I got my opportunity
07:01when I joined the famous Khorezm archaeological expedition.
07:06It was the greatest dig in Soviet Central Asia,
07:09as important as the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb.
07:31They appointed Savitsky on duty.
07:34He brought clean plates for lunch.
07:37He washed them without water.
07:40And they began to spy on him.
07:47Savitsky took out a plate and there was a dog.
07:50He came and licked the plate.
07:53Then he put the clean plate down and threw the second plate.
07:58Then they came and said,
08:00this is a dog.
08:03And I said, during the war,
08:06dogs licked wounds and healed them.
08:11While everybody slept during the midday heat,
08:15I painted.
08:18The desert trains the eye to be especially sensitive
08:21to subtle and intense variations in color.
08:25It is the best school for the painter
08:28who strives to grasp the full power of how color sounds.
08:34Later, Igor Vitalievich came to Moscow
08:37and showed his work to his teacher, Robert Falk,
08:40a famous master whom he worshipped.
08:43Falk criticized him.
08:46Falk said it was rubbish,
08:49that he didn't understand what color was,
08:52that he didn't have color, that he didn't feel color.
08:58If an artist of Falk's stature tells you you're no good,
09:03you know you'll never be great.
09:16I destroyed all my works
09:19and cut my ties to the art world.
09:23I decided to return to the desert and start a new life.
09:28Can you imagine what it means to give up your apartment in Moscow,
09:33your environment,
09:36and settle in this unknown land?
09:59I knew Savitsky from my childhood.
10:05My grandmother was always full of irony
10:08when she saw Savitsky saying,
10:11oh, again he came to ask for this old stuff.
10:19This is the classical costume of Karagalpak fiancé,
10:23which is exactly the same denim cloth
10:26that is popular all over the world now,
10:29and Karagalpaks were using this cloth for more than three centuries.
10:47When the Soviets were in power,
10:50they felt that the ethnic traditions
10:53of all these nationalities in what was then the Soviet South
10:58should be repressed.
11:00And if you had traditional clothing,
11:03you should hide those, you should get rid of those.
11:06Savitsky saved a lot of that stuff
11:09that might otherwise have disappeared.
11:13These treasures would remain forever in my garage
11:18unless I found a way to get the local Communist Party boss
11:23to go against party policy.
11:42And he asked me to help him finance it.
11:48And for ten years he was collecting these things.
11:53I had to help him.
11:58I called the Minister of Finance.
12:05Savitsky asked for three million.
12:09At that time, the ruble was 1.64 rubles.
12:13The dollar was equal to three million.
12:16That's a lot.
12:19The Minister of Finance said,
12:22if I give you this money,
12:25the Minister of Finance of Uzbekistan will take my head off.
12:29I said to him,
12:31what difference does it make to you
12:34if the Minister of Finance of Uzbekistan takes your head off
12:38or if I take it off?
12:40You'll still be left without a head.
12:45That's how, out of the law,
12:48he was partially given the money.
12:54I finally had my museum.
12:58But as an artist, I still longed to see paintings.
13:05Around that time, I came across an art catalogue
13:08from the early days of Soviet Uzbekistan.
13:13On the first page,
13:15there were photographs of the most prominent artists
13:19who determined the development of Uzbek art.
13:23In the end, there was Aleksandr Nikolaevich Volkov,
13:27who was the centre of this exhibition.
13:30I was surprised that I'd never heard of Volkov.
13:35If a work so haunting had fallen victim to censorship,
13:39what else was out there?
13:42He began to collect artists who had been forgotten,
13:46abandoned, and unneeded.
13:53The first work, the inventory number,
13:57which has the number 1,
14:00was by my father, Aleksandr Nikolaevich Volkov,
14:03in the Lukusky Museum.
14:05He was on the canvas, twisted.
14:08He was in a state... He just died.
14:12I travelled all over Uzbekistan,
14:15searching for masterpieces
14:17that the history of our times had condemned to obscurity.
14:27I found a whole multinational collective of artists.
14:33Some were Uzbeks,
14:35others came from distant parts of our Soviet Union.
14:40They came here after the revolution.
14:43For a brief period of time in the 20s and 30s,
14:47they painted freely,
14:49far away from the Kremlin's censorship.
14:52Uzbekistan became their second motherland.
14:56Uzbekistan became their second motherland.
15:20The artists strove to find
15:22the most contemporary methods and forms
15:25to depict the Uzbek people and their culture.
15:37So you began to have a kind of a cross-fertilization
15:41of one of the great world-class schools of art,
15:45the Russian avant-garde,
15:47with this other, more interesting locally-based school
15:50and the influences that created the Russian avant-garde
15:53merged and melded with the influences
15:56that came out of Central Asia.
16:06Mikhail Kurzin came also to Uzbekistan
16:09in the beginning of 1920s.
16:12If we look at his first impressions of Uzbekistan...
16:16This was the new, this is the old.
16:19The old symbolized the tradition of Islamic country
16:23when men was allowed to have up to four wives.
16:27So we can see two wives following their master
16:31and they are wearing veils, these paranjas.
16:38Sarcasm of Kurzin is in the fact that
16:41the two traditional wives are combined
16:44with the new Soviet kind of wife
16:47and the new clothes and the new way of behavior.
16:55Part of the revolution that Soviet rule brought to Central Asia
16:59was the liberation of women.
17:18Mister, no one should see our faces, only you.
17:22You are our new husband.
17:24Tell your man not to come.
17:26Ladies and gentlemen,
17:29the revolution liberated you.
17:32You don't have a master now.
17:35No, mister.
17:37And just call me comrade Sukhov.
17:40Forget your damned past.
17:43You will be free to work
17:46and everyone will have a separate husband.
17:50Central Asia had been stuck in a far distant past
17:54and when the Soviets arrived,
17:56it was like a dawning of a huge new era.
17:59Life changed in every way for the people that lived there.
18:16My father, Alexander Volkov,
18:19set a goal to reflect the life
18:22that was going on around him
18:25with all its changes.
18:46And this work of people,
18:49joyful attitude to work
18:52and women who opened their faces,
18:55it was a fact.
19:17The Soviets decided that they were going to turn Central Asia
19:21into the region where all the cotton
19:24for the entire Soviet Union was going to be produced.
19:32Cotton is a very water intensive project
19:35and so the Soviets built a huge network
19:39of extremely inefficient irrigation channels
19:43and they sucked this water
19:46principally out of the rivers that fed into the Aral Sea.
19:50This was one of the world's largest inland seas
19:54and had been since time immemorial.
19:57It just dried up.
20:04This Aral Sea disaster
20:07is truly one of the great environmental catastrophes
20:11of the 20th century.
20:20As I was walking across the wasteland of our Soviet dream,
20:27I pitied Volkov for his idealism.
20:32The artist Volkov,
20:35more than anybody else,
20:38has gone astray.
20:41Volkov doesn't see anything but colors.
20:47The audience saw staring at them from the walls
20:50roughly sketched monsters,
20:53a deliberate distortion
20:56of reality.
21:26Art is more meaningful
21:29than the official art
21:32that was called socialist realism.
21:49Art should explain to the people
21:52what a revolution is,
21:55what a new government is,
21:58and for this they needed non-avant-garde art.
22:01The Soviet government announced
22:04that the people needed other art,
22:07art that tells about their life,
22:10but not the way it really is,
22:13but in a romantic,
22:16elevated way.
22:26You had these paintings of hard-working peasants
22:29and factory workers,
22:32all of whom would be very healthy and vibrant.
22:35They were supposed to convey the satisfaction
22:38and the thrill that people felt
22:41of being Soviet citizens.
22:56If an artist wished to work
22:59outside the system of Soviet socialist realism,
23:02then that artist would inevitably
23:05be removed from that system,
23:08like a microbe from the healthy body.
23:16In my dream,
23:19I saw a creature
23:22his eyes like the barrels of a gun.
23:25I called the painting
23:28Fascism is Advancing.
23:42It was a kind of a future vision
23:45of the threat that was coming.
23:53The fact that Lysenko finished his life
23:56in a mental hospital means a lot.
23:59Many artists were forced to be sent
24:02to mental hospitals.
24:08Savitsky was criticized for this very painting
24:11when it was hung on the walls of the museum.
24:14The inspection came and said,
24:17you must take away this anti-Soviet work.
24:20It's a degenerate painting,
24:23so there is no place for it in the museum.
24:27Anti-Soviet?
24:30Of course, degenerate.
24:34No way.
24:37The next day, after the commission left,
24:40I put it on the wall again.
24:43It was too great a work of art to hide.
24:46Here is another painting
24:49from our collection done by Komarovsky.
24:52He was studying icon painting.
25:00Unfortunately, his life was ended
25:03during Stalin's repressions
25:06for the only reason that he believed in God.
25:16Alexander Nikolayev was also repressed.
25:19The reason was his non-traditional
25:22sexual orientation.
25:25He was arrested and imprisoned for homosexuality,
25:28which was considered to be a crime
25:31in Stalin's Russia.
25:37The next day,
25:40I went to the museum
25:44and found this painting.
25:50Two years ago,
25:53a new information about this painting came to us.
25:56We realized that this was only part of the painting
25:59made by Mikhail Kursin,
26:02and the whole painting looks like this.
26:05So it was a big discovery for us,
26:08very unexpected.
26:11We don't know who cut the painting.
26:14The photograph came from the KGB archives,
26:17and now we look at this painting
26:20with new eyes.
26:26In Kursin's caricature
26:29of Western capitalism,
26:32the millionaires cradle their symbols of power
26:35against the background of exploited workers.
26:39At first glance, it's hard to understand
26:42why the Soviet secret police
26:45objected to this criticism of capitalism.
26:48But as you take a closer look,
26:51Kursin's workers bear a striking resemblance
26:54to the ones in Stalin's labor camps.
26:59You see the self-portrait of Kursin
27:02holding a coffin.
27:05So this is an elevation of hopes,
27:08of the dreams of an artist in that society.
27:17November 16, 1936.
27:20Interrogation of the defendant
27:23Mikhail Ivanovich Kursin.
27:26Question.
27:29Tell the investigator about your anti-Soviet speech
27:32The exhibition of the artist Molt.
27:35Answer.
27:38I don't remember the matter
27:41of my anti-Soviet speech
27:44because I was drunk.
27:47There is a story about Kursin
27:50when he was drunk and went out.
27:53He was wearing his wife's underpants
27:56and he was shouting,
27:59Let's go to the Kremlin.
28:18From the interrogation of the witness
28:21Alexander Nikolayevich Volkov.
28:24Encouraged to testify against his fellow artist
28:27and friend Kursin.
28:34In conversations with me, Kursin said
28:37that the USSR doesn't allow freedom of expression.
28:40Pointing out that there are greater opportunities
28:43for artists' creativity
28:46in capitalist countries.
28:50My father never told me that.
28:53My father was waiting for an arrest every day.
28:56Our father had a lot of denunciations
28:59in the KGB.
29:02When I was a boy,
29:05I understood that he was always tense.
29:08My father had a nervous tic.
29:11His cheek was twitching.
29:14Witness Alexander Nikolayevich Volkov.
29:17I am convinced that Kursin
29:20is an anti-Soviet artist
29:23and human being.
29:26Hostile to the Soviet rule
29:29and the politics of the party.
29:32It's a terrible thing
29:35when you get such documents.
29:41It's a moment of great worry
29:44for Kursin
29:47and for his father
29:50who was arrested by the NKVD.
29:53You have to understand
29:56what a terrible time it was.
29:59There is only one thing left to do.
30:02Either you sign yourself in prison
30:05or try to save yourself and your family.
30:08Who can judge a person for this?
30:12We are speaking so much
30:15about the artists
30:18who were repressed in Stalin's time.
30:21All those terrible stories
30:24how they were sent to gulags
30:27or some were driven mad.
30:30But when we come to our own personal life,
30:33I realize that
30:36there are so many stories
30:39that are tragic around us.
30:42My father had a very difficult life.
30:45His father was shot in 1938
30:48as the enemy of people
30:51being the president of Karakalpakstan.
30:54And he just wanted his people
30:57to blossom, to flourish.
31:00And he was shot in 1938
31:03as the enemy of people
31:06being the president of Karakalpakstan.
31:09And he just wanted his people
31:12to blossom, to flourish.
31:36Nadezhda Borovaya was sent
31:39to a concentration camp
31:42as the wife of an admiral
31:45who was repressed.
31:51Even children were sent
31:54to concentration camps,
31:57to women's colonies.
32:00Once in 1983,
32:03Savitsky prepared a big portion
32:06of the wax
32:09for the attention of the commission
32:12from the Ministry of Culture.
32:15He was to persuade them
32:18to give money to the museum
32:21so that he could pay the owners.
32:24One of the artists
32:27that was put on the agenda
32:30was Nadezhda Borovaya.
32:33Savitsky was very tricky.
32:36He said that these were
32:39Nazis' concentration camps,
32:42showing all those people
32:45who were at the drawings
32:48with the numbers on their foreheads
32:51and terrible scenes of lives
32:55of those prisoners.
32:58So the commission was persuaded.
33:01They decided to pay money
33:04to Nadezhda Borovaya.
33:07And after the commission
33:10went away, Savitsky came to me
33:13and whispered into my ear
33:16with a smile on his face
33:19that these were
33:23Nazis' concentration camps.
33:26Later I realized
33:29the extent of danger
33:32he exposed himself.
33:35Borovaya's works were unique
33:38visual evidence of the repressions.
33:41I had to make sure that one day
33:44people could see them.
33:53My father was invited to work
33:56for the regional
33:59Communist Party Department,
34:02and he advised Savitsky to be careful.
34:05My father was saying,
34:08oh, one day you will get
34:11into the jail.
34:14But Savitsky's obsession
34:17was so strong,
34:21Savitsky heard about this artist,
34:24Ural Tantsykbaev,
34:27who was recognized by the regime
34:30as the master of socialist realism.
34:33He was awarded many state prizes.
34:36At first I didn't want to go
34:39to Tantsykbaev.
34:42He was a fat cat,
34:45enjoying all the perks
34:48He painted what he was told.
34:54But then I discovered
34:57that Tantsykbaev had been
35:00one of Volkov's favorite students.
35:05So I went to Tantsykbaev's studio.
35:10The works were boring,
35:13but I saw immediately
35:16the hand of someone who knew how to paint.
35:21He was a bit suspicious of my motives,
35:24until we found that we both admired
35:27Uzbek folk culture.
35:35He showed me watercolors of village life
35:38that he'd done as a young man.
35:41I asked him if these were all he had.
35:44He managed to convince Tantsykbaev
35:47that it was difficult,
35:50because Tantsykbaev was even afraid of it.
35:53He hid them, he didn't show them to anyone.
35:56Ural Tantsykbaev took Savitsky
35:59into the attic, opened a big chest,
36:02and Savitsky couldn't believe his eyes.
36:15I had stumbled upon a world
36:18created by the mind of a genius.
36:25These works, that hadn't been exhibited
36:28for many years,
36:31shocked me with their originality.
36:39We can see his real soul
36:42in his early paintings.
36:46He told me how much he admired Van Gogh,
36:49Gauguin, and Seurat.
36:56But his subjects came from
36:59the Oriental culture around him.
37:13Tantsykbaev said you can take
37:16everything what you like,
37:19and you can pay when you can.
37:23I quickly took every single work
37:26before Tantsykbaev changed his mind.
37:31Lukus was so far away,
37:34far from political, cultural centers.
37:37Maybe Tantsykbaev thought
37:40he could make his own paintings there.
38:02When Savitsky started collecting
38:05works of famous artists,
38:08he visited us and my mother.
38:16Yelena Karabay was very much
38:19interested by the life of Jews of Bukhara.
38:23Not the fact that they were isolated
38:26and living in ghettos,
38:29but she saw the beauty of their occupation.
38:32We can see wonderful indigo colors
38:35and gold dyers,
38:38or tailors of Bukhara,
38:41who have the whole series of these weds
38:44that were created by her
38:47during her stay in Uzbekistan.
39:05I came up with a thing
39:08like a paper mask.
39:11I helped my mother
39:14to realize it creatively.
39:20Ordinary masks cover the face
39:23and give an image,
39:26but this one is different for everyone,
39:29and a person changes so much.
39:33This one, for example,
39:36is called Zvezdachot,
39:39a magic star.
39:43A fool with a rose.
39:46An evil old woman.
39:50A character from Russian fairy tales.
39:53A fool goes to meet him,
39:56not knowing where.
39:59When we arrived in Moscow,
40:02she had a lot of masks.
40:05She brought them to a publishing house,
40:08where they were looked at, laughed at,
40:11tried on each other, but it didn't work.
40:14It wasn't published.
40:17Savitsky played a big role
40:20in the fate of her legacy.
40:23Before he took part in the museum,
40:26it was a forgotten figure.
40:56He attentively, meticulously
40:59examines them again and again
41:02at a distance and up close,
41:05but doesn't get tired.
41:08As any fanatic,
41:11he's boring a little,
41:14pretending to be interested
41:17in what I have to say.
41:20But I know the only thing on his mind
41:23is getting all my works for his museum.
41:29I would leave Moscow
41:32with piles of aging canvases
41:35and boxes of drawings.
41:38I was such a sight
41:41that no taxi would stop for me.
41:44And the porters grumbled
41:47when I appeared at the train station.
41:53There were no rollers,
41:56and no one wanted to go with me
41:59because there was no place left.
42:07I traveled across Mother Russia
42:10for three days
42:16until the train tracks ran out.
42:20Then I'd camp out
42:23and wait for a truck
42:26to transport me and my treasures
42:29across the desert to Nucos.
42:49It seems very strange
42:52that he would have such enough money
42:55to have bought all the paintings
42:58that he bought,
43:01which were thousands of paintings.
43:04Yes, he had state subsidies
43:07for his museum,
43:10but those state subsidies
43:13were meant to be used
43:16to pay for his museum.
43:19Maybe he bought it,
43:22hid it somewhere,
43:25took my money and paid for it.
43:28It's absolutely incredible
43:31that he created a museum
43:34for state money,
43:37but a museum according to his feelings.
43:42He was all about museums.
43:45He only had one suit on his hook
43:48for a parade to his superiors.
43:51He didn't care about anything else.
43:54Where to live, what to eat,
43:57what to do, health, women, money.
44:00It didn't concern him at all.
44:07One can find art anywhere.
44:10All you have to do is look.
44:16Savitsky boiled bronze dishes
44:19in the same old way,
44:22in formalin,
44:25which is very toxic.
44:28It's a dangerous thing,
44:31but he completely ignored
44:34all the advice that concerned
44:37his own health.
44:40Igor Vytautas was, to a certain extent,
44:43a man of his words.
44:46He took a whole bag of dry formalin
44:49and started boiling it
44:52and breathing in these vapors.
44:55In the end, his lungs burned out.
44:58Instead of the lungs,
45:01there were two of these black lumps.
45:04So Savitsky was grabbed by Dr. Yefunia's staff
45:07and brought against his will to Moscow.
45:10When they checked his lungs,
45:13they understood that this is the end.
45:16The whole world was given
45:19to this unusual patient.
45:22They even allowed him to leave the world
45:25if he needed.
45:28So we know that Savitsky managed
45:31to collect two containers of paintings
45:34and graphics while he was staying
45:37He told me,
45:40Sergey Naumovich, I can't die.
45:43I owe more than 1.5 million to private individuals.
45:46It's impossible.
45:49And he continued to work.
45:52They brought him paintings.
46:07In the summer,
46:10the climate is very dry.
46:13We use these trays
46:16because the climate is very dry
46:19in the summer.
46:22It can be very hot
46:25or very cold.
46:28We use these trays
46:31because the climate is very dry
46:34in the summer.
46:37It can be plus 50 in the shadow.
46:40And we need some kind of humidifiers
46:43for the paintings.
46:46This does not help much, we know,
46:49but there is no way out at present.
46:52That's why we are using this primitive method
46:55of putting vessels with water everywhere.
46:58When Savitsky came to me and said,
47:01I want you to be director,
47:04I couldn't say no to him.
47:07The Nukus Museum has been
47:10my life's work for 25 years.
47:18Karakalpakstan is a very poor country,
47:21and the only treasure that it has now
47:24is this museum.
47:27Central Asia is really
47:30very turbulent,
47:33and Uzbekistan is in a very turbulent area.
47:36Of course, it borders on Afghanistan.
47:39Some of the same trends that you see in Afghanistan
47:42have also emerged in Uzbekistan.
47:45Remembering the events in Afghanistan
47:48when those radicals destroyed Buddha statues in Bamiyan,
47:51this means danger for our collection.
47:55The influence of Islamic fundamentalism
47:58could grow substantially.
48:01How that would affect a collection of art
48:04that is abstract, modernistic,
48:07and that is run by a woman
48:10could be a little bit disturbing.
48:16You can see piles of canvases
48:19that are hanging like this,
48:23they are real masterpieces,
48:26but they were never shown to anyone
48:29because they need to be restored,
48:32they need to be framed.
48:35When we look at these wonderful paintings,
48:38we understand that people are missing so much,
48:41they can't see all these treasures,
48:44and we have thousands of works like this in our storages.
48:53When I found this museum store,
48:56I called the New York Times editor,
48:59and she agreed with me.
49:02This is really an exclusive.
49:04There were going to be a lot of people choking on their English muffins
49:07over breakfast on Sunday when they read this one.
49:15The collectors from the West
49:18started to come in their private planes,
49:21bringing bags of money,
49:24showing this to us.
49:27They wanted the best pieces,
49:30and all the foreigners used to say,
49:33why don't you sell one or two paintings?
49:36It was a tradition for Western museums
49:39to sell something from their collection
49:42in order to settle their problems.
49:45Remembering the biographies of the artists,
49:48and even to think of selling them somewhere
49:51was very difficult for us.
49:54I visited another museum
49:57in another city,
50:00full of artifacts from Uzbek history.
50:03Fantastic fabrics and weavings.
50:06Suddenly a guy came over to me,
50:09and this was the museum director.
50:12And I pointed to a weaving,
50:15and he looked at me and said,
50:18you want to buy it?
50:21I said, what?
50:24He said, if you want to take it, how much would you pay for it?
50:27So essentially what he was saying is,
50:30come loot my museum.
50:33The idea that you'd be an impoverished director
50:36of an impoverished museum
50:39that had piles of stuff that it couldn't even exhibit,
50:42that was the idea.
50:45Savitsky used to say,
50:48keep this collection together by all means.
50:51One day people will totally understand
50:54the importance of the museum.
51:04I like to think of our museum
51:07as a keeper of the artist's souls.
51:13Their works
51:16are the physical expression
51:19of a collective vision
51:22that could not be destroyed.
51:42¶¶
52:12¶¶
52:43¶¶
53:00We are a team brought up by Savitsky
53:03who are very dedicated to the museum work.
53:06But we are people of pre-pension age.
53:09Our curators are paid $30 a month.
53:32Alvina Shpata has worked at the museum for 41 years,
53:37but now she can no longer restore the art.
53:42The restoration lab and a large part of the collection
53:45have lost their home.
53:51The Uzbek government has designated
53:54one of the two museum buildings for demolition,
53:57without warning,
54:00with no alternative plans for housing the artworks.
54:03Furthermore, the NUKUS museum director,
54:06Maranika Babanazarova,
54:09was forbidden to travel to the U.S.
54:12for the premiere of the film
54:15at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.
54:18At the time of this broadcast deadline,
54:21the government has declined to respond
54:24to media inquiries regarding their actions.
54:27I'm really having very sad thoughts
54:31but I want to believe
54:34that this museum would be safe
54:39and people in our country
54:42will understand the value of this collection.
54:48As for me, I will try to do my best
54:51as far as I can do this.
54:55Coming soon to Independent Lens.
55:00Jean-Michel Basquiat was a phenomenon.
55:03Being young, black,
55:06and the world's most famous artist came with a price.
55:09The pressure of that artificial world
55:12made it difficult for him to do something.
55:15An intimate portrait of youth,
55:18passion, tragedy, and fame.
55:21Jean-Michel Basquiat.
55:24See you next time on Independent Lens.
55:28Online at PBS.org.
55:31Meet other indie film fans.
55:34Share your thoughts.
55:37Watch videos and explore interactive features.
55:40There's always more to every program on our website.
55:57www.indiefilm.org