Vladimir Anzelm (b. 1962) is a painter, graphic artist and sculptor recognised above all for objects made of coal and anthracite. He was born in Perm, has been one of the residents of the Moscow squat at Baumanskaya 13 since 1999, and since 2019 a foreign honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts. He lives and works in Berlin. The Don Foundation collection holds 5 works by the artist, all of them sculpture. Prices: from 3 000 to 21 500 $.
Vladimir Genrikhovich Anzelm was born on 21 April 1962 in Perm. From 1980 to 1985 he studied at the department of art and graphics of the Kazakh Pedagogical Institute. The Russian Academy of Arts describes his field of work as painting, graphic art and sculpture. Since 1999 he has been one of the residents of the Moscow squat and gallery at Baumanskaya 13, a circle that also included Vladimir Dubossarsky, Valery Koshlyakov, Alexander Sigutin, Yuri Shabelnikov and Sergey Shekhovtsov. His solo exhibitions have also been held in institutional spaces: “Landscapes” at the State Museum of Architecture in Moscow (2004) and “Gigantomachia” in the Academy’s exhibition halls (2018). Since 2019 he has been its foreign honorary member.
The Don Foundation collection holds 5 works by Vladimir Anzelm, all of them in the sculpture section; among them are “Large Skull” and “Skull with Bones”. They are dated 2007, 2009 and 2013. The medium is coal and resin; for “The Boy and a New Life Form” pyrite is listed as well. The works measure 9 × 54 × 34, 17 × 20 × 24, 45 × 35, 60 × 50 × 40 and 70 × 50 × 60 cm. Each entry states the artist, year, medium and dimensions where known. No source available to us assigns these pieces to any of the artist’s named series, and we make no such claim: what they share with his documented practice is the material, the technique and the years, by which time he was already working with coal.
The material sets the terms for everything else in this practice. Anzelm works with coal and anthracite – a “poor”, industrial substance out of which he has made an apple, a skull, a key, a sword, boots and animal figures. The PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art in Perm, which received works by Anzelm as a gift, notes that the artist prefers Irkutsk anthracite for its particular sheen; its collection holds the objects “Boots. Right 2 and Left” (“Bashmaki. Pravy 2 i levy”), “The Anvil” and “The Aeroplane” from the series “Gastarbeiters of the Spirit”, made together with Alexander Sigutin. The Russian Academy of Arts describes the works of the series “Geology of Knowledge” (2007) as art objects in anthracite; a solo exhibition of that title was held at Krokin Gallery in 2007, and the same gallery showed “COAL” from 15 August to 22 September 2024. The skull is a recurring motif for the artist, and it appears in the titles in our collection as well.
The artist’s exhibition history indicates the company this practice keeps. “Gastarbeiters of the Spirit” was shown at the pop/off/art gallery in 2008 and from 20 September to 18 October 2009 at Fabrika (Kalandr Hall, Moscow), within the programme of the 3rd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. Anzelm took part in “Russkoe Bednoe” (Russian Povera), Perm, 2008, held on the site that became the basis of the PERMM museum, and in “Baroque” at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art on Petrovka (2007), where a reviewer for Kommersant singled out his Little Octobrist star laid out in crystals of coal. Adjacent catalogue sections worth looking at are contemporary art and objects.
The Don Foundation holds online sales. Prices for the works by Anzelm in the collection are from 3 000 to 21 500 $; each work’s price is on its card: a work can be bought straight away, or at the online auction if it is up for sale there. The pieces can be viewed in the sculpture section and in the general catalogue, other names in the collection are listed in the artists section, and the dates of forthcoming sales are on the auctions page. Registration and bidding are explained on the how to buy a painting page; questions about the condition of a particular lot and about viewing are best raised before the sale begins. If you are considering consigning a work by the artist, the terms are set out on the sell a painting page: a first conversation requires photographs of the piece, its dimensions, its medium and whatever is known of its history.
