Alexander Lobanov
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Alexander Pavlovich Lobanov (Russian: Алекса́ндр Па́влович Лоба́нов) (1924–April, 2003) was a Russian outsider artist known particularly for his detailed self-portraits, noted for their frequent inclusion of guns and for their self-aggrandizing nature.
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[edit] Early years
Born in Mologa in 1924, Lobanov contracted meningitis at the age of seven and was left deaf and mute. In 1941, Alexander and his family were relocated from their home town of Mologa to make way for the construction of the Rybinsk Reservoir, forcing him to abandon his studies at the school for the deaf he was attending. A very rebellious and aggressive child, and having lost his access to support and rehabilitation, he became increasingly volatile until his family had him confined to a mental asylum in the nearby city of Yaroslavl. During the first years of hospitalization, his violence and aggression remained until he became autistically withdrawn and increasingly solitary.
[edit] Artistic works
Following this change in his behavior, Alexander was transferred to a less restrictive hospital in 1953. It was there that he was introduced to drawing by Vladimir Gavrilov, a psychiatrist influenced by the Western idea of art-therapy. For over fifty years he produced thousands of works with very little variety in style or content. His tools were consistent, staying with Chinese ink, pencil, coloring pencils, and felt-tip pens throughout the years. His subject matter strayed little from his taste for detailed self-portraits, often with himself being portrayed similarly to Russian revolutionary icons, almost always carrying or surrounded by rifles, machine guns, swords, and other various weapons. Also frequent were images of hunting dogs and hunted animal such as birds and deer, with Lobanov often being accompanied by groups of other hunters. Perhaps most notable were the references to the psychiatric institution or staff surrounding him, including a portrait of himself as a young boy shooting a male nurse with a revolver, and a depiction of his institution with enormous rifles acting as support columns. In the 1970s, Lobanov took an intense interest in photography. His photographic portraits were similar to his drawings as he would stage himself, creating his own environment and firearms from cardboard paper with ornaments and communist symbols drawn on to the prints.
[edit] Later years
In the beginning, Lobanav never showed any of his drawings, as he would finish a piece and store it away out of sight. Over the years his drawings amounted in the thousands and Gavrilov helped organize showings of his work; first to local universities and psychiatrists, and then to international galleries. In 2001 a short documentary, Alexandre Pavlovitch Lobanov, was made about his life and work by the French artist and filmmaker Bruno Decharme. Lobanov died in April 2003 in an asylum near Yaroslavl.
