The works are in the Zimmerli Art Museum in the USA, the Museum of Modern Fine Art in Minsk, the Beata Shubskaya Gallery in Warsaw, in private collections of Yuri Kravtsov in Germany, Peter Brook in Canada, Carlos Galleguillos in Chile and other collections.

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Selected dates:

December 11, 1948

Born in Minsk (BSSR, today the Republic of Belarus). The history of the Plesanov family in this city goes back over 250 years. His mother worked at the Narodnaya Asveta publishing house, his father was in the army before the war, and since the early 1950s he worked at DOSAAF and was a driving instructor. The mother's cousin, Plesanova's aunt, Pavlina Myadelka, who in 1913 performed the role of Pavlinka in the St. Petersburg premiere of the play of the same name by Yanka Kupala, lived in Minsk since 1918 and was also a multifaceted creative person. From childhood, Plesanov showed good abilities for learning and technical creativity. From the age of 13 he began to go to car modeling championships (he was a repeated champion of Belarus). First I went to study at the Faculty of Geology of BSU.

Since 1964

Engaged in painting. He began working alongside his friends - artists Valery Martynchik, Sergey Malishevsky, Vladimir Tsesler, Sergey Voichenko, Gennady Khatskevich, Dmitry Surinovich and others. Plesanov admits that the art critic Lenina Mironova had a special influence on his formation as a painter.

In artistic searches, in the formation of his own style, Plesanov was helped not by a professional base-school, but by an obsession with a philosophical idea, for the sake of which a compositional and formal solution was selected. Plesanov easily uses the techniques of surrealism and abstractionism, cubism and illusionism at the same time. Figurativeness and form creation for the artist is a means of expressing his thoughts. Plesanov always relies only on his own taste and inner sense of form and color. Such an individual and rational approach to a work of art has an expressive result: a developed composition, a logical space of the canvas filled with details, decorativeness and expressiveness of color.

Very often, Plesanov noticed shortcomings in already completed works, he always liked to give advice to his colleagues, change and rewrite his own and other people's work. Where something is missing, what needs to be added or removed, Plesanov noticed immediately.

1968

He was a participant in the first Beat Festival, which took place over three days at the Minsk Radio Engineering Institute. Plesanov's group "Penguins" got into the top five, one of their vocalists - Yuri Razhov - received the Grand Prix of the festival.

1968–1975

He worked at the Philharmonic, first as a pop artist, and then as an assistant to the pop department. Traveled with famous musicians half of the Union. It was an extraordinary time: incredible meetings with interesting people, a special lifestyle.

Subsequently, Andrei Plesanov entered the Polytechnic Institute. He created a musical group there - one might say, he stood at the origins of Belarusian rock music.

1975–1980

By chance, a friend persuaded Plesanov to go into directing. As a result, he ended up at the Belarusian State Theater and Art Institute, at the department of directing the folk theater (he studied with Yaroslav Gromov). He graduated from the institute at the age of 32.

Late 1970s

Andrei Plesanov decided to collect works by unofficial artists . At that moment he lived in a small apartment ("Khrushchev"). Having measured the walls of his apartment, he began to order small canvases for painters on given topics: "Artist's Workshop" (60 x 45 or 45 x 60 cm), "Nude" (60 x 70 or 70 x 60). He acquired canvases and gave them to artists who were happy to paint a picture and give it to Plesanov. The equally small size of the works made it possible to make a "sofa" hanging on the walls of the apartment, as was traditionally done among Soviet collectors who lived in small apartments.

1981–1988

After the "theatre" he went to work at the film studio "Belarusfilm", first - as an assistant director to Vitaly Chetverikov on the film "Calm" (1981). Plesanov's first independent directorial attempts were the creation of social videos for the Water Rescue Society (OSVOD) "Water, Joy and Trouble", "Among the Waves", "Happy Swimming", etc., on the set of which famous actors were invited: Evgeny Morgunov, Nikolai Eremenko (senior), Alexander Rakhlenko, Irina Narbekova. Plesanov took part in the creation of such legendary films as "King Stakh's Wild Hunt" (while still studying at the institute in 1979), "Black Castle Olshansky" (1983), "Witness" (1986), "My name is Arlekino" (1988 ) and etc.

1986

Organizer of the Association of Creative Intelligentsia (ATI). Among other things, Plesanov's active nature participated in the creation of the "Forma" group. Andrey's archive contains a letter from the Association to the authorities demanding registration of the association [approx. ed. - the letter is attached as a document].

Since 1987

Participant and organizer of exhibitions.

At the beginning of the year, Andrey Plesanov organized the first official exhibition of informal (avant-garde) art from his collection called "The Artist's Workshop" . This became a strong incentive, the artists got the opportunity to exhibit, to show their work to the audience at the exhibition sites. Since that moment, Plesanov has been an active participant and organizer of informal art exhibitions not only in Belarus, but also abroad.

Participation in important exhibitions of the year "On the Collector" and "Perspective".

1988

Participation in the exhibition "Resurrection of Casimir".

1989

Participant of the exhibitions "Panorama" and "Demonstration of the treasures of the Belarusian avant-garde".

1990

Participant of the exhibition "Form".

1991

Participant of the exhibition "BelART".

1993

Participant of the exhibition "From Marc Chagall to the past and present".

2000s

Six albums of the blues-jazz group "R.LAN" were recorded.

June 16, 2021

At the age of 73, he died from the coronovirus in Minsk.

Fall 2021

On Plesanov's birthday, in memory of this extraordinary person, the National Center for Contemporary Art of the Republic of Belarus hosted two exhibitions: the exhibition project "Belarusian Avant-Ground" (10/28/2021 - 11/21/2021) and the exhibition "Avant-garde Ideals. Works from the collection of Andrei Plesanov" ( 11/12/2021 - 12/05/2021).

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Olga Arkhipova about Andrey Plesanov:

"The life and creative path of Andrei Plesanov was designated as the path of a universal personality. This is primarily due to the wide range of his interests, which existed in parallel to each other, pass through his life and manifested themselves in different ways at certain periods of time. Without exaggeration, one can say about him : man-orchestra Plesanov director, actor, screenwriter, rock musician (performer, composer, arranger, leader of the PLAN group) and an ardent collector who simultaneously collected about 20 collections, one of which is a collection of paintings and drawings of unofficial art 1970-2010- 1990s, and an artist with his own original and recognizable language.Moreover, Plesanov did a lot in life spontaneously, on a whim, on his own inner impulse, from which he was largely unpredictable.

[...]

Andrey Plesanov was a public figure, a very sociable person who, on his life path, met incredibly diverse personalities and found his own language with each, his mutual understanding, never remained indifferent. He was the organizer of a number of exhibitions, social rallies and demonstrations, he was never afraid of public speaking.

[...]

Gathering around you such different, creative, incredibly individual and special personalities is a very difficult thing. Plesanov, thanks to his composing and directing abilities, was able to consolidate people, successfully find a way out of numerous difficult situations.

Another important social mission that distinguishes this person in the Belarusian cultural environment is Plesanov the collector. In addition to painting, graphics, sculpture, he collected guitars, ancient student pens, stones, coins, stamps, ancient seals, bottles and coasters, corks, butterflies, ceramics and much more. He can be called a material chronicler of the legendary times of the Belarusian avant-garde, because it was he who saved many documents, photos, dictaphone and video recordings about the events that took place in the unofficial Belarusian art of the 1980s-1990s.

It is worth mentioning how his art collection began to take shape. In the late 1970s, Plesanov decided to collect works by unofficial artists. At that moment he lived in a small apartment ("Khrushchev"). Having measured the walls of his apartment, he began to order small canvases for painters on given topics: "Artist's Workshop" (60 x 45 or 45 x 60 cm), "Nude" (60 x 70 or 70 x 60). He acquired canvases and gave them to artists who were happy to paint a picture and give it to Plesanov. The equally small size of the works made it possible to make a "sofa" hanging on the walls of the apartment, as was traditionally done among Soviet collectors who lived in small apartments. Of course, Plesanov's interactions with artists were more fruitful and wide, Plesanov was friends with them, knew them well, many of them gave Plesanov their works, not only corresponding to the invented formula, Plesanov was always proud that almost the entire collection was donated to him.

Faced with this chaos of artistic and cultural life around him, Plesanov was able to construct his own personal worldview, a very comfortable and attractive environment for himself. Everything that Andrey Plesanov did and possessed is an author's planet formed from uncontrollable creative potential."