Chemiakin: New York - Moscow 1989. Retrospective Exhibition 1972-1989 (English and Russian Edition) - Softcover

Mihail Chemiakin; Furio Colombo; Boulat Okoudzhava; Tair Salakhov; Jean Audigier

9780970572837: Chemiakin: New York - Moscow 1989. Retrospective Exhibition 1972-1989 (English and Russian Edition)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0970572832 ISBN 13: 9780970572837

Publisher: Central House of the Artist, 1989

Catalogue of landmark exhibition of Mihail Chemiakin in 1989. This was the first exhibition in the USSR of an artist exiled from the Soviet Union and banned by the authorities, signaling Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of opening Russia to the West after seventy years of isolation behind the Iron Curtain.

The exhibition included Chemiakin's large textured paintings and ten-foot high pastels on black paper of carcasses and butchers, skulls and still life with bottles, as well as bronze sculpture and small drawings and watercolors.

158 illustrations, most of them in color. Texts in Russian and English

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About the Author:

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION Mihail Chemiakin was born in Moscow in 1943, grew up in occupied East Germany, and returned to Russia in 1957 where he was admitted to the Special High School of the Repin Academy of Art in Leningrad. He was expelled from art school for failing to conform to Socialist Realist norms. For six months in 1961 Chemiakin was subjected to compulsory treatment at a mental institution, which was a standard way of dealing with ideological dissidents at that time. In 1967 Chemiakin founded the St. Petersburg Group of artists and developed the philosophy of Metaphysical Synthesism, dedicated to the creation of a new form of icon painting based on the study of religious art of all ages and peoples.

In 1971 Chemiakin was forced out of the USSR by the Soviet authorities. He settled first in France, then moved to New York City in 1981. Beginning in Paris he organized exhibitions of and published the work of Russian non-conformist artists and writers. The research begun in the 1960s into the art of all ages and peoples has developed into a collection of millions of images organized into technical, historical and philosophical categories which has earned the artist five Honorary Doctorates and is the basis for his Institute of the Philosophy and Psychology of Art. In 2002 Chemiakin created a series of television programs dedicated to the research for the Russian Kultura channel.

In 1989, the return of Chemiakin s work to post-Communist Russia began with the first exhibition of his work there since his exile. Subsequently, he continued to show his work there at museums in Moscow, St. Petersburg and in the former Soviet states, and has installed four monuments in St. Petersburg, one in Moscow and one at the Konstantinovsky Palace outside of St. Petersburg.

Chemiakin s monumental sculptures can also be seen in New York City; Venice, Italy; London; Chateau de Vascoueil, France; and Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY. His work is in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including the Metropolitan Museum (New York), the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), the State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg), the Sao Paolo Museum of Art (Brazil), the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, Yad Vashem and the Museum of Art, Tel Aviv.

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