Mikhail Chemiakin
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Mikhail Mikhaylovich Chemiakin (Russian: Михаил Михайлович Шемякин, born 4 May 1943, Moscow) is a Russian (ethnic Kabardian) painter, stage designer, sculptor and publisher, and a controversial representative of the nonconformist art tradition of St. Petersburg.
Chemiakin was born to a military family and spent his early years in the East Germany. His family returned to the Soviet Union in 1957 and he studied at the secondary school of art attached to the Il’ya Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), until he was expelled for failing to conform to the Socialist Realism norms in 1971.
After leaving the Soviet Union, he settled in France until he moved to New York City in 1981. While in Paris, France, he published Apollon-77, which was an almanach of post-Stalinist art, poetry and photography.
His work often exhibits the surreal grotesque, portraying the world as a colourful carnival, intimidating the viewer in its terrifying metamorphoses.
Chemiakin is said to have led an anarchic, bohemian life, and the poet Andrey Voznesensky described him as the "black prince of the Russian underworld".
Interestingly, Chemiakin, though Russian born, signs all his works in his French name, “M. Chemiakine”, though when titled, his artwork is always in Russian. Also, the place of his signature varies from canvas to canvas either in the lower right or lower left corners, though it is always on the bottom of the canvas.
[edit] References
- The Grove Dictionary of Art, by Jane Shoaf Turner (Ed.), Grove's Dictionaries. ISBN 1-884446-00-0
- Kolodzei Art Foundation
[edit] Further reading
- M. Chemiakin: A View of the Artist Through the Media, 1962-1999, by Ilya Bass and Alan Lamb, Woollyfish Imprints, 2000. ISBN 0-9705728-0-8
- Mihail Chemiakin, Vol. 1: Russian Period, Paris Period; Vol. 2: Transformations, New York Period, by Mikhail Chemiakin, Mosaic Press, NY, 1986. ISBN 0-88962-327-9
- Staging the Nutcracker, by Mikhail Chemiakin, Rizzoli, 2001. ISBN 0-8478-2346-6
[edit] External links
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