Maxim Kantor

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Maxim Kantor, 2013

Maxim Karlovich Kantor (Russian: Макси́м Ка́рлович Ка́нтор).

Maxim Kantor was born in Moscow in 1957. He is an artist, a writer, an essayist and a social commentator of an openly philosophical turn, and, as he uses to say, one profession proceeds from the other. He has lived and lives in Moscow and in many different European countries.

As a painter Maxim Kantor, who states that "he didn't want to study under anybody and his father (the philosopher Karl Kantor) was all he needed" was deeply influenced by Michelangelo, Mantegna, Goya and Petrov Vodkin. In 1977, aged twenty, he founded in Moscow the underground group Red House which organized a number of one-day shows the most resounding of which took place in 1982 in the Moscow Institute of Philosophy. Soon he became known and appreciated in many different countries and held exhibitions in a great number of important museums. Maxim Kantor never joined any group and remained a single speaker with his own independent message. His personal style was never influenced by fashions or current streams. In the Soviet time he became a watchful observer of society and a sharp political critic and holds fast to this line up to now both in his country and in the West. Maxim Kantor can most properly be defined "the Artist of the Existential Realism" since he proclaims that his philosophical roots are Sartre, Camus, Beckett and Hemingway. In the years he has being developing the themes by which he is touched creating large cycles of big paintings and graphic works which always dovetail with his fiction works. Two works of Maxim Kantor's: "State" (2004) and "Cathedral in the Ocean" (2013).

Since 2001 Maxim Kantor has created three monumental portfolio of etchings and prints with the following titles "Wastland. Atlas" (2001), "Metroplis. Atlas" (2004) and "Vulcanus. Atlas" (2010). In 2013 he has published the artist's book "Henrich von Kleist. Die Hermannsschlaht".

As a writer since 1993 Maxim Kantor has published several works of fiction among which the monumental novel Textbook of Drawing (2006), one collection of plays (2008), some of which have been staged in a number of theaters in Russia, three collections of essays and two novels. In 2013 Maxim Kantor has published the novel «Red Light» which was in the short list of the Russian literary awards «Natsionaljnyj Bestseller» and «Big Book». Maxim Kantor's articles and essays are permanently published on Le Monde Diplomatique (Paris) and on a number of Russian newspapers and magazines like Rossijskaja Gazeta, Novaya Gazeta, Expert, Prime Russian Magazine. He writes regularly on the portal Open Democracy (London).

Maxim Kantor is a member of the Senior Council of the following Oxford Colleges: St. Antony College, Wolfson College and in 2013 he has been appointed Honorary Fellow of Pembroke College, University of Oxford. In Oxford he initiated a number of international conferences the latest of which, Vulcano: Art and Politics in the Period of Crisis of European Ideals, organized with the support of the Department of Politics and International Relations of the University of Oxford, took place in May 2012 dovetailing with Kantor's show in the Ashmolean Museum. Among other speakers Eric Hobsbawm, Marek Bartelik, Toni Negri, Vittorio Hosle, and Timothy Redcliff participated.

In 2013 Maxim Kantor founded the independent publishing house Robin Hood.

Besides a large number of privet collections Maxim Kantor's works are in the following public collections: Russian Federation: State Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow; Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg; Novosibirsk State Art Museum; Togliatti State Art Gallery, Togliatti Germany: Stadel Museum, Frankfurt; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Sprengel Museum, Hannover; Stadtgalerie, Stuttgart; Gemalde Galerie, Kupferstich Kabinet, Berlin; Kunsthalle, Emden; Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunsschweig; Bochum Art Museum, Bochum; Stifftung Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt United Kingdom: British Museum, London; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Ulster Museum, Belfast United States: Haggerthy Museum of Art, Milwaukee; Snite Museum Notre Dame University; Bass Museum, Miami, USA and also: South Australia State Gallery, Canberra; National Museum of Art and History, Luxembourg ; Herring Museum of Art, Danemark;, etc. and in the following churches: Brussels Cathedral and Église Saint-Merri, Paris

Main solo shows: 1997 Criminal Chronicle. Russian Pavillion at XLVII Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Maxim Kantor. Paintings. Etchings. Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow 1998-2000 Exhibition tour of the European and United States museums, among which: Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Northern Illinois University Art Gallery, Chicago; Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida; Crossman Gallery, Whitewater, Wisconsin; Ulster Museum, Belfast; Villa Vauban, Luxembourg; 2001 European tour of the exhibition "Wasteland.Atlas" in the following Museums: - State Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow; Staedel Museum, Frankfurt; Culturgest, Lisboa; Ulster Museum, Belfast; South Australian Gallery, Adelaida 2004-2008 Tour of the exhibition "New Empire" with paintings and graphic cycle "Metropolis.Atlas" in the following museums: Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabruck, Germany; Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice; Ulster Museum, Belfast; Museum Kuppersmuhle, Duisburg; Akademie der Kunste, Berlin; Centre Culturel de Rencontre, Abbaye de Neumunster, Luxembourg; Togliatti Museum of Fine Art and Samara Art Museum, Russia, University of Notre Dame's Snite Museum of Art, USA 2010-2012 Tour of the exhibitions of the graphic Cycle Vulcanus. Atlas with paintings: House of Architect, Moscow (one-day show); Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin; Musee du Montparnasse, Paris; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg; Fondazione Stelline, Milan; Collegio Armeno Moorat Raphael, Venice.

 

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