Maxim Kantor

Maxim Kantor, 2013

Maxim Karlovich Kantor (Russian: Макси́м Ка́рлович Ка́нтор), is a famous Russian painter, writer, an essayist and a social commentator of an openly philosophical turn, and, as he once said, "one profession proceeds from the other". He shares his time between working in Moscow, London and Berlin. In 2015 began his work in USA.

Family

Maxim Kantor was born in Moscow in 1957 in the family of Russian philosopher Karl Kantor .

Maxim's paternal grandfather Moses Kantor was born in Bessarabia (currently Moldova), studied in Germany, participated in anarchist movement and self-exiled to Argentina in 1909. While in Argentina authored a few plays (written in Spanish), published philosophical and literary essays, participated in socialist movement. In 1926 returned to Soviet Russia with his new wife the founder of Argentinian Communist Party Ida Bondareff. In Soviet Union Moses Kantor headed faculty of mineralogy and geology for Timiryazev Academy of Agriculture.

Maxim's father, Karl Kantor, was born in Argentina and arrived to Soviet Russia with his parents when he was small. Later served in the Soviet Army on the front lines of the World War II. Professor of Philosophy, author of books and essays, editor of a magazine.[1]

Painter

Early Works and Influences

As a painter Maxim Kantor "didn't want to study under anybody and his father (the philosopher Karl Kantor) was all he needed". However, he 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 thereafter he became known in many different countries and held exhibitions in a great number of important museums around the world.

Maxim Kantor never joined any artistic group, but rather kept to 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. Kantor holds the same line up to now both in his country and in the West. Maxim Kantor could be most properly defined as "the Artist of the Existential Realism" since he proclaims that his philosophical roots are Sartre, Camus, Beckett and Hemingway. For years he has been developing the themes which moved him at the moment. Almost always those themes reflected socio-political situation in his Motherland or in the world. In turbulent times he created series of large paintings and graphic works which always dovetailed with his fiction works and public statements and essays.

Major exhibits

1997

"Criminal Chronicle." Russian Pavilion 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 special exhibit of the atlas, monumental portfolio of etchings and prints named "Wasteland" in the following Museums: State Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow; Staedel Museum, Frankfurt; Culturgest, Lisboa; Ulster Museum, Belfast; South Australian Gallery, Adelaide.

Recent Works

Two works of Maxim Kantor's: "State" (2004) and "Cathedral in the Ocean" (2013).

Maxim Kantor has created two more monumental portfolio of etchings and prints with the following titles "Metroplis. Atlas" (2004) and "Vulcanus. Atlas" (2010).

Maxim's Kantor produced "livres d'artiste" the following books of small edition: in 2013 "Henrich von Kleist. Die Hermannsschlaht" and in 2014 "The Ballades Of Robin Hood".

In January 2015 he began working on "Faust".


Exhibits in 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

Exhibits in 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.

Public Collections

Besides a large number of private collections Maxim Kantor's works are in the following public collections:

In 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

In 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

In United Kingdom: British Museum, London; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Ulster Museum, Belfast

In United States: Haggerthy Museum of Art, Milwaukee; Snite Museum Notre Dame University; Bass Museum, Miami, USA

And also in South Australia State Gallery, Canberra; National Museum of Art and History, Luxembourg ; Herring Museum of Art, Danemark; and others.

Maxim's work is also on display in the following churches: Brussels Cathedral and Église Saint-Merri, Paris

Writer

As a writer since 1993 Maxim Kantor has published several works of fiction among which the monumental novel "Textbook of Drawing" (2006). The Washington Post in its review said: "The book landed like the brick it is on the desks of Moscow's literary elite.".[2] Since then three collections of essays and two other novels were published. In 2013 Maxim Kantor has published the novel «Red Light» which was in the short list of the Russian literary awards «National Bestseller» and «Big Book».[3]

Theatre

In 2008 the collection of plays "An Evening with a Baboon", some of which have been staged in a number of theaters in Russia. In 2014 Kantor produces a puppet satire "Robin Hood and Spiritual Buckles". Kantor was not only the author of the play, but also designed and built the puppets. He announced the founding of a permanent travelling puppet theatre.

Publicist, essayist

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).

Collaboration with universities

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 2015 he became a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana).[4]

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 in Venice he organized conferences "Atlantis and Utopia" and in 2014 in Geneva "The Rape of Europe".

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

External links

References

  1. ↑ "Кантор Карл Моисеевич". biografija.ru.
  2. ↑ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021602001.html
  3. ↑ http://www.rus-lit.org/prizes/21/
  4. ↑ http://ndias.nd.edu/fellowships/fellows/2014-2015-class/maxim-kantor/