Mihail Chemiakin

Mihail Chemiakin Михаи́л Михайлович Шемя́кин
Mihail Chemiakin with the Russian President
Birth name	Mihail Chemiakin Circassian Origin
Born	4 May 1943(1943-05-04) Moscow, Russia
Nationality	Russian
Field	Sculpture, Stage designer
Works	The Children Victims of Adult Vices (2001) Gofmaniada (Soon)
Awards	Order of Friendship Ordre des Arts et des Lettres State Prize of the Russian Federation Prize of the President of the Russian Federation

Mihail Chemiakin (Russian: Михаи́л Михайлович Шемя́кин, Mikhail Shemyakin, born 4 May 1943, Moscow) is a Russian (ethnic Circassian (Kabardian)) painter, stage designer, sculptor and publisher, and a controversial representative of the nonconformist art tradition of St. Petersburg.

Early life

Chemiakin was born to a military family. His father, a Kabardian from the Caucasus Mountains surnamed Kardanov, had lost his parents and was adopted by a friend of his father's, White Army officer Piotr Chemiakin. The artist's father eventually became a Soviet Army officer. He received one of the first Orders of the Red Banner at the age of thirteen.^[1]

Mihail Chemiakin spent his early years in East Germany. His father served in the Army there. His family returned to the Soviet Union in 1957 and he studied at the secondary school of art affiliated with the Il’ya Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). In 1961 he was subjected to forced psychiatric treatment to "cure" him of views that did not conform to Soviet norms.

Career

He later got a job at the Hermitage Museum. With his colleagues from the museum he organized an exhibition in 1964, after which the director of the museum was fired and all the participants forced to resign. In 1967 he co-authored with philosopher Vladimir Ivanov a treatise called "Metaphysical Synthesism", which laid out his artistic principles, and created the "St. Petersburg Group" of artists . In 1971 he was exiled from the Soviet Union for failing to conform to Socialist Realism norms.

He settled in France and he published Apollon-77, an almanac of post-Stalinist art, poetry, and photography. He moved to New York in 1981.

His work often features the surreal grotesque, portraying the world as a colourful carnival.

Chemiakin, though Russian-born, signs all his works with his French name, “M. Chemiakine.” The placement of his signature varies from canvas to canvas: either in the lower right or lower left corners, though always on the bottom of the canvas. The titles of his pieces, however, are always in Russian.

In 2001, commissioned by the City of Moscow, he created a monument "The children - victims of adult vices", a powerful group of sculptures in a park 2000 feet south of the Kremlin, behind the British Ambassador's residence.

Since roughly 2001, he has been working as artistic designer on the upcoming Russian animated feature film Hoffmaniada. In 2001 he directed and designed the new surrealistic-grotesque Marinsky Theatre production of The Nutcracker, which proved controversial (in it, the heroine Masha and the Nutcracker Prince, now married, are presumably killed by being turned into dolls atop a wedding cake at the end, with rats nibbling at the cake and rapidly approaching the top). The Mariinsky also produces the highly popular and more traditional 1934 Vasily Vainonen production of the ballet.

In 2011, he stated during his meeting with Russian prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Brussels that he (Chemiakin) has many projects in the works, such as a center for the artists of the North Caucasus in France ^[2]; that reflect their culture, in addition, he said that he had finished the sculpture of E. T. A. Hoffmann.^[3]

References

1. ^ Mayskaya, Anna. "Михаил Михайлович Шемякин" (in Russian). Argumenty i Fakty. http://www.peoples.ru/art/painter/shemiakin/interview5.html. Retrieved 2009-05-26. 
2. ^ http://www.newstube.ru/media/shemyakin-predlozhil-otkryt-centr-xudozhnikov-severnogo-kavkaza
3. ^ http://premier.gov.ru/events/news/14242/ via Prime Ministry of Russia website (Russian Language)

• The Grove Dictionary of Art, by Jane Shoaf Turner (Ed.), Grove's Dictionaries. ISBN 1-884446-00-0
• Kolodzei Art Foundation
• Kolodzei Art Foundation and Kolodzei Collection of Russian and Eastern European Art

Further reading

• Mihail Chemiakin; Vol. 1: Russian Period, Paris Period; Vol. 2: Transformations, New York Period, 1986 by Mihail Chemiakin, Mosaic Press, NY, 1986.. ISBN 0-88962-327-9
• 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
• Staging the Nutcracker, by Mihail Chemiakin, Rizzoli, 2001. ISBN 0-8478-2346-6

External links

• Mikhail Shemyakin: a Man with a Scar
• Mikhail Shemyakin at peoples.ru (many articles and interviews) (Russian)

Persondata
Name	Shemyakin, Mikhail
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	4 May 1943
Place of birth	Moscow, Russia
Date of death
Place of death