Archives

Mikhail Ivanov

Painting
14 may - 6 june 2009

«Models and archetypes»

Catalogue of exhibition

1. Little garden near Young People's Theatre. 1979. C., oil. 40х50
2. Portrait of N. 1992. C., temp. 40х32
3. Still life into landscape with a child #2. 1995. Masonite, mixed media. 44х62
4. Still life into landscape with a child. 1995. Paper, mixed media. 41х50
5. Walk with Timoshechka.  1999, 2008. Х., м. 35х53
6. A Head. 2000. Х., м. 75х65
7. Landscape with a tower.  2002. C., oil. 54х65
8. Childhood of Dionysus.  2003. C., oil. 32х40
9. Portrait of O. Florenskaya.  2004. Cardboard, mixed media. 30х25
10. Landscape through the window of A. Florensky. 2004. C., oil. 31х41
11. A plot on Kartashevskaya Street. 2004. C., oil. 30х40
12. Portrait of М.П. 2005. C., oil. 49х36
13. Portrait of Katya Florenskaya. 2005. C., oil. 50х30
14. Pair of girls. 2005. C., oil. 40х40
15. Feast near the Sorot'.  2005.  C., oil. 36х49
16. Depressed Olga. 2005. C., oil. 65х50
17. Roses.  2005. C., oil. 40х50
18. Lyuba Gurevich - the muse of underground. 2005. C., oil. 50х40
19. Nastya with moth. 2006. Cardboard, oil. 45х61
20. Nastya - a star of Tsarskoye Selo. 2006. Cardboard, oil. 78х52
21. Nastya in a hat. 2006. Cardboard, oil. 61х43
22. Lady with a little dog (А. А). 2007. Cardboard, oil. 35х40
23. Zamogilye. Pines. 2007. Cardboard, oil. 35х40
24. Kulyechek (student of Saint-Petersburg Academy of Culture) in the arm-chair. 2007-9. C., oil.  67х50
25. Yana. 2007. C., oil. 30х24
26. Abishag with a moth. 2008. C., oil. 65х45
27. Yana. 2008. Masonite, oil. 58х40
28. Yekaterininsky park. 2008. C., oil.  40х50
29. Pavlovsk' motif. 2008. Cardboard, oil. 34х48
30. A figure with a bird. 2008. Paper, oil. 87х61
31. Dreams #2. 2009. C., oil. 40х52
32. Dreams #1. 2009. C., oil. 40х60
33. Feast with arms. 2009. C., oil. 73х96
34. A head in the architecture. 2009. Masonite, oil. 43х36
35. Feast (boy and girl). 2009. C., oil. 50х65
36. Still life with mandolin and a mortar. 2009. C., oil. 58х48
37. Portrait of M. V. 1996. C,., oil. м. 60х50
38. Mikhaylovskoye. The Sorot' River. 2005. C., oil. 36х49 
39. Near Baltiysky railway station. 2002, 04. C., oil. 40х50
40. Sabo. A cutting. 2008. Cardboard, oil. 34х47

Most artists of generation sixties-seventies years, dedicated to work in spiritual and religious sphere, turned out to be the hostages of bad liberal education and lack of information. Everything that promised mystical giddiness, had a pulling power of neophyte readiness. Blavatskaya, yoga, Buddhism, cabbala, orthodoxy, heathenism - are known by hearsay, at the best by separate pages of Samizdat, filled heads and pictures. As a rule, these unintelligible raptures externalized in sugary stylization or indistinct expression. Against this background figure of Mikhail Ivanov stands apart. As practicing orthodox believer and that is more, educated, he feels deference of the religion and religious potpourri. In order that spiritual experience requires in canon of plastic form there were ages of art and theological work needed. Try to carry out this way from the start would be conceitedly. Try to emphasize formally and modernize sacral image - also. Painting of Ivanov (who devoted ten years of his life to icon painting) can be named religious. His early "feasts" (how himself calls compositions with figures near a table) were inspired by iconography of the Trinity by Rublev. But with the course of time definitiveness of this linkage slacked. Keeping semantic constant of the Trinity - symbol of unity, formula of Christian world order Ivanov increasingly masterfully varies initial formula. Gradually through orthodox image starts to appear antiquity, Fayum portrait, Egyptian hieratic art - all these whence appeared Christian figurativeness. Historical, cultural, image allusions exist on the background of distilled, almost unrecognizable, but surely presenting contemporary realities. There are motifs and forms, forgotten or reconsidered by latest tradition, surface in the "feasts" and monumental 'heads". As if in inverse perspective the artist would like to realize the origins meaningful image, its initial point, an archetype. Even when the matter is still life, landscape or portrait - under this specific is situated impersonal strata of symbol. Basic intuition leads the artist should had saw monstrous and discrete contemporary world through prism of iconographic tradition as the integral and blessed.

А.D.

Mikhail Ivanov

Mikhail Ivanov was born in Leningrad in 1944.

Studied at Secondary Art School (SAR), graduated from Art Critic Department of Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after I. Repin.

In second half of sixties years often spends a long time in Moscow at circle of Moscow unofficial art artists.

Since1975 year has been participated in movement of Leningrad unofficial artists. He had published in "Samizdat" as art-critic.

Since second half of eighties years has been worked as professional icon painter.

During years of "perestroika" participated in establishment of Saint-Petersburg Institute of theology and philosophy, taught here special course of world art' symbolism, published a row of articles on this subject.

At nineties late gave up icon-painting, returned exceptionally to painting and graphic works.

Member of The Society for Experimental Fine Arts (TEII), Artists Union of Russia, Saint-Petersburg branch of IFA

COLLECTIONS

• State Russian Museum, Saint-Petersburg;
• Museum of Nonconformist Art, Saint-Petersburg;
• State Museum "Tsarskoselskaya Kolektsiya", Pushkin (town under jurisdiction of Saint-Petersburg), private collections

RECENT SOLO EXHIBITIONS

• 1963 - Editorial office of magazine "Zvezda (A Star)"(together with Valentin Blinov), Leningrad
• 1969 - Leningrad House of Architects (together with Vladlen Gavrilchik and Tatyana Kerner)
• 1980 - Shop of artists Union (together with Valentin Levitin), Leningrad
• 1980 - Artist's House, Jerusalem, Israel
• 1995 - "Icon and painting", Fyodor Dostoyevsky Apartment-Museum, Saint-Petersburg
• 2000 - 2003 - Art center "Mitki-Vkhutemas", Saint-Petersburg
• 2003 - State Museum "Tsarskoselskaya Kolektsiya", Pushkin (town under jurisdiction of Saint-Petersburg)
• 2004 - "Feasts and life", Museum of Nonconformist Art, Saint-Petersburg
• 2005 - "Models of summer", editorial office of magazine "Zvezda (A Star)", Saint-Petersburg
• 2008 - "Graphic works", Borey art center, Saint-Petersburg

RECENT GROUP SHOWS

• 1975, 1982 - Fyodor Dostoyevsky Apartment-Museum, Leningrad
• 1976 - Students club , Leningrad
• 1978 - "18 Leningrad Artists", Contemporary Art Museum, Yerevan 1980, 1988 - Palace of Youth, Leningrad
• 1980 - Palace of Culture named after S. Kirov, Leningrad
• 1988 - "From unofficial art to perestroika", Leningrad House of Writers
• 1988 - "Whit Thousandth Anniversary of Christianization of Kievan Rus'", Leningrad Branch of Artists Union of USSR  
• 1990 - "Church Art of ХVII-ХХ centuries", Kiev
• 2003 - "Avant-Garde on the Neva River", State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
• 2005 - Society of painting and drawing' amateurs", The Ferapontov convent of Vologda region, Russia
• 2006 - "Time of changes. Art of 1960 - 1985 years in Soviet Union", State Russian Museum, Saint-Petersburg
• During last years participate in annual exhibition "All Petersburg" at Central Exhibition Hall Manege and Exhibition Hall of artists Union of Russia, Saint-Petersburg branch

I reckon my independent work in painting from 1970 year. The models of that times there were Malevich (for a long time there was not successful attempt to have saw his original works), Petrov-Vodkin, Kuznetsov, Morandi. Congenial circle of Leningrad artists of my sphere in 70s -80s years: V. P. Volkov, V.I. levitin, P. M. Kondratyev, P.M. Basmanov, V. V. Sterligov.

In 1975 year I met artists of "Arefyev' circle" at exhibition of "Leningrad underground". Friendly relations formed with Rikhard Vasmi, Vladimir Shagin, Valentin Gromov. I consider creative work of Sterlogov, Basmanov, "circle of Arefyev" phenomenon of national significance.

Together with these names (in attitude to them admiration and rejection were especially productive) tradition of Russian post-avant-garde rests close for me: landscapes by Yermolaeva, Drevin, Labas (their constructivism and expression), lyricism of Greenberg and Yuriy Vasnetsov. These artists had passed the plastic training and were overcoming, each in one's own way, its nihilism and masterfulness.

My painting I would define chiefly as search of "emblematic" (by laconism and semantic content) formulas corresponding of inner experience, and, I would like to think, time. In theory the matter is of initially spontaneous self-expression, excluding stylization, however, in the final analysis, comparable with symbolic motifs and forms, prevailing in the culture.

In this way experience of modernism and archaic, antiquity and canonic icon turn out to be equally actual. Spontaneously founded ("in a dream") motif, his plastically active (and, it means, unpredictable) realization lead to universal in the culture forms and images. Capacity of experienced symbol, width of its semantic perspectives open possibility of theme's variations; hence work by cycles, restricted repertoire "acquired" plots. The images I have been addressed for decades to: monumental heads ("Korai", conventional portraits, "heads in architecture"), "feasts", figures with a cup, house, bird.

Attempts to widen the circle of motifs at account of traditional iconography considered as quotations from strange text. Motif can be suggested, looked out in history of art, but it is precious only in one case - when it was experienced as belong to private experience. In its plastic realization utters intimate significant, not obligatory for spectator, but important, as initial impulse, provides vitality of an image.

Plain-air, portrait, still life in usual sense - this is deliverance from "narrow gates" emblematic painting. Drive away for abstract images evokes a shortage of nature, in turn immersion into "stream of impressions" also play out, is drawing towards stable formulas and obviously nourishing them.

Mikhail Ivanov