The Moscow Museum of Modern Art presents a large-scale retrospective exhibition of Mihail Chemiakin, held in celebration of the artist’s 75th anniversary. Including more than 250 works produced in various art forms such as painting, sculpture, graphics, the exhibition covers the key periods of Chemiakin’s creative journey and encompasses all the disciplines the artist has worked in. The show encompasses pieces from both public and private collections including the State Russian Museum, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Mariinsky Theatre, the Mihail Chemiakin Foundation in Saint Petersburg and the artist’s collection in France. The show is curated and designed by the artist Alexey Tregubov. Polyus gold mining company is the partner of the project.
In Mihail Chemiakin’s view, to be an artist means to be a hard worker and to draw inspiration from everything: be it the work of Western artists like Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Chaim Soutine or water splashes on a piece of paper. One can enter into a dialogue with these artists and turn splashes into characters such as a rural teacher or a quaint sphinx, spying on a mermaid or a shoemaker with his wife, and even tell a story about each of them. Chemiakin’s experiments with form, techniques and materials are, first of all, a way to expand his own horizons and discover familiar things from a new perspective.
