December 12 Ermolaevsky Lane opens exhibition of works by Mikhail Grobman (1939)

MMSI, December 12, 2013 - January 26, 2014 Moscow Ermolaevsky lane, 17

December 12 Moscow Museum of Modern Art will present the first full creativity Mikhail Grobman ( 1939 ) , well-known Israeli artist , and before his emigration in 1971 - one of the main representatives of the Moscow avant-garde art and poetry of the 1960s .

Project " Grobman : 4 Exhibition " will consist of four separate exposures , each of which takes one floor in the MMSI in Ermolaevsky Lane , 17. Each of the exhibits tell the audience their story , which needs its own intelligent key , enters the atmosphere associated with his time and place , together they form a single artistic and biographical trajectory , personal and ideological story that viewers will be able to build and understand themselves .

to the Moscow audience familiarity with the work of Grobman interesting because of his work of the 1960s fills a gap in the current understanding of the early period of the history of the Moscow avant-garde. While Grobman was the center of attraction of that particular circle of artists who Ilya Kabakov in his " Apology personalism in art 60 - ies , " described as a natural existentialists .

Paintings and Drawings at the first of four shows - " Moscow 1960 " - reflects the entire spectrum of ideas Grobman Moscow period, and his journey from abstract and symbolic to the proto- conceptual works . Grobman quickly came to their own language, in which a correlation with Western modernism , as well as the artistic heritage of Russian avant-garde, iconography and theoretical work Malevich and the Futurists.

« Moscow period " lasted only ten years , but it was important for the artist while developing their own philosophy and poetic individual codes , the formation environment of like-minded friends . At this time, he had the idea , eventually became one of the reasons for his departure : he proposed a new strategy for the development of Jewish art . Grobman believed that it can stand in the forefront of contemporary art process , but that it should not occur on the basis of ethnographic household , like Chagall , and on the basis of Jewish philosophy , which has a deep abstract principles . Main philosophical theme Grobman was the theme of energy creation, mainly visual symbol - Leviathan monster mystical Jewish tradition. In the works this time Grobman (" Porcelain Man," " Winged bowl ", " Leviathan" ) comes a world of forms and symbols associated with his ideas about the principles of creation. At the same time , one of the first Grobman was administered in their work collage fragments , texts , and images as policy .

second exhibition - "Leviathan" - dedicated to the " new Jewish art" Grobman and his attempt to transform their approach to school. In 1971 , with the intention to become the founder of a new Jewish art Grobman moved to Israel and settled in Jerusalem , where he created the group and held a series of performances in the desert near the Dead Sea and in the streets of Israeli cities . At the same time, the artist has made a series of sharp conceptual works, among which are works made ​​in genres that Grobman invented himself . The exhibition will feature photographs of action in the Judean desert , made ​​on the spot , painting, drawing , three-dimensional objects and installations of unrealized projects .

third exposition - " Painting = character concept " - consists entirely of paintings of the 1980s and 90s . At this time, Grobman rethink his philosophical and aesthetic program . From creation mythology he went on to study the outcome, which is obvious imperfection conceptualized them in a sarcastic manner. The artist prefers to view "from below" by nature and man , the place of mystical Leviathan in his paintings took low-browed and long-nosed profile "snap" , which is a collective image of the third party in its own judging of the universe , nature and the social order . Arriving in Israel a huge number of people from Russia made ​​this social background particularly heterogeneous and comical : the world Zionism , large and small for Near East Policy said in a clumsy language of former residents of the Soviet Union, who had hoped to find their paradise in Israel . Visual symbol of the social hybrid was the painting " Lenin's Mausoleum in Tel Aviv ».

fourth and final exhibition , " Grobman : after art ", as if asking a question , whether exhibited in the fourth part of this work of art? Much of what we see here , especially recent works , which affects an unexpected combination of eroticism and politics, mysticism and evil laughter , obscenity and seriousness - makes reformulate this question in another way: if worthy , according to the artist , today's audience of art and beauty , or enough with her ​​direct and rude remarks ?

work at the exhibition provided the Tel Aviv Art Museum , State Russian Museum , State Tretyakov Gallery , Gallery " Minotaur" in Tel Aviv and private collectors.

Together with publisher "New Literary Review " to show book . The project will be a series of lectures and evenings Mikhail Grobman and curator Lelia Kantor - Kazovsky , films about Grobman and " second Russian avant-garde " at the Jewish Museum and the center of tolerance and in the MMSI .

About the artist : Mikhail Grobman (1939 , Moscow) - painter and poet . Member of the Second Russian avant-garde. Founder of the "Leviathan" and publisher of the newspaper of the same name . Since 1993 , together with Irina Vrubel - Golubkina publishes "The Mirror" . Author of " Military Notebook" ( Tel Aviv, 1992), "Leviathan" (UFO , Moscow, 2002 ), "In black , black country" ( Carmel , 2005), "The Last Sky" (UFO , Moscow, 2006 ) , "Leviathan" ( Carmel , 2009). Solo Exhibitions: Tel Aviv Museum of Art (1971) Art Museum Bochum (Germany, 1988) , State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg, 1999) and others lived in Moscow , in Israel since 1971. He lives in Tel Aviv .

Source : press release MMSI