Mihail Chemiakin

(1943 - )

5216

Michel de Chemiakine

Synthetisme metaphysique

Metaphysical synthetism

Paris: Claude Jobin, 1978

442 x 360 mm. 13 leaves

Edition: 100.

Album Nr. 1. Poemes de Alexi Hvostenko. Copy nr. 11/100. Box containing 13 folded leaves. The first leaf with two title pages, the second leaf with an introduction: L'Instinct et la Metaphysique by Alain Bosquet. Leaves 3-12 containing original lithographs by Chemiakin recto and lithographed poems verso. Last leaf bears the impressum. In 1967 Chemiakin together with the art historian Ivanov wrote a theoretical treatise called Metaphysical synthesis. In short their theory combines the ancient function of art, serving religion thus being metaphysical, with the notion this function can be found in different continents, cultures, and times. Bringing this together is the synthesis. To practice this theory, which meant to study the transformation of the original sources and roots, they formed a group in Leningrad. Among its initial members were, next to Chemiakin and Ivanov, such artists as Makarenko, Yesaulenko and Vasiliev. They criticised Surrealists for their lack of content and meaning in their work. Chemiakin’s forced emigration to Paris in 1971 did not mean the end of the group or the theory, nor of the work on it. This box containing 13 folded sheets with 20 lithographs by Chemiakin and poems by Khvostenko bears witness to this. A closer look at the drawings reveals the artist’s continuing studies of Oceanic, African, Religious and Folk art. The Oceanic wooden sculptures, African masks, imagery from icons, and Lubok are melded together in Chemiakin’s own pictorial world. In the introduction to this publication Alain Bosquet states ‘the artist does not re-create or copy but he analyses and creates’.

References:

Oakville 1986, pp. 160-163

Bass & Lamb 2000, p. 163