Exhibition of artist Mikhail Shemyakin

November 24 at the Stroganov Palace, State Russian Museum opens an exhibition of the famous artist Mikhail Shemyakin. The exhibition presents 110 sketches, two suits and layout of the scene of the underwater kingdom to put to the Mariinsky Theatre, two-act ballet "The Magic Nut" to music by Sergei Slonimsky.

Mikhail Shemyakin - author of the libretto, scenery, costumes, but most importantly the artist made as a director performance. The basis of the libretto, "Magic Nut" is the story of the transformation nephew of Drosselmeyer in the Nutcracker. This is - a kind of pre-Nutcracker, a fairy tale about a noble young man, has preserved the desire to do good even when it turned away from fate. Earlier Shemyakin put on the stage the ballet "The Nutcracker". Both productions constitute a unique dilogy "Gofmaniana Shemyakin."

Mikhail Shemyakin was born in 1943 in Moscow, the son of actress and the military. Mikhail Shemyakin's childhood passed in Germany in the city of Kenigsberg, where he served his father.

On his return to his homeland in 1957, Mikhail Shemyakin, entered the Leningrad Art School named after Ilya Repin Academy of Fine Arts, from which was subsequently dismissed because of his "art world did not correspond to the norms of socialist realism." With the city on the Neva River from the artist involves a lot - study, the first artistic success, the first exhibition in Leningrad edition of the magazine "Star", has made his name known (1962). "St. Petersburg has trained me as an artist and person. Helped create his own world - a world of carnivals, the world is my still-life, which sprang in me in those early sixties", - says Mikhail.

In the years 1959-1961 Shemyakin, without ceasing to practice his art, he worked as a laborer. Avant-garde art of the 1960s was driven underground, many artists, including Mikhail Shemyakin, were persecuted. As a result, has come a new challenge - compulsory treatment in an experimental psychiatric hospitals.

Then Mikhail Shemyakin settled scaffolder to the Hermitage, where he worked for five years. In 1967 he formed the band "St. Petersburg" and co-authored with the philosopher Vladimir Ivanov wrote a metaphysical theory sintezizma dedicated to creating a new icon based on the study of religious art of all time. In these studies the artist was awarded an honorary doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa) of the University of San Francisco (USA), Cedar Crest College (USA), the European Academy of Arts (France), Russian State Humanitarian University (Moscow), University of Kabardino-Balkaria ( Nalchik). These studies are ongoing and still in the generated MM Shemyakin Institute of Philosophy and psychology of creativity.

In 1971 a series of persecutions and trials for Mikhail Shemyakin ended deprivation of citizenship and deportation from the country. 10 years he lived and worked in Paris. In 1974 it was first shown his watercolor series "St. Petersburg Carnival", which brought the artist international recognition.

In 1981, Mikhail Shemyakin, he moved to New York. Later, taking American citizenship, he lived in a small town Klaverak in the vicinity of New York. All these years his work has been exhibited in Europe, USA, Brazil, Japan, Hong Kong.

Returning to Russia Shemyakin art began in 1989, when Moscow and Leningrad have been his first, since the expulsion of the solo exhibitions. In the 1990s, personal exhibitions were held in the Shemyakin Tretyakov Gallery, the gallery "Nashchokina House" in Moscow, the Hermitage, State Russian Museum and the Arena in St. Petersburg. Today, his works are in permanent collections of numerous museums, including the "Metropolitan" (New York), The State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Paris), the Yad Vashem Museum of Contemporary Art (Tel Aviv).

With Sergei Slonimsky Shemyakin longstanding and loyal friendship. Shemyakin said Slonim, "one of the greatest composers of the late twentieth and the beginning of this century."

The exhibited drawings Shemyakin, enchanting costumes and scenery layout consistently hold the viewer to plot twists and turns, both "funny and sad, grotesque and romantic." The struggle between good and evil expressed by the artist in the contrasts of light and color: the dark "rat" theme contrasted with the bright sound tracks fantasy of the noble, the "good" world. However, this ballet - a fairy tale, to the same child, and because in a cycle of sketches is always present good humor, a thin smile and wonderful miracles. Choreography by Ballet Donvena Pandoursky, striving in his work to seek a plastic through which the characters come to life to the ballet on the stage, remaining shemyakinskimi in spirit, the master key performances believes "it is this undying desire to do good, even when turned destiny."

The proposed exhibition allows viewers an idea of the theatrical work of one of the greatest contemporary artists. "It seems to me, - says Mikhail Shemyakin - today's audiences have missed the aesthetics of color, to paint. And the way that I lay in the theater of his activity, it is relevant and in demand "

Information sponsor of the Russian Museum - Gallery "Museums of Russia".
General information partner of the Russian Museum - the radio station "Echo of Moscow to St. Petersburg."