A berserk around. Experimented. Made a special spinning machine, on which to create works. Splashed paint. Lyapal on canvas print of their feet or bare hands. Could not stand, when art historians found in his paintings of the plot, figurative, landscape, still life or portrait. Like, oh, and if ten paces away and look intently, then your job "Horizontal" - the same landscape in such a, you know, the Chinese way. Immediately send such talk to my mom. But like it when figurative in his works exhibited inexperienced in painting people. It interested him.
Quickly drew a lot. He said that one work painted over nine seconds. Oddly enough, it's true strategy in all the arts, not only in painting. One of the surest strategy. Either you worked long and hard on one, carefully and diligently, or quickly and work hard on many. Very fast and very slow - the only two correct strategies. Can, and in life in general only true.
Neponravivsheesya destroyed. Crushed, burned or cut. He has work, collages, drawn, glued together from scraps of failed canvases. Worked with different materials, sizes. Felt the size of the canvases. He has a tremendous work. There are miniatures. Huge, until recently, for the most part were kept rolled up in rolls. They were competently made and so not in the least affected by curtailed.
He loved to take risks. Each artist gave him the basement: work, experiment. He experimented. Smeared on a canvas nitroemali, then burned. The flames knocked down mitt. Receive a special color - unusual, captivating. In the end, broke out as the flames shoot down failed. Burns to the hands and face. The explosion in the basement. Complaint neighbors. With the basement had to say goodbye.
Officially listed as the Art Production Complex in Leningrad. There lay his employment history. However, what it means - an official number? He worked there and earned a lot, if presented the opportunity. Blowing glass products, cut wood, decorated houses and palaces of culture. Palace of Culture in the city of Cherepovets is decorated them. In one year he earned 7 thousand rubles - for the Soviet era, to put it mildly, quite a lot. And there were years when, and does nothing to earn.
With him was difficult. He was sharp, like every man who knows his own worth and understanding that this price does not correspond to an absurd rate prices. His paintings were bought, scientists, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, Western collectors, a miracle, right or wrong to squeeze through the Iron Curtain in the Soviet Union. Most of his works are in New York with Norman Dodge. The one and only solo exhibition was opened in 1982 in the House of Culture named after Sergo Ordzhonikidze. The exhibition of his fellow musicians played the music of Renaissance and Baroque periods. Director of the Culture House Thurman flew from his seat for this performance. More than just annoyed sound design. The wording was: "For the performance of Jewish music."
He lived to the restructuring. Almost reached for his first personal exhibition abroad, in Helsinki. He died in 1988, the day before. Was seriously ill. When we arrived the ambulance, the doctor looked overgrown beard and hair person, like a biblical patriarch, and briefly explained the situation: "First," carries no dead. " Galereyschik, who came to conclude a contract with the artist, the doctor handed the money. The doctor shrugged. Mihnova-Voitenko loaded onto a stretcher. He grabbed the hand of a friend who was present at these things, and gasped: "Save my work, save my work." With these words he died. Do not know about the latest scandal related to his work: at customs, they were arrested, six paintings were confiscated and later handed over to the Russian Museum.
How can I watch him work
Nothing. Do not like it - turn and walk away: Why torture yourself? But if you look, it is not a reproduction. The great Belgian surrealist painter Rene Magritte said that he did not understand why now, go to museums when there are great albums. No way detracting from the merits of this artist, I must say that his work did not really lose in the reproductions. Not that - Mikhnov-Voitenko. His works have to watch live.
Oddly enough, for his mysterious metaphysical works important dimension. What are they - as big as "War, peace, and it is", or small, like a series of "touch" or medium-sized, like a series of "Ringing of church bells" - that is important. Eye responds to the physical size as well as the combination of colors, lines and points. And watch these paintings and miniatures is as Mikhnov-Voitenko created them - quickly. After all, in fact, he painted a huge picture of his entire artistic life - from 1957 to 1988 year. This picture is dedicated to what is behind the visible object world. He himself said of it: "I draw the line between being and nothingness."
Eugene Mihnova-Voitenko needed nothing except the colors and lines, except the verge of being and nothingness (from "Touch", 1960)
Photo: New Museum of Contemporary iskusstvaPoetomu and work, as a rule, did not call. Just a song or Series: "Square", a series of "Ringing of church bells, a series of" touch ", a series of" state ". In extreme cases - dedication. Dedication to his friend Leonid Aronzon wonderful poet, committed suicide in the Tien Shan, a shot from a hunting rifle. Dedication to my mother, endlessly verivshey talent, son, helps him throughout his life. Dedication favorite composer, Bach, favorite artist Hieronymus Bosch. Dedication to Mozart. He signed the dedication of these chivalrous: Hommage.
In Russian - homage that is not just the dedication, but the oath of allegiance. There were a lot of chivalry, as in all of this generation - a special Soviet generation. He was born in 1932. Grew up in a country that defeated fascism and has long been frozen in the present, is cut off, separated from all over the world the true iron wall. And suddenly the wall proskvozilo: he and his peers saw the Picasso, the former Russian avant-garde. See how you can draw - a sudden, unusual, boring.
They began to educate and train the survivors during the Stalinist pogrom people like Nikolai Akimov. These guys had no fear, they were desperate. Their fathers were the winners. Preserved early photographs Mihnova-Voitenko - those times when he studied at the Theatre Institute, and tried to play on stage, put on plays. Amazing texture. A striking blend of Jean-Paul Belmondo, Nicholas Olyalin and Eugene Urbanski. This social character. He would Mayakovsky's play. And he played. That is not even played, and lived a life of what could have lived Mayakovsky, not obmorochenny social or public order. The life of a knight of the art, which does not need anything except the colors and lines, except the verge of being and nothingness.
In his youth he was trying to formalize and establish their own dramatization of Chekhov's short story "The Black Monk." An amazing story for such a spontaneous, natural materialist, what was Dr. Chekhov. Because we are in this story is the right man for strangeness, for, if you like, lunacy. On the elusive distinction between visible material world and the metaphysical, invisible. Chekhov himself in any metaphysics is not believed, but as an experienced doctor gave knowledgeable advice. If someone is good and happy in the intangible world, do not try to fix the rights, do the normal from your perspective. How sings the current great bard and one of the best contemporary poets Mikhail Shcherbakov: "When will you learn the law of steel - that does not cure those who are not sick."
So, even if you have neither a grain of metaphysical vein (as in Chekhov), if you know and feel that nothing but material objects do not exist and can not exist, that is, in the case if you - a spontaneous, natural materialist (as Dr. Anton Chekhov), even in this latter case, you might like the picture Mihnova-Voitenko.
They have an unusually festive. In a good decorative. Even if it works with black and white, with brown, the very energy of his work nedepressivna. In his youth, he nevertheless called his paintings. Talked about it this way: "In my youth, when I was angry, I called his paintings". Anger remember here because the names he imposed his vision of the viewer. Forcing his imagination to move in the direction of the predestined. Restrict his freedom, and restriction of freedom is always associated with anger, aggression in one way or another.
Nevertheless, if you see his huge, colorful, clear from the set of points consisting of the painting "Carnival", you will agree: "Yes, indeed, gay-colored carnival, something fantastic, baby, flashing a real treat." On Children Mikhnov-Voitenko also spoke. The artist must indulge, he believed, pushing incompatible, it would seem things: the ought and self-indulgence, game, death is something serious and something absolutely fundamentally unserious. Actually, this something is the main mystery of art - a combination of indulgence and debt. Death is a serious game - that's what art is. Mikhnov-Voitenko this game played.
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, solo exhibition. Evgeny Mikhnov-Voitenko, "Wandering set"
http://www.expert.ru/2010/11/8/vystavki/