Zakhar Sherman
Description The artist was born in the USSR, on March 19, 1950. Lived and studied in the Ukraine, until 1968. From 1968-1990 lived and worked in Moscow. In 1974-1979 graduated from an art faculty at the Moscow Pedagogical University, started to take part in exhibitions from 1971, Exhibited his work in 60 exhibits: in Russia, Europe and Israel. In 1990 immigrated to Israel, where lived for 10 years.Member of the Leviathan Group. From 1999 lives and works in Toronto, Canada.
Solo Exhibitions 2002 Pearl Gallery, Toronto, Canada, 1996 Art Museum Bat-Yam, Israel 1995 Museum of Israel Art, Hertzylia, Israel 1992 The Nine Arts Gallery, Antwerpen, Belgium 1991 Pelin Gallery, Helsinki, Finland 1990 Painters Sculptures Associations Tel-Aviv, Israel 1990 Palmer Gallery, Malmo, Sweden 1989 Art Forum, Hamburg, Germany 1989 Julia Tocaier Gallery Paris, France 1989 Ostermalm Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden 1988 Pelin Gallery, Helsinki, Finland 1983 "Zholtovsky" Artists House, Moscow, Russia
Group Exhibitions
2003 Denison Gallery, Artexpo, New York, USA, 2002 John Aird Gallery, Toronto, Canada, 2001 John Aird Gallery, Toronto, Canada, 2001 "Illumine" MEG Gallery, Toronto, Canada 2001 Art Gallery of Peel, Brampton, Canada 1995 "Our Century" (Exhibition of 128 Artist's from this century), Ludwig Museum Cologne, Germany. 1994 "Russian Vanguard in Israel" (I. Kabakov, M. Grobman, Z. Sherman) Gallery of Dafna Naor, Jerusalem, Israel. 1993 "Understandable Art" Museum of Israeli Art, Ramat Gan, Israel. 1992 "Line Art" An art fair, Gent, Belgium. 1991 Gallery Gordon, Tel-Aviv, Israel. 1991 "Abstraction", Haifa University Museum, Israel. 1989 "Labyrinth" castle Waterson, Humburg, Germany. 1989 "Labyrinth" a centre for the young artists, Moscow, Russia. 1988 Art of the USSR in the Modern Art Museum Turku, Finland. 1988 "No Problems" association of artists and sculptures Moscow, Russia. 1987 "Russian Art" Kostakis Gallery, Athens, Greece. 1987 A Club of Vanguard Art "Kashirka", Moscow, Russia. 1987 Russian Art in the Warsaw Art Museum, Poland. 1976-1986 12 Exhibitions for young artists in Moscow, Russia. 1974 Center of Arts (Pushechnaya street), Moscow , Russia. 1971 Center of Arts (Pushechnaya street), Moscow , Russia.
Collections Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany City Art Museum Dresden, Germany Museum of Modern Art Lodge, Poland Modern Art Museum Tampere, Finland Tritiakov National Museum Moscow, Russia Museum of Arts Novosibirsk, Russia Haifa University Museum, Israel Museum of Israel Art Hertzylia, Israel Various private collections
Imaginery Museum
Alexander Goidstein
Russian art of the end of the 19th century tended to look at the world in a straightforward manner. The artists, who called themselves "The Wanderers", reflected the social reality through their consciousness in a realistic, detailed and lucid way. Their work was mainly based on morality, critique of society, the religious sentiment and sharing in the grief of the simple people. Futurism generated a true aesthetic revolution when it restored to art that which was always its essence: the pure shape and the original color and statement. Russian futurism became not only revolutionary art, but also the art of the revolution, which was perceived by artists in different, at times contradictory, manners: some gave it social meaning, some -mystic, and others did not distinguish between these two senses.
Russian avant-garde was born in the "artistic underground" of the 60"s - a desert island in the sea of enlisted socialist realism. It was close to futurism, yet this was not an ideological affinity; conceptual pluralism is what brought them together. This is where most conceptions later to occupy key positions in nonconformist Russian art -such as conceptualism and sots-art whose essence became playing with the official Soviet myths - were conceived. Today, the styles of "The Wanderers", conceptualism and sots-art have joined forces in an impossible, nevertheless productive, combination in Zakhar Sherman's paintings: his "understandable art" shows the lives and deaths of those artistic ideologies through the tricks and techniques they themselves developed, thus stimulating in the viewer a reaction of both identification and vicious contempt.
What next? No one knows. No one can see into the future and no one knows what it holds. All of a sudden, the origin is revealed as fragments of styles, accompanied by many imitations and reproductions - its claim of birthright is melted in a "pottage of imitations" of sorts. Socialist realism walks "arm in arm" with sots-art among the ruins of the Tower of Babel, under the black sun of the dead, casting its light on the empty grave of the emperor that continues to spin the heads of imitators of one kind or another. The cavities of ancient times were filled with Warhol's empty bottles, while the brownish-red liquid that once filled them has probably been poured into Duchamp's toilets, cast here and there. The various explanations with which the heirs of conceptualism wrap the basic impotency of their art are reflected in one another like two mirrors facing each other, yet no medical procedure could restore to this art its lost potency.
Many more accusations could be thrust against modern art in a fit of anger. At first glance, it is the "graveyard" of images: all the borders have been erased, the hierarchic principle was canceled, "anything goes", therefore nothing is needed anymore. Subsequent to that first glance, it seems that it is precisely the abundance of such works that forced art to leave the territory it had always occupied - the very heart of the "pure spirit" and the genuine occurrence... however, the problem is not even the "tradability" of this kind of art, but the total loss of meaning within it: its world has lost the basic elements, that can only be expressed through it, and which
gave it the quality of authenticity and presence. What is left then? Alexandrine games and collections of rare articles - everything that was previously alive and well and is now dead and dried under the penetrating looks of expert-surgeons .
Although it is not all as simple as that. The problematic state, perhaps crisis, of contemporary art, in addition to the impoverishment of the shape and the general atmosphere of detachment, render its unlimited freedom. Yet, this freedom is not at all unequivocal. First of all, an original and avant-garde painter no longer has to tolerate the absolute dominance of one trend dictating rules to all other avant-gardist trends. The era of oppression and official preaching is over; the guard is no longer trigger-happy, and the critic - his loyal dog - no longer barks in response to the favorite command: "One step to the right! One step to the left!" Pleasant tolerance is now prevalent in the camps. Secondly, culture has at last been opened up, the "body" has been displayed to the public. Such a thing has never happened before. The world's culture was handed over to artists, who took it apart, and began playing with it, just as the juggler plays with various items, eventually pulling the rabbit from the depths of the audience's expectations. Over the familiar outlines, a new painting was drawn. Yet, its lower layer had not been removed, but rather preserved to fulfill a certain function. That which became the basic structural principle of modern art. But in the age of total inflation, the word "palimpsest" loses its meaning: layer upon layer, or infinite layers one on top of the other. And the interplay between the different layers is the essence of the system: they converse, stick out their tongues at one another, masquerade as something else, join each other in an unexpected way - at times embracing till nearly total uniformity, at times emphasizing the difference. It is an interplay "between identical and new", to quote philosopher Michel Foucault. Thus, for example, Sherman paints Malevich covering his face with the black square.
The total freedom is carried on the waves of a current of circumstances, some of which are particularly prominent. The first is a feeling that culture is nearing its end, a phenomenon that lately seems to be prevailing in western culture. How justified is this feeling - that is another question. Nevertheless, it exists: firm and concrete. Hence, the ideology of post-history is not casual, I believe. Moreover, the complex cultural systematics, with the rigid hierarchy, also reached its end today; whereas, the culture that inherited it has a different structure altogether: it is not hierarchical, but rather a collection of equivalent, heterogeneous components. Apropos, not only Russian visual art, but also Russian literature in the past two or three decades serves as a good example for a similar attitude towards material. Thus, in his poem "The Globe is Dead" Igor Cholin as though announcing that for him there is no difference between Pushkin's works, a long list of his friends and associates, and the ad stuck on the building's bulletin board, while author Vladimir Sorokin asserts this directly. "Deliberate eclecticism", "collage", "parody", "irony" become the main principles for organizing artistic messages. However, this freedom is somewhat risky, and the artist enjoying its fruit is like the slave that was set free, grew rich, and finally arrived at the glorious feast of quotations and borrowings. Three qualities saved Zakhar Sherman from the temptations of the empty and vulgar game: vital power, knowledge and ethics.
In these confused times, when painting is referred to as a "forgotten genre", Sherman comes along and reaffirms the value of the painting as a certain type of
knowledge and a performative medium deeply rooted in the culture of handiwork that was based upon the morality and expertise of the guilds. His paintings, an artist's or craftsman's work, almost "shudder" with power and vital force, having a clearly positive effect on the audience. Yet, power and might will always be based upon broad knowledge, an understanding of space, light and color; for despite all the chatter and trickery, the artist is merely a man, who managed to turn the desire for
Zakhar Sherman, Malevich, 1993, oil on
cardboard, 79.5 x 79.5 cm.,
Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany
Zakhar Sherman, The Beautiful Sixties, 1994,
oil on canvas, 120 x 190 cm., Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany
knowledge, understanding and balance into his principal working tools.
Power and knowledge are sustained by the ethical principle, which Sherman interprets as an aspiration for justice. What justice? Justice in universal art history, that is spread in front of the artist like a huge scroll of achievements, a light year, or, more accurately, the gnostic unit of time which is above-time: for it has already been said that a time will come when there will be no time. Again, the artist takes upon himself the role of demiurge - realizing the unrealized plans, guarding the truth and the justice, which he aspires to scatter on the body of the world's art that is sinking under the burden of miserable mistakes, flaws, distortions of meaning - all caused as a result of being ignorant about the future.
So, Sherman's exhibition invites us to watch the strategy of justice; its fine examples are found in each and every painting. Perhaps he knows how many lofty hopes were lost among the ruins of western culture, how many encounters never took place. Loyal to his ethics of obligation, he pulls the victims out of the wrecks in order to bestow upon them eternal life. He reunites the lovers in hope that this time they will refuse to part. Passing by the river of forgetfulness, he looks at the reunion of artist and work: the Coke bottle will never leave Andy Warhol, nor will the tower abandon Vladimir Tatlin. Art, like a mad sphinx, begins introspecting and posing riddles to itself: "Let someone come and lift my eyelids!" - it begs, nearly bursting with curiosity, like old Sophocles, lying down on the bed made for him by Dr. Freud in order to better his understanding of the Oedipal myth.
Thus, we are not surprised to see Titian's famous beauty stupefied upon seeing the wooden face of her addressee. But, after a while (it would be interesting to know how swiftly it flows in eternity), she comes back to her senses and realizes that she speaks with no other than her own image. In contrast, the variation on Picasso's
"Harlequin" has a more complex structure. Here, the human element recognizes its limits while observing the non-anthropomorphism characterizing the foreign body. Yet, suddenly, some fragile humanism bursts forth in the cricket addicted to absinthe, and the borders are erased once more. The borderline no longer separates between "intimate" and "foreign". Supporting one another, they revolve together around the common axis of sadness and compassion.
The deconstructivist approach, manipulated by Zeitgeist and manipulating it, turned "originality" and "authenticity" into taboo: the originals never lost their value in auctions, but as far as scholars are concerned, their value does not exceed that of the most blatant imitation - the center of gravity moved towards the semiotic adventures of texts in history. The myth of the author, too, has undergone revision. Within this context, Sherman is only trying to add his little burning, although personal, statement into a large and familiar fire. I refer here to his "love" for Ingres' girl and the "quarrel" with the couple Komar-Melamid. In fact, it is possible to read the exhibition as a challenge to the bourgeois conversations of sorts. Mikhail Grobman officially confirmed the fact that it was Sherman, and not Russian-American sots-artists, who "summoned" for the "father of the Soviet nations" (Stalin) the merry company of ancient "call girls" to conceive the arts. We have here a terrible, yet legal, act of robbery. Sots-art, as it happens, falls into the very same pit it dug up for others. However, in Sherman's favor we can say that his act of robbery, like any true act of robbery really, stemmed from love. Official art has already begun dreaming itself in its lethargic sleep, when the bohemian and underground (later to be accepted and respected) sots-art came to rouse it from its sleep. Sots-art was neither parody nor satire, it offered an entirely new vision, characterized by total seriousness and responsibility, as well as absolute sacrilege. However, in this context the term "sacrilege" should be understood in its ancient-religious sense, and not in its political sense. Sots-art became the "big game" in the most archaic-frightful sense of the word; a magical practice of dealing with the sacred, a kind of barbaric ritual... Today, sots-art itself has become, in the eyes of contemporary art, a product, ready for further use, just as it once looked at enlisted Soviet art.
Now, it is no longer clear who has the ancestral claim on Ingres' beauty: by transferring it to the criminal subculture, Sherman blurred all the traces, and he himself got lost. The tattoo on her left shoulder testifies that her first owner (in the wide sense of the word) was Ingres. Yet, he did not give birth to her but merely came to a ready-made, and chances are he did not suffer from a pathological incestuous inclination. So who is the maker, the father? Maybe it is, once more, Zakhar Sherman? But he is winking at us, as though hinting at the existence of the former. For lack of an answer to this question, I tend to attribute the non-birth of the girl, namely, her [...] existence above-time, to the tattoos of infinite copulations. She is both a martyr and a saint of the temple of arts, restoring her virginity after every additional ritualistic intercourse.
An entire cycle of Sherman's paintings is related to the realization of the Russian-national myth. The Russian landscape of the Jewish painter Levitan, followed by the Israeli painter Sherman, with the eternal tranquility of moist weeds, the calm lakes, the humble crosses and cathedrals - everything just as it should be: the grievous ideal will outlive us. I do not know why he had to contaminate the cloudy waters with
the American battleship, but we cannot ignore the fact that it was beautifully fixed. Furthermore, I would never believe that Zakhar had something against the family of bears that went out for a walk in the pine forest, so as to squeeze the red paint from the tube and create the rhinos instead. For Shishkin's bears were like the benevolent angels of the national-realistic visualism in particular, and of the Soviet-Russian modes of living in general - of the simple, common image of life... In fact, why only Russian? Have I myself not met them once in a deserted tea house in some Caucasian village, while their northern version was called "The Bear of the North" and decorated, with much success, the famous Soviet chocolate. Indeed, Sherman is not at all angry with the cute bears. Anger is an emotion that does not go hand-in-hand with the desire for justice and the preoccupation with the resurrection of the dead characterizing him.
Still, even the rhinos do not finish off the bears. This is done by the avant-gardists in Sherman's painting "The beautiful Sixties", repeating Kabakov's painting "Row", but in a more pseudo-Soviet poster-like style - the avant-gardists push out the classics of Soviet art - pompous sculptures leave their bodies, making room for the occupants of the new myth. Sherman brings this new reality to public awareness.
Hundred years ago, the Russian philosopher Nicolay Fedorov dreamt of resurrecting all human beings that ever lived in this world. His was a cosmic plan. I believe that the earthly counterpart to his dream is the museum. No, not that old graveyard that has become old-fashioned and obsolete like modern museums, but a total space of justice, where the ruined, obsolete, forgotten are restored, where you don't let meaning vanish, where there are relationships of equality and fellowship. The history of art a-la Sherman is very similar to the museum as such: here, too, there is a gathering of vanished meanings, rethinking of the commonplace, creation of new meanings, and a refusal to yield to the inevitable death. Since art is a method of fighting death, as long as art exists, death retreats. Nothing in the world is better than art, and it could never be separated from life.