Artists

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		FAIBISOVICH Semyon

Biographical information: 1949 Born in Moscow on February 10, in the family of a serviceman. From the age of ten, he attended the Krasnopresnenskaya Art School in addition to a regular school.
1966-72 student at the Moscow Institute of Architecture. After graduating from the Institute, he worked in architectural organizations as well as pursuing drawing and later painting (from the end of the 1970s on).
1979-88 architect and designer at the Monument Complex of the USSR Artistic Foundation
From 1976 onwards, he exhibited his works in a basement on the Malaya Gruzinskaya Street, where they were noticed by New York dealers and collectors in the autumn of 1985.
From 1987 onwards, his paintings began to be widely exhibited in the USA and then in Western Europe and Russia.
He lives and works in Moscow.
Collections where works are held: His works are found in museum collections in Hungary, Germany, Canada, Poland, Russia and USA and in prestigious private collections in Germany, Italy, Canada, USA, Russia, France and Switzerland
Participation in exhibitions and auctions: GROUP EXIBITIONS:

2008 COMEBACK, Regina gallery, Moscow, Russia
2005 Returned values 2 (together with I. Chuikov). Painting. Regina Gallery. Moscow
2005 To Rome. Photo. “Collectors’ Ñlub” Gallery. “Artstrelka”. Moscow
2004 Early painting and graphics in the framework of the gallery project “Archivation of the today”. Krokin Gallery. Moscow
2003 Lviv as viewed by a Moscovite. Photo. Moscow–Kiev–Lviv
2001 Returned values. Painting. Regina Gallery. Moscow
A Time For Everything, a Place for Everything... Andrei Sakharov Museum and Public Center, Moscow
My Windows. Moscow House of Photography. Moscow
Knot Under the Pine Trees. Double Feature. TV Gallery, Moscow
2000 Roy G. Biv. XL Gallery, Moscow
The Living and the Dead (Summer Memories). Marat Guelman Gallery, Moscow
1999 Poplar Down. Zverev Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow
1997 A Chill Down the Spine. L Gallery, Moscow
1995 Last Anniversary (together with B. Orlov). Regina Gallery, Moscow
1994 Chronicle of Current Events. Yakut Gallery, Moscow
1993 Evidence. Regina Gallery, Moscow
1992 The Last Demonstration. Regina Gallery, Moscow
1991 Galerie Inge Baecker, Cologne
1990 Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York
First Gallery, Moscow
1989 Phyllis Kind Gallery, Chicago
1988 Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York

PRINCIPAL GROUP EXHIBITIONS:

2009 21 RUSSIA, Pinchuk Art Center, Kiev, Ukraine
2008 The Next of Russia, Galery LOOP, Seoul, South Korea
2007 Art-Moscow
2005 Mobilography 2. Moscow House of Photography
2005 Silver camera. Moscow House of Photography
2004 1950–2000. Art. Contemporary view. Berlin – State Historical Museum, Moscow
2004 Nostalgic Conceptualization: Russian Version. Schimmel Center for the Arts. Pace University. New York. USA
2003 Semyon Fajbisowitsch, Allen Jones, Timur Novikov, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol u. a. Galerie Bleibtreu. Berlin. Germany
2003 Silver camera. Moscow House of Photography
2002 Actual Russian Art. New Manege. Moscow
2002 Pro Vision. II International Festival of Photography. Nizhny Novgorod
2001 ArtMoscow. Photo series Lokomotiv Stadium. Presented by the Expert Gallery, Moscow
Russian Artists for Andy Warhol (in the framework of the festival Andy Warhol Week in Moscow). An exhibition at the M. Guelman Gallery, Moscow
2000 Twentieth-Century Art. A new permanent collection at the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Serials. State Center for Contemporary Art, Manege, Moscow
Silver Camera 2000. Contest for the best illustrated report about Moscow. Moscow Center of Photography, Manege, Moscow
ART MANEGE, Moscow International Art Fair. An exhibition at the Regina Gallery, Moscow
1999 Museum of Contemporary Art (Russian Art from the Late Fifties to the Early Eighties).
A project of A. Erofeyev. City Artists` Center, Moscow
Act 99. Welts Museum (Austria) - Manege (Moscow)
Post-War Russian Avant-Garde (from the Collections of Yury Traisman). Russian State Museum (St.Petersburg), State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), Miami University Museum (USA)
Ideas for a Museum of the USSR (experimental exhibition). Andrei Sakharov Museum and Public Center, Moscow. Yu. Zlotnikov, curator
1997 History through People (a travelling exhibition for Russian provincial towns). Open Society Institute and Tsaritsyno State Museum-Reserve, Moscow
Moscow Hyperrealism. An Exhibition of Five Artists.
A project of the Association of Moscow Galleries in the framework of the Spring ART MANEGE, Moscow
1995 Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union. Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutdgers University, New Jersey, USA
1994 Art Fair Cologne. Galerie Inge Baecker (Cologne) and Sprovieri Gallery (Rome). Cologne, Germany
1993 Monuments: a Transformation for the Future. Institute of Contemporary Art and City Artists` Center. Moscow
White Night. Yakut Gallery, Moscow
Art Hamburg (Artfrom Eastern Europe). Galerie Inge Baecker (Cologne). Hamburg, Germany
1992 Art from First Hand or an Apology of Shyness. Regina Gallery, Moscow
A Mosca... A Mosca. Villa Campoletto (Herculanum) and Galleria Commuiidle (Bologna). Italy
1991 Staatsportrat. Galerie Inge Baecker, Cologne, Germany
1990 International Art Fair. Chicago
Adaptation and Negation of Socialist Realism. The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, USA FIAC. Paris, France
Art Fair Cologne. Cologne, Germany
Painting in Moscow and Leningrad, 1965-1990. Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, USA
Bulatov, Faibisovich, Gorokhovski, Kopystianskiye, Vassiliev. Phyllis Kind Gallery, Chicago
1989 Photography in Art. First Gallery, Moscow
Behind the Ironic Curtain. Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York
Interart. Poznan, Poland
Moscow-3. Eva Pol Gallery, West Berlin, Germany
International Art Fair. Chicago
Von der Revolution zur Perestroika: Sowjetische Kunst aus der Sammlung Ludwig. Musee d`Art Moderne, Saint-Etienne, Switzerland
Wirklichkeit a Is Konzept II. Die jungere Generation. Galerie Inge Baecker, Cologne, Germany
1988 Ich lebe -Ich sehe. Kunstmuseum, Bern, Switzerland
International Art Fair. Chicago
Art Fair Cologne. Cologne, Germany
Art Hesse. Basel, Switzerland
Glasnost. Kunsthalle Emden, Germany
Beyond the Ironic Curtain. Galerie Inge Baecker, Cologne, Germany
Labyrinth. Palace of Youth, Moscow
Diese Ausstellung wird veranstaltet unter der Schirmherrschaft des Prinzen Alexander von Hessen. Philippsthal-Barchfeld, Germany
1987 Direct from Moscow. Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York
International Art Fair. Chicago
Retrospective: 1957-1987. Hermitage Association, Moscow
Post-Socialist Realism: the New Soviet Reality. Firebird Gallery, Alexandria, USA
1976-88 Exhibitions in the basement of the City Committee of Graphic Artists on the Malaya Gruzinskaya Street, Moscow
Autobiographical notes
What the critics say: Russian artist Semyon Faibisovich has returned to painting with a vengeance. He abandoned the medium from the mid 1990s for more than 10 years, in the face of an exclusive conceptualism then rampant in Moscow, working instead as a writer and filmmaker. His Comeback exhibition at Regina Gallery, Moscow in 2008 marked the end of an artistic drought.

Depicting scenes of everyday life in Razgulyai, the Moscow district where the artist has been living for the last twenty years, these paintings focus on marginalised, unglamorous individuals. Homeless and alcoholic residents of the city are treated sympathetically by Faibisovich as they go about their days, and likewise working class people who are in stark contrast to the Russian nouveau riche. The artist clearly identifies with them, conveying their strength of character despite their circumstances. The title of Two Merry Tramps (2008) is a play on the words of a Russian nursery rhyme. It depicts two figures, a man and a woman, who are down and out but obviously happy in each other’s company. The shadow of the artist, taking the photograph that inspires the work, is cast across them, asserting his engagement with their situation rather than being a detached spectator.

The brushstrokes in Faibisovich’s canvases betray their origins in low-resolution images. The mobile phone technology they embody, democratising the business of image-making, complicates his revived commitment to the high art medium of painting. It actually features as a subject in Elochovsky Passage (2009). Here we see an elderly woman, in heavy coat and fedora-style hat, walking past an illuminated display of phones – shelves upon shelves of these ubiquitous little devices which are now so essential to human communication. Thus Faibisovich makes a smart reference to his own practice, and a means of globalisation that has transformed Russian society, with an informal snapshot image.
Bibliography: No information available

* - This information has been provided by the Soros Center for Contemporary

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