Luxe-Immo, April 2011

ANTON S. KANDINSKY
By Marie-Emilie Fourneaux

Click here to read this illustrated article, pages 28-33

You were born at the time of the Soviet Union in Crimea, now Ukraine, and your mother was a sculptor and your father a painter, both artists of Socialist Realism. Did becoming an artist seem obvious to you?

No, I wanted to be a cosmonaut, like all the Russian boys of the time; I like outer space. However I’m an artist and it’s best that way. I’m a pure product of the Socialist realism school. When I arrived in the US in 1998, I realized how weak us Russians were in the Art world. I realized that artists in the US form a major part of international art unlike the Russians. At first, I saw all the new performances and installations I discovered as barbaric, but today I understand that they were actually very sophisticated, with a large role in contemporary art. Amongst Warhol’s art, I was impressed by Mao’s portrait. Was it sarcastic? Did he want to make fun of this political figure? I perceived a certain attitude Warhol had via the political figure. Much later, I saw art works by Chinese contemporary artists (Yu Minjun, Zhang Hongtu, Li Shan…) and told myself that if Warhol was still alive today, I would have diverted his interest from Basquiat towards Chinese contemporary artists. To me, Russian contemporary art is very simple; it copies contemporary art from the West, which sometimes leads to poor results. In contrast, Chinese contemporary art has managed to break from Western art to create something original and independent. In the West, the strongest symbols of visual culture are Mona Lisa, the Statue of Liberty or Michelangelo’s David. In China, it’s the smile of the contemporary artist Yu Minjun. We can think that China is primitive and communist, but in fact they mock us. Perhaps that smile is distorted when considering the problems China’s facing, but Yu Minjun is a very powerful symbol! Ai Weiwei’s attitude towards the West and China is another. The artist points his finger towards the White House and the Presidential Palace on Tiananmen Square. A Russian artist would never point a finger towards both the White House and the Kremlin, but would consider one after the other. That’s why China is the leader today, unlike the old Soviet bloc.

Indeed, since 2009 you assert the importance of Chinese contemporary art in a project called “China-ism.”

For me Chinese art contributed greatly to the development of international art, it’s a historical moment. China is very dynamic in the development of the world economy. China’s society, culture and art have strongly developed. The problems faced by the West (terrorism for example) don’t apply to China. For me artists such as Jeff Koons or Damien Hirst, two extremely popular artists, are too commercial. In the current economic crisis, their work is less relevant. On the contrary, for me art depends on social feelings. When social dependence and sentiments disappear, art no longer exists.

By creating this “China-ism” concept, you’ve started to create a series of double-portraits of Western artists (Chuck Close and Yourself) and Chinese (Ai Weiwei and Yue Minjun) under the banner “I don’t want to be an American [or Russian] artist / I want to be a Chinese artist”.

Yes, I’ve painted several double portraits in that way, like the Queen of England and Mr. Bean for instance. Looking at Shakespeare’s idea: to be or not to be, it’s like a sarcastic game. On this painting here we have Stalin and Mao: “I don’t want to be Stalin I want to be Mao” because everyone “likes” Mao and nobody likes Stalin. Yet Mao killed many more people than Stalin did, and the latter contributed to Hitler’s downfall, however everyone has forgotten that. As you can see in my studio, I’m working on an immense painting contributing to the “China-ism” project. “Made in China” analyses the relationship between China, the ex-Soviet Union and the United States. The white oscillation on the painting can symbolise a dragon or a dollar…

In 2004, you founded a movement called “Gemism”, from the word Gem, a reference to the diamonds you painted in association with flags, weapons, ideograms, political, artistic and show business figures in your art. What does this movement and these diamonds mean?

Diamonds are natural elements. A whole mystical and religious symbolism is associated with them. Spirit lives in diamonds as in blood. If a soldier walking in the snow gets shot, blood will spread on the immaculate ground and will crystallize like a diamond. They have tremendous power and fascinate many people. Associated with weapons, this is a reference to the fight for this power and for the control of wealth. In 2007 I carried out a project called “Meditation on Weapons” for which I painted a war scene referring to the events in Iraq and Afghanistan: soldiers, weapons and a bunch of other symbols which I paired with celebrities’ portraits and, most importantly, diamonds. The celebrities and the diamonds especially pacify these scenes of violence. I pay great attention to the diamonds and treat them aesthetically with great care so as to reflect the sparkle of each surface. They capture the spectator’s attention and erase the evocation of war. The series of grenades is part of the project; I wrote on one of them “Bank of China” and painted various currencies. The idea was “if you touch the Chinese Bank, everything will explode”. This artwork had a great impact - it was published in an article in the Financial Times and chosen by a French diplomat to be the cover of the French Foreign Office’s booklet for a conference dedicated to diplomacy and the economy in November 2010. Another grenade, “Good morning American”, was chosen by Axel Rose to illustrate the deluxe edition of Guns N’Roses’ latest album, “Chinese Democracy”.