Exhibition



The exhibition «Michel Sima. Geniuses in the workshops. Behind the scenes of the Parisian art scene»

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Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow / Moscow House of Photography Museum / Voronezh Regional Art Museum. I.N. Kramskoy

Represent the exhibition “Michel Sima. Geniuses in the workshops. Behind the Parisian art scene “

June 1 at 15.45 hours in the exhibition hall of the Voronezh Regional Art Museum. I.N. Kramskoy in the framework of the IX International Platonov Arts Festival will be the grand opening of the exhibition “Michel Sime. Geniuses in the workshops. Behind the Parisian art scene.

The exhibition will present 120 photographs.
Curators of the exhibition: Kuno Fisher, Alisa Labas
Project presented by Kuno Fisher, Fisher Gallery, Switzerland
The exhibition uses the texts of Erica Billeter.

Michel Sima (real name Michal Zmaevsky), first of all, considered himself a sculptor, photography was for him, rather a hobby, not a profession. However, the world fame brought him just a picture. For 10 years, he created portraits of his artist friends, among which were Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Francis Picabia, Osip Zadkine, Alberto Giacometti, Jean Cocteau, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Andre Derain, Le Corbusier, Marc Chagall, Juan Miro and many others. He owes his friendship to artists with his name. His pseudonym is an anagram, the idea of ​​which was suggested by Paul Eluard: SIMA is an inverted word AMIS (friends).

The artist and his work – a topic that interested Michel Sima-photographer in the first place. In all the pictures of Sima artists are captured in the workshops, at work. But this is not just a fixation of the different stages of the artistic process. Thanks to his friendship with his heroes and the trust that prevailed on the set, he managed to create unique works, revealing the finest nuances of the personality of each character, transferring his unique creative aura.

In the preface to Michel Sime’s photo album “The Faces of Twenty-One Painters”, published in 1959, dedicated to the legendary “Paris School”, Jean Cocteau wrote: “You, my dear See, have a laudable idea to capture the faces of artists like in flight – the exciting faces of the creators in the struggle with the monsters that they themselves gave rise to, apocalyptic horsemen, plunging us into the maze, where we are embraced by a wild, dual desire, without meeting with the Minotaur, still see him. ”

In the context of the Platonov Festival, this exhibition project acquires a new meaning – this is another facet of the Platonic era. All the heroes of Shem are contemporaries of Andrey Platonov, as well as he who worked in the first half of the 20th century.

Michal Zmaevsky was born in 1912 in a small town of Slonim in southeastern Poland into a Jewish family. At the age of 17, he moved to Paris and entered the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, beginning to study the sculptor. However, he spent the entire year at the academy, deciding that it was better to study, working directly in the workshops with sculptors. Sima was a student of Osip Zadkine, one of the most famous sculptors of the time. Over time, he met Jean Cocteau, Paul Eluard, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso and Max Ernst.

During these years, Sima began photographing for press agencies. But he did not feel like a photographer. He saw himself as a sculptor and it was in this capacity that he tried to find his place in the world of art. Michel Sima was a full member of the “Paris School” – a huge “melting pot”, in which all artistic movements united, mutually enriching each other. He received orders as a sculptor and participated in group exhibitions.

After the war, who survived Auschwitz, broken spiritually and physically, Sima went to the Cote d’Azur, where he again met Picasso. He began to photograph the artist in the studio, which became a kind of therapy that helped him return to life. The result of the work was the album “Picasso in Antibes” (1948), which is fully consistent with the ideas of Sim that the artist and his work are a single whole.

In the early 50s, Sima, like many of his pre-war acquaintances, returned to Paris. With great pleasure he began again to photograph friends. For several years, he created portraits of 60 artists of the “Paris School” which gradually revived after the war.

“He is not just a photographer, but a photographer who opens the door to the backstage of the creative process, which was previously closed … Sima photographed outstanding artists of the last century – his friends. He was part of their world, he did not come to them as a professional portrait photographer, he did not observe them as a journalist, but was one of them. He looked at them the way they looked at him – with confidence, ”wrote a close friend of Michel Sim, Jean-Luc Mezonier, in the afterword of the book“ Michel Sim – artist in the workshop ”, released in 2008.

For both exhibitions of the festival (“Circle of Artists” and “Michel Sima”) there is a single ticket.
The cost of a full admission ticket to the exhibition – 200 rubles.
A discount ticket (for students, schoolchildren, retirees) – 160 rubles.

The exhibition will run until June 30, 2019.

ATTENTION!

During the festival, the exhibitions will be open daily from 10.00 to 19.00.
Cashier stops working 45 minutes before the closure of the museum.

In the Festival night (from 15 to 16 June) admission to the exhibition is free from 18.00 to 01.00 hours.

From June 17 – the exhibitions will work within the framework of the working schedule of the museum.

Michel Sima
Georges Braque
Digital printing
Courtesy of Kuno Fisher and Fisher Gallery, Switzerland
© The legacy of Michel Sime
Michel Sima
Jean Cocteau
Digital printing
Courtesy of Kuno Fisher and Fisher Gallery, Switzerland
© The legacy of Michel Sime
Michel Sima
Henri Matisse
Digital printing
Courtesy of Kuno Fisher and Fisher Gallery, Switzerland
© The legacy of Michel Sime