El Rincón de Góngora en International contemporary art in BARCELONA Crisolart Galleries with Irina Markov- Chagall

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Crisolart Galleries

ArT

Irina Markovv-Chagal con Alexandra Timorina y Alex Yaya

Alex Yaya inicia el encuentro de Arte entre los presentes mediante la presentación de Irina Chagall y la revista. Nos introduce en una historia de la artista en cuanto a su obra y sobre todo lo que acontece en torno a su familia, según se explica en estas líneas. Una exposición de gran riqueza en las lenguas habladas en la sala, Irina nos introduce con su lengua materna el ruso y se traduce al inglés, al igual que muchos presentes con la lengua castellana y catalana.

Alex Yaya initiates the Art meeting among those assistants through the presentation of Irina Chagall and the magazine. It introduces us to a story about the artist in terms of her work and everything that happens around her family, as explained in these lines. An exhibition of great richness in the languages ​​spoken in the room, Irina introduces us with her mother tongue to Russian and is translated into English, as well as many assistant with the Spanish and Catalan language.

Irina en la exposición de este pasado miércoles da la bienvenida a todos los asistentes al cierre de la Exposición, sita en la C/Villarroel, donde se expusieron sus cuadros. Los agradecimientos a los organizadores por darle la oportunidad de exponer sus obras.

Irina, in the last Wednesday Exhibition, welcomes all attendees at the closing of the Exhibition, located in C/ Villarroel 43, where her paintings were exhibited. She thanks to the organizers for giving her the opportunity to exhibit her  works.

Irina Markov-Chagall, en el 2005 se vio obligada a mudarse a un lugar de residencia permanente, Israel, debido a su estado de salud con respecto al asma que  padecía. Al cabo de unos años mejoró su salud.          

Irina Markov-Chagall, in 2005, was forced to move to a place of permanent residence, Israel, due to her state of health with respect to her asthma. After a few years, her health improved.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Nos explica que la Tierra Santa le revivió a la vida con una gran emoción en su rostro. Le impulsó a la creatividad. Al principio escribía artículos analíticos y populares para periódicos; revistas, poemas y canciones para espectáculos infantiles, que tuvieron éxito durante ocho años en escena en teatro.

Hizo decoraciones y a la edad de  58 años, cogió un pincel por primera vez y aún sin estudiar en una escuela de Arte. Se graduó en una escuela técnica y toda su actividad laboral no tenía nada que ver con la creatividad. Su profesión más destacada fue la de director comercial en la Corporación Financiera de la región de Saratov.

De todos modos,  la experiencia y la creatividad previa le provenía de sus genes, tanto del lado de su padre como del de su madre. Recordando la historia de su abuela, no dice que cuando tenía diez años le contó que su abuelo era pariente de Marc Chagall, y que en 1937, después de que Marc Chagall hubiera recibido la ciudadanía francesa, fue arrestado y fusilado.

Fue cuando su padre que lleva el nombre del artista Mark, tan sólo tenía medio año. Mi  padre fue considerado el hijo de un "enemigo del pueblo" durante 20 años. Por este motivo, pasó muchas dificultades y hasta el año 1957, su abuelo no fue rehabilitado póstumamente. Y por esta razón, ni su abuela ni su padre buscaron encuentros con Marc Chagall o sus familiares.

Es en este momento cuando se ha comunicado con los familiares de Marc Chagall, que viven en Israel y Rusia. Le conmovieron sus palabras hacia ella: "¡Bienvenida a la familia!". Irina Markov-Chagall confía en que su trabajo fue el que rompió la trágica cadena de su familia, que colgaba sobre ellos con la espada de Damocles y les reunió.

Es una gran historia de sensibilidad, como algo que parece negativo como su enfermedad que le hace trasladarse a Israel y sus obras que fueron las que cambiaron el sentido en esta gran familia que sufrió mucho en su pasado y por lo cual se alejaron entre ellos. Su familia actualmente está reunida.

Se comenzaron a presentar las obras de Irina en Dubai, en Barcelona y se pidió la documentaicó para certificar el parentesco de Irina con Mark Chagall e hicieron un test éticoico que confirmó que Irina es sobrina-nieta de Mark Chagall.

It is a great story of sensitivity, as something that seems negative as her illness that makes her move to Israel and her works that were the ones that changed the meaning of this great family that suffered a lot in their past and for which they moved away from each other. Her family is currently reunited.

They began to present the works of Irina in Dubai, in Barcelona and requested the documentation to certify the kinship of Irina with Mark Chagall and made an ethical test that confirmed that Irina is niece-granddaughter of Mark Chagall.

En la exhibición también encontramos artistas desde Dinamarca como Beth Mohr y Sebastian Furtado, y un total de 21 artistas con todas y cada una de las obras que nos encontramos en la sala. Como por ejemplo: Patricia Reis, Oxana Barvinok, Irina Asaeva, Magali Charles, Natalia Teilevich, Cristian Espinosa, Javier Lledó, Elena Lazebnik, Oleg Kupryashin, Maru Prats, Nikta Startsev, Maxim Pod’yachev, Enric Palau Quesada, Julian Reis Liima, Jura Tumasyan, Jesús del Peso, Albert Alcoi Costa, Vanesa Correa, Alyona Nikifirova.

The Interview to Irina Markova Shagal in English

This is the first exhibition in Russia presented by the great-niece of Marc  Chagall  - Irina Markova – Shagal who was called the “Genes of Creativity”. However, these genes have been severely tested by family tragedy and personal illness.

For thirteen years, Irina Markovna has been living in Israel. St. Petersburg art lovers were already able to evaluate the work of the artist. She brought almost all of her canvases and several works written specifically for the northern capital, the city on the Neva. In an interview with "MK" the artist tells that she had made her first start painting at the age of fifty-eight.

- Irina, you called the exhibition "Genes of Creativity." And for your family, what does the name Marc Chagall mean?

The connection with Marc Chagall was tragic for our family line. My grandfather was shot after Chagall in 1937 obtained French citizenship. Moreover, my dad, a six-month-old child, who was named after the artist Mark, became the son of an “enemy of the people” (his grandfather was rehabilitated in 1957). However, my dad being already 80 year old man received a document on the rehabilitation of his father. I will never forget his bitter tears. My father never sought to meet Marc Chagall.

- When did you find out about your great relative?

 At the age of ten years old. Imagine: a three-room apartment, a small town in the Volgograd region, and a grandmother, after going through the situation when her husband and son were called “enemies of the people,” whispering to me quietly, “Ira, I have to open a big secret to you. We are relatives of Marc Chagall. And your father was named after him. But don't tell anyone about this".

- How did your father perceive your desire to paint?

I began to paint a year before his death. He managed to see my first work. His words can never be forgotten: “It was so hard for me to always hear the name — Marc Chagall, but when I saw your pictures, I still realized that the wing of a genius somehow hurt you. And the memory of the dead grandfather should inspire, so that our line of Chagalls is not lost.

- And you also did not look for meetings with Chagall?

 No, I didn’t. I was familiar with his work, but I was somewhat detached towards him, realizing that any interest in Marc Chagall would be painfully perceived by my father. Although I am sure that Chagall did not even know about this tragedy. After all, he was a peculiar person, out of this world: no everyday things interested him, only Bell’s work and muse. After her death, Chagall was married twice, but continued to write his beloved Bella. She died in 1944 from sepsis, when they were to return from America to France. For almost a year he could not take a brush in his hands. After the death of my father, I also could not write: I came up to the canvas and left. A year later, in one of my old pictures, I decided to make light strokes: a naked woman looks into the distance at the moon, and instead of the moon, I began to write a swaddled baby and thus broke myself. I know that Chagall had the same thing.

- You, like Chagall, emigrated. Why have you decided to move to Israel?

In Russia, I was a successful business woman, but I was diagnosed with a severe form of asthma. It was so bad that they gave me a second disability group, and the doctors said that there was a year left to live. I decided that I’m not ready to die at fifty and moved to Israel. And here slowly began to rebound. I was cured by the climate. The holy land was able to give me not only a second life, but also a second wind. Thirteen years, I have been here and, knocking on wood, say: “They will not wait!”.

- Chagall has repeatedly been to Israel. What is the attitude towards his heritage there?

He came to the Promised Land before the establishment of the State of Israel and did a lot of work on biblical topics. His big tapestry hangs in the Knesset. He is more than the icon. In the center of Jerusalem there is the Chagall Square. There is a houseof his, where all artists gather, and hold exhibitions. Chagall's paintings are in the State Museum in Jerusalem, the Hadassah Hospital is decorated with his mosaics – these are some amazing works.

 -2You yourself recently wrote a picture of "In Memory of Chagall."

I was presented with his lithograph “Bouquet and hand”. I read somewhere that his last wife Vava (Valentina Brodskaya - AT) often asked him: “Write the flowers, they leave well”. And for him it was painful! So this lithograph is made in a manner that is not peculiar to Chagall and not in its proper color range. Looking closely, I realized that it was a rebellion: his head was turned away from the easel, his eyes were closed, and this was while painting a picture with a bouquet! I suddenly had the desire to change something and return Chagall at a time when he was happy. I wrote his profile in a laurel wreath, as if to say: "You are still the king, the emperor is above all of us!" The young girl in the picture is his Bella, his Muse. Her flying veil as if unites all his favorite images into a single whole and sends us to his homeland - Vitebsk, the streets of which Chagall portrayed all his life. I hope that with the help of colors and symbols I managed to show his state of mind.

- Your pictures are also very symbolic. Perhaps you are often compared with a great ancestor?

I am compared with so many artists. For example, in the picture dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the State of Israel, my flying little sheep refer to the images of a great artist (smiles). However, seriously, yes, I do not have simple perception of pictures. Some philosophical note,  a complex semantic content necessarily present in them. I want a person to come, look at the picture, think about being, and when they return, I would like them to think it over in a new way. Marc Chagall said: “A work of art should not be clear. If everything in it is clear, then from an artistic point of view, something is necessarily missing. ” For me, his words became my credo. I like working with color. I love purple, although they say it is the color of loneliness. They ask me: "Why are you so smiley, while your pictures are so sad?" But I, myself, do not know.

- Because of loneliness?

Maybe. I think that the roots of my loneliness come from my childhood. I was born in a family of two students, and until my parents graduated from universities, we were very poor (I had no purchased toys, only crafts of my mother and grandmothers). I could go to the store as early as three years, and at six I was able to fire the stove and cook borsch, because mom and dad studied, and after classes they worked part time every day. There was little time for friends. Dad said that since the age of three I had been able to make decisions independently.

- Most of the pictures you write with your fingers. How did you come to this technique?

I am a physicist by first education and measured the energy of my hand, as if an aura. If a normal person in both hands has an energy field of twenty centimeters, then I have 1 meter twenty centimeters in my left hand. That is the power! Therefore, I paint with my hands. I, of course, Thomas the Unbeliever, but sometimes I wonder how people can accurately predict fate. Once, when I was on a business trip in Yessentuki, I met Juna’s student, Aida. She possessed the gift of foresight. By the time I was a widow, and when I came to her, she confused me: "After forty you will meet your fate." And so it happened: after forty I met a wonderful person. By the way, his last name is Markov and many people ask, but did you specifically select him by last name? The surname itself predetermined that I should paint.

- Chagall was also predicted with love by the gypsy?

And not only love. He gypsy predicted that he would die in flight. And so it happened: he died rising in the elevator. And in all his paintings there are flying images. You know, Chagall emphasized: "I am a Jewish artist," and at the same time, he wrote not only Jewish motifs, but also Christian plots, was a citizen of the world in its essence, intertwining in paintings of the country, people, time, religions. Which probably also binds us to him. I wrote Samarkand, and the Wailing Wall, and the Kremlin, and New York, and London, and Paris. I also try to get out of this narrow national framework.

- Do you keep in touch with other relatives of Marc Chagall?

Yes of course. For example,  with a niece from Dusseldorf. All Israeli relatives of Shagal came to my exhibition, and we are now communicating. One of them is a famous art critic, she graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, and she evaluated my work very highly. But I am still not familiar with the so-called “close circle” - “Club of the Four”. Son of Chagall David lives in Belgium and leads a secluded way of life. He writes books and music. Granddaughter - a florist in New York. I will have an exhibition there soon, and we will definitely meet with her.

- When will you come to Moscow with an exhibition?

In Moscow, it is scheduled for the end of December - the beginning of January. But it is not yet known exactly where it will be held. And I carry ideas to write several Moscow plots especially for it. One of them has already been formed - it will be the Spasskaya Tower reflected in the puddle, and the girl moves the arrows in the water. In addition, in Spain, my image of the Kotelnicheskaya Embankment will be shown, in which the old lantern of pre-revolutionary Moscow is reflected in a glass.

- And what is your favorite picture of Chagall?

"Sarah and Abram" When you fall in love, you can't explain why you love a person - that's yours and all. So with this picture is the same: it expresses immeasurable love, affection, tenderness and quivering of the senses and at the same time there is innuendo in it. It is very significant for me that today lithographs of Marc Chagall are hanging in my house, with his crazy energy and true life. They not only inspire me, but also prove that I managed to overcome the barrier of the tragic past of my family.

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