Michael Rogatchi’s Jewish Melody series is absolutely extraordinary. The works are subtle and powerful at the same time. The atmosphere of the series is coming in a natural and deep accord with Jewish world of the places which are still alive in our memory and in the Jewish history.
– Dr Judith Wolf, formerly long-serving vice president of NCSJ
(The US National Committee for the Soviet Jewry), Boston, USA
By Professor Habil. ALGIRDAS GAIZUKAS
September 2013
Vilnius, Lithuania
The exhibition of Michael Rogatchi’s new art series Jewish Melody had been shown to the public for the first time in Vilnius at the time and as a part of the IV World Litvak Congress. At this forum, several generations of both Jewish and Lithuanian people have been discussing a number of important matters, including the ways of preservation the historical memory, the most adequate methods of evaluation of the dramatic and tragic historical events; also, how to transform the experience and understanding of the past into realities better corresponding to more developed and better realised humanity, for preservation and prevailing both peace and light in our life and the life of the future generations.
The contribution of Litvaks into the European and the world culture is extremely significant, and I would like to stress that significance once again. The names of many culture figures, artists, scientists and teachers has become indispensable from what it is known as the Golden Treasury of the world culture. Whoever should be named from that dignified legion, would it be Marc Chagall, Jacque Lipschiz, Lev Karsavin, Jasha Heifetz, Romain Gary and many others – it would be impossible to imagine the artistic and spiritual world of all of us without their presence and contribution into that.
And we, the Lithuanian intellectuals, understand it very well. Last year, the seminar dedicated to the Holocaust was held in Vilnius. It was organised and supervised by the USA embassy and the other partnering organisations. Representatives from the Lithuanian University of Education Sciences (where I am the principal at) took part in the seminar, and benefited from it substantially. Afterword, they were able to cover the scope of the issues evoked by the Holocaust better and deeper. They have become more perceptive to the acts of de-humanisation of a personality. They were able to put their questions forward and to see it in the context within better knowledge of the weaknesses of the foundation of humanism.
Tonight we are enjoying the opportunity to get acquainted with the new creation of a prominent artist Michael Rogatchi. His biography, in a way similar to many other notable artists and cultural figures, had been affected by dramatic events and challenges of his time: deportation of his parents and family, realities under the Stalinism, pawns of the totalitarian regime on human liberty and freedom of creation, and other phenomena of the sort. An interesting detail in the biography of Michael Rogatchi is that after graduating from the university in natural sciences, namely biochemistry, he has become an artist eventually, with his distinctive style and original touch.
The exhibition which is opened today consists of the series of works under the Jewish Melody name. This impressive series is dedicated to the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the liquidation of the Vilnius Ghetto. Michael Rogatchi’s works have been on exhibit in numerous galleries and museums of the world and have gained a considerable attention from the side of both of art critics and art admirers. The works are completed in mixed technique.
I am thinking on the Marc Chagall’s works with the motif of a man playing violin, and that man as if gliding with his violin’s melody between the Earth and the Sky. This motif is met in Michael Rogatchi’s new series not for once. But in Michael Rogatchi’s version of a playing musician we also can see the image of a man playing on many instruments: additionally to a violin, it is also accordion, trumpet, cello, clarinet, saxophone, and guitar. And in Michael’s series, Jewish, mysterious, sorrowful and joyful, full of life melody is as if winding between the Chaos and Cosmos.
Chaos is symbolised in the Michael’s series by full, ultimate darkness of the deep-blue plates of the cotton paper. The Cosmos appears in those many colourful circles and their completeness. And this Jewish Melody – may it be a nocturne or Yiddish tango, love song, grandmother’s lullaby or dance medley – by going through the artist’s imagination, acquires another, elevated or, I’d say, even cosmic meaning.
In this series of works by Michael Rogatchi, there are no realistic pain, drama or suffering images, – possibly just a fine hints of those. Jewish Melody is lifted up here and is fused with the very essence of the human existence.
Michael Rogatchi is speaking in the language of symbols and metaphors which is spacious and generalised in the best way, broad-brushed in his works. The body and instrument of the Playing Man in the Rogatchi’s imagination are fused into the one wholeness; and this new artistic reality is becoming the melody itself, the body and the soul of the Melody created by the artist.
It becomes the melody which is full of light; the melody played by an exalted man; the melody which leads a man towards his cosmic destination. This is the melody of the limitless life itself.
Clearly, the works of this series could be interpreted in a different and its own way by various viewers. The understanding and feeling of an artistic work, the grasp of its meaning, perception of its beauty and aesthetic value is quite individual matter, and it is largely results out of one’s education, character, experience, cultural outlook and other constituents. A painting or a graphic plate ought to ‘speak up’, and that requires a viewers’ focused spiritual efforts, the efforts produced by the inner world of an each spectator.
I would like to express my deep gratitude to Michael Rogatchi for this both intellectual and aesthetic exposition in his art work. In our Post-Modern time, I feel as this kind of art is much needed.
This art certainly lifts up and maintains human values at the time when many of it has been rumpled and has become devalued.
This art speaks to hearts and minds in re-assuring way at the time when the things which are really prominent has been made relative. I do wish to this talented artist many new creative conceptions and inexhaustible inspiration, as well as memorable stay in Vilnius.
Prof. Habil. ALGIRDAS GAIZUTIS
Lithuanian University for Education Sciences
Vilnius
September 2013
By Rabbi SHMUEL KAMINETZKI
July 22, 2009
True art is a reflection not only of the art talent of its creator, but also of the creator’s very soul.
And true Jewish art is a particular expression of the Jewish soul, of the triumphs and trials of the history of the Jewish people from the time of Abraham until today, as well as of the particular experiences which are etched into the soul of each Jewish artist.
Michael Rogatchi shares with us not only his immense talent, but also the very essence of his warm, ebullient Jewish soul in the many works which he has created since the beginning of this awakening as a Jewish artist.
Rogatchi presents works which express the joys and pride of the very beginning of the Jewish nation. He finds his inspiration for such works in the chronicles of the Torah, which is the keystone of our Jewish identity and formed us as a people. We see our forefathers brought back to life on canvas, their integrity and holiness so eloquently and creatively put forth with every brush stroke, making them as if we are looking at the very Jewish soul that we inherited from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The artist also depicts the glory of our return to the Land of Israel, of being able to pray at the Western Wall which indeed, as portrayed by Rogatchi, is guarded by a lion. That lion symbolises our strength and pride as a people who have remained faithful throughout the years of yearning to be able to pray at this Wall, and who continue to remain faithful, strong and proud.
Then, there are other works that give us a true sense of the far less pleasant, yet, in a way, just as triumphal, aspects of our history.
We experience the turmoil of the Spanish Inquisition, or having to leave a society in which our people flourishes for so long, as the fires of cruel fanaticism nearly destroy us, but cannot destroy our souls and who we are.
In recent times, no event has shaped our nation as tragically, yet also as triumphantly, as the Shoah, the Holocaust, which physically decimated our people, yet, as we see today, left our soul and our essence intact and even stronger. And when Rogatchi depicts the Shoah in his paintings, we indeed feel that while we were so terribly wounded by its horrors, we indeed did survive and are indeed continuing to grow in strength even if our numbers remains small.
But not only does Rogatchi share with us his artistic conception of the events and the events and the heroes who have made us, he also brings to artistic life the physical and metaphysical aspects which shaped us and shaped our jewish souls. We do not just see a book; we see the importance and reverence with which that book, a book of our laws and traditions, was held and continues to be held by Jews since the time when it was written. We see just how that book is one of the books that serves to guide us every day and guide our souls to serve our Creator.
And through it all, through all of Michael Rogatchi’s art, just through the events and concepts that this soulful Jewish art represents, the very essence of the eternal Jewish soul shines through. Michael Rogatchi’s Jewish soul, the soul of a Jewish artist who reminds us all of our own Jewish souls and how they were formed as they continue to give us the very energy that has sustained our loves and the lives of our people over the ages.
The Baltic Times
Much too much love: a commemoration
2013-09-20
TBT Staff
VILNIUS – The exhibition Jewish Melody, of the original art series by artist Michael Rogatchi, will open at the Vilnius Jewish Public Library in the capital of Lithuania on Sept. 25. It will be the inaugural exhibition of the new series created by Rogatchi in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Vilnius Ghetto extermination.
The special date is widely recognized in Lithuania and at the highest political level. Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite is participating personally in several commemorative events, and the Lithuanian parliament will held a special plenary session to mark the date.
Rogatchi has been invited with his Jewish Melody exhibition to Vilnius by the leadership of the Lithuanian parliament, by the leadership of the Vilnius Jewish Public Library and by the Vilnius Adam Mickiewicz Library, a well-known and distinguished cultural and educational institution in Lithuania.
Importantly, the second half of 2013 is the period of the Lithuanian Presidency in the European Union when the focus of the public events in Lithuania is to promote the themes of international significance.
The Jewish Melody exhibition is also a part of the official program of the IV World Litvak Congress, which gathers in Lithuania in September. Hundreds of participants from all around the globe are expected to come to Vilnius, once known as ‘the Jerusalem of the North,’ to get together and to commemorate the sobering and significant mark in modern history.
Litvaks are a very notable group of Jewish people, all coming from the ancestors living in Lithuania and Poland.
Nowadays the Litvak people are living in the USA, Israel, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, many European countries, and many other places around the world.
The strong tradition and mighty intellectual and spiritual inheritance is still keeping the Litvaks together in modern day life. Among the Litvaks are many world-known politicians, writers, musicians, artists, scientists and businessmen.
The Jewish Melody exhibition is the only solo art exhibition during the events of the IV World Litvak Congress in Vilnius this September, and the artist is one of the very few foreign cultural figures who has been invited to participate in the events with their art.
The Jewish Melody original art series has been created by Rogatchi specifically for the series of events in Vilnius in the autumn of 2013 commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Vilnius Ghetto extermination.
His connection to Lithuania, Vilnius and the Litvaks is very personal, as parts of Rogatchi’s and his wife Inna’s families are Litvaks by origin, and they both feel a strong bond with this group of people, and the country of their origin.
Rogatchi has dedicated his Jewish Melody series to the enlightened memory of Sofia Litowsky-Reiss and Simon Reiss, Adel Chigrinsky and Abram Jelovitch, Bella and Isaac Buyanover, the artist’s and his wife’s grandparents.
In his Jewish Melody series, the artist wanted to emphasise not the motives of extermination, but the motives of love, life and memory.
In his images for the series, he wanted to create a loving and living thread connecting several generations of people, and remembering vividly those who perished because of the Holocaust, and in particular in Vilnius and its ghetto.
Thus, some of the works take viewers back to earlier times, some of them are set in the present, and some are set in an universal ‘time-zone’ reflecting rather our feelings and emotional connections.
According to the artist, “The works in this series are as if ‘singing’ that ‘life is going on, love is in our hearts for our families and those who perished, and our living memory sustains us daily, making life dignified.’”
In the musical video-essay featuring Rogatchi’s series, a particular piece of music has been used, one of the most beloved and gentle Yiddish tangos, Ich Hob Dich Zefeel Lieb (I Love You Much Too Much). It is established historic fact that people in the Vilnius Ghetto were devotedly playing and listening to this very song.
Michael Rogatchi is world-renowned artist, the European master of metaphorical expressionism, he is the Finnish citizen who lives and works in Finland and Italy. He has held over 70 personal exhibitions. The Jewish theme has an important place in Rogatchi’s art.
In Michael Rogatchi’s series created on music, in particular those works which are done in the mixed media technique ( oil pastel and Indian ink on cotton paper), a viewer can observe – and feel – the artist’s palpable fascination with the co-existence of eternal matters and string music.
And such a combination is far from being occidental. In theology, string music is praised very highly, specifically due to its ability to evoke special kinds of emotions and to influence both our consciousness and subconsciousness down to the barely controllable, if ever, depths.
Michael’s series of art works touches souls and elevates spirits up to the Heaven.
It can also be noted that in Rogatchi’s works, we can see challenges of the world as a binary pair of images: one is standing in a real world, while another is a reflection in a mirror , and the subject of a miraculous world of imagination. In Michael’s works, the trick is that the both are true, and this is the key paradox of our perceptions of ourselves and our lives.
One can apply to Michael’s art works on music the following lines from Percy Busshe Shelly:
“For Love and Beauty and Delight
There is no Death, nor Change”.
Professor Ojars Sparitis, the President of the Academy of Arts and Academy of Sciences, Latvia
BLUE MAGIC: MICHAEL ROGATCHI AND HIS BLUE ART
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ART PROJECT BY THE PROJECT CURATOR by Inna Rogatchi (C), 2010-2011
The art starts where cliché stops, and from that perspective to paint in blue need not mean to be in a blue mood, if the reader will forgive me the echo of a cliché in starting out.
Michael Rogatchi’s collection featuring three main subjects – Florence, Music, and Love – has been prompted by a multi-faceted creative impulse. Some facets of that impulse reflect the desire of the artist to explore the hitherto too often ignored attraction of blue as the background to fluid, sensual canvases; a background which in its depth and volume becomes an active part of the painting itself. The blue of the paintings in The Life of Two of Us collection is shifting, dynamic, and versatile. It is an active ingredient chosen by the artist to fertilise the paintings, to lay down the main thematic message of the collection – a message of thoughtful sensuality.
Another facet of the impulse to create The Life of Two of Us has more to do with emotion itself. This is a traceable theme in the overall body of Michael Rogatchi’s work throughout his career, a theme that is permanent for the artist. He does not need to think twice about picking up this ‘subject’ again, and again, and bringing it onto canvas. The subject is love. In Michael’s own words, love is “synonymous with life itself”; he “is keen to see life through the prism of love in many of its varying reflections, and to put some of those on canvas”. That approach, perhaps, provides the key to the perception of The Life of Two of Us: it is this particular nourishment that has liberated those deep-blue canvases from any sense of gloom.
A third facet reveals another part of the psychology behind the creative process. For Michael, music provides the mood – a particular atmosphere – that is an irreplaceable element of his creativity. The fact that music is very much an organic part of Michael’s world can be seen very clearly in this collection. There is no coincidence in the name given to a six-piece collection of original drawings that forms a coda to The Life of Two of Us; simply, and aptly, it’s Melody for Two.
There is also an intellectual grounding to the work of the artist. Michael has been known as a ‘painting philosopher’ from the very beginning of his artistic career. His solid scientific background may have contributed to that distinctive element. But it would be equally fair to cite Michael’s thorough knowledge of history, arts and literature as one of the pillars of the multi-dimensional personal world that is reflected in his work.
Michael has said about his work on The Life of Two of Us and Melody for Two that “there was never any question” for him “as to where to place ‘the action’ of my paintings – Florence is one of a very few places in the world where I feel completely at home, both consciously and sub-consciously; a place where the environment is so natural to me that my thoughts and my work can flow on, seamlessly”.
It could even be said that Florence as an intellectual concept has permeated right through the interlocking creative facets alluded to above. And Florence is also there in the colour resolution of the collection, in its sensuality, and in its atmospheric fluctuations.
* * *
According to the artist, the initial work of the collection, Yet Another Window (2007), “introduced a new way of expression, technically and visually, that was attractive enough to me to become a whole new ground to explore and to develop further”.
Busy with other work and projects, Michael returned to his Blue theme only about a year later, creating in 2008 Amadeus: Star Rain which depicts his own ‘trademark’ image of Mozart, his favourite composer, sitting with his back to the viewer, absorbed in his own thoughts, in his own unique and extraordinary world. This work became an instant success and has been acclaimed widely. “One gets an instant impression from Amadeus that Mozart’s music, brilliant and uplifting, is pouring out of the canvas, fresh and alive” – was the way one reviewer expressed his reaction to Michael’s work at the time.
The way in which Mozart, in his own cosmos, somehow took wing on Michael’s canvas encouraged the artist to think further about working more intensively on his Blue paintings. In 2009, work on the Twelve Nudes and Their Stories collection brought him closer to defining the concept for the Blue collection. This can be seen in Black Diamond, built as it is on a paradoxical foundation: the dramatically blue infinite sky provides the right setting for such a rarity as a black diamond; inside those darkly sparkling prismatic lines lies clean and mighty light. This painting is particular technically, too, as it holds a host of additional, unexpected images when viewed from different angles and longer and shorter perspectives.
By the middle of 2010, Michael had developed his three-fold concept for his Blue collection – Florence, Music, Love – and from that time on he started to work with complete focus on The Life of Two of Us. The work had been completed by the spring of 2011, comprising an impressive body of 17 oil paintings and 6 original drawings.
Observing the result as a whole, one gets the impression that the collection of 23 works has been prompted by the idea of creating some blue world of subtle feelings where there is a fluid line between the real and imaginable – and indeed this is a characteristic pattern for Michael’s distinctive style of metaphorical expressionism. The colour itself is versatile. The artist himself says that he “wanted very deliberately to try to explore the widest spectrum of nuances of the world of blue”.
The collection as a whole is full of semi-tones and subtlety – and one can see that the work is following the established line, indeed the guiding fundamental principle, for the artist, which says that “the art starts where the obvious ends”.
* * *
There is another particular feature that helps to give the collection its integrity: some of the paintings somehow interweave two or even three of Michael’s core themes at the same time. Arno Blues works on all three dimensions, and there is a larger number of works in which music and love are simply inseparable – C’est Fini, Black Trombone, the diptych Concert for Cello & Violin, Him & Her, and Blue Night Ballad. Some other works, such as Cappuccino for Two, are dominated by the telling of a dramatic story of love, but still bear distinctive Florentine details – in this case the woman’s portrait is achieved in the typical Florentine cameo style.
There is also a number of paintings featuring women – Yet Another Window, Longing, Spring Awakening. The artist sees all of these as belonging to the ‘Love group’. “Undoubtedly,” Michael confirms. “Sometimes, the story of two people is more expressive when it is told through one of them, and for me a female is the more complex – and attractive – part of any couple”.
There is one particular work – Insomnia – featuring a magical, intensely lyrical horse that does not fit into the other drawn categories of the collection. But there is an answer to that exception: painting horses is a well known hallmark for Michael, and the equine theme reappears in his work with a touching and faithful constancy. “I was thinking of a beautiful mare while working on the painting; and Italy (where I was working) is truly a special place for horses”. There is an outpouring of Italian beauty and poetry from the turn of the head and dynamic flow of the mane of that alluring horse. This ‘donna cavallo’ has a remarkable expression in its eyes, an expression that borders on the human. It is an image that operates at the confluence of dream and reality; one often finds that Michael’s horses bear such memorable and distinctive features.
Florence is distinctively present in The Florentine Dimension, Arno Blues, My Night Guest, and Tuscan Wind, but with subtle strokes that produce a fleeting glimpse of images of that unique and evidently inspirational setting. The artist has said that “by no means” was he “intending to do straightforward Florence pictures.”
The idea of these images inspired by Florence is a very long way from the idea in tourist guide illustrations. We see, rather, Florentine reminiscences flickering throughout the collection, giving a strong underpinning sense of place to that abiding story of two – no matter exactly where in time and in space that place may have been.
Music is featured in almost half of the collection’s paintings. Following the classical line from Mozart, the original inspiration, there is the strong diptych Concert for Cello & Violin, picturing Him and Her as protagonists in a love story wholly intertwined with their music. Violinist and Cellist alike are artfully dual characters – modern in depiction, but classical in attitude. Devotion is the main message in the diptych – devotion to music, to arts, to each other. The contrast of the dynamic modernity of the images with their classical emotional characteristics produces a fresh and powerful impression.
There is another duetto in the collection – C’est Fini, Black Trombone, after Serge Gainsbourg’s renowned composition. This is Michael’s loving homage to the French musician who remains a special personality for him. Indeed the artist sees C’est Fini as a signature work for the collection. “Many of us working in the arts are trying to tell very much the same story, the truths I’m striving for in The Life of Two of Us; but rarely did somebody do it so comprehensively and with such classy and effortless chic as Gainsbourg. His complex world, burdened with talent, was not necessarily the happiest one, but even for all his very human shortcomings he had a unique heart, which still makes each of us listening to Gainsbourg’s pieces feel in tune with his warm, magnetic world”.
C’est Fini has a special quality – the painting tends to bring the viewer inside it, almost physically. One may partially explain this by way of its technical virtuosity (the painting’s smoothness, its depth, the voluminous play of its colours), but it is the work’s inner energy that makes this work truly exceptional and a fitting cornerstone of The Life of Two of Us.
There are two more music-themed canvases in the collection – A Blue Sound and Blue Night Ballad. While the first one through its original composition portrays the process of playing music as multi-dimensional, and scans it under a philosophical light, the second is a gentle story of expectation, with many fragments of detail that will stick in one’s memory for years to come.
There are some more explicit statements in the ‘gallery of emotions’ created by the artist – for example Crystal of Love. There is nothing unusual in the painting’s motif of a kissing couple; but the tenderness of it, the living dynamic of the figures, the palpable emotional wave coming out of the painting, transports the viewer into his or her own emotional world. Due to its youthful sensuality, this is one of the most affecting works of the collection.
Of the female subjects, for me Longing in particular speaks to one’s heart from no distance at all. The composition of the work reveals a woman’s figure, sitting with her back to the viewer – a perspective that Michael Rogatchi often explores. The artist explains: ” It is always more intriguing to imagine the front of figures which we are seeing from their back. It allows a certain ‘electricity’ to spark in one’s mind”. Longing is a fine work both in its concept and in its technique. But its most surprising side is the unusual effect it achieves – a deeply moving painting laid out in dark, cold colours. When passion speaks with such a dignified voice, one starts to understand the true meaning of understatement, and see its allure and beauty.
Spring Awakening, also known as Woman in the Red Hat, makes a slightly ‘unconventional’ entry into the collection. The lady of the portrait wears a big, expressionist hat – almost half the size of the painting – in deep red, which clearly breaks the otherwise strict rule of the domination of blue in the collection. The artist, however, feels quite comfortable about it: “A well judged strong colouristic decision can be quite productive and effective; it can play a role like a light switch that triggers a different perception of the rest of the work”. Certainly the work itself has an unusual visual effect: when one is looking at the self-absorbed woman, waiting in her own way for the first rays of sun after a long, long winter, one may see from one side that she is smiling; but when one changes side to observe her, she is almost crying. One can feel the harsh winters of Michael’s own experience in his words of hope and anticipation: “The idea behind it was to pick up that fine emotional equilibrium of awaiting spring, both directly and metaphorically. It is never quite for sure that it will come next morning. It is a slightly nervous, uncertain, exciting time; and there is a very fine balance between one’s emotions at such a period”.
* * *
Regarding the artist’s means of expression, light is absolutely key in making those 17 deep blue paintings into the opposite of a manifest of gloom. The light shines in its most celebratory way in The Florentine Dimension, where the scene is bathed entirely in the light of a full moon. Intriguingly, Michael’s light has many shades: the open light of A Blue Sound and Black Diamond, the semi-transparent luminescence of Arno Blues and Tuscan Wind; fine strokes of an illusion of light which are characteristic of Longing and C’est Fini – all those various interpretations and manifestations of light switch the paintings on, making them living and human.
The art starts where banality ends. In the most promising cases, the end of banality can also mark the start of a road towards magic. It is a challenge for an artist to be able to recognise the magic in the tissue of life. But a far bigger challenge is to create something genuinely magical, and utterly without banality. There are few more powerful instruments for depicting the magical world that can make us sigh in amazement, and forget about things mundane, than blue in all its rich and wonderful variations. Seeing The Life of Two of Us and Melody for Two by Michael Rogatchi is to allow oneself to be transported by a deeper sense of that power.
INNA ROGATCHI
Inna Rogatchi was curator of ROGATCHI’s BLUES special art project, and of the inaugural exhibition of The Life of Two of Us and Melody for Two in Florence, Italy (May – December 2011).
By Dr Judith Harris
Florence, May 4th & 5th, 2011.
Almost a hundred years ago Russian art was indispensable part of the European avantgarde. In 1915, Kazimir Malevich – born in Ukraine to Polish parents – created what is considered the first abstract work, the famous Black Square. Like Michael Rogatchi, Malevich also worked in theatre, creating futuristic cube for Victory over the Sun opera in 1913.
It is not easy to conceive of an even more abstract and minimalist painting of a total black colored square, but just think of Jasper Johns’ Grey, painted in 1958, more than half a century after the Black Square.
While there is a direct line there between Malevich and Johns that leads to abstract, there is also a second leading path in modern art. In Russia, during the same period of Malevich, also Marc Chagall worked, and his direction was completely different. Instead of abstract, Chagall went to the romantic, poetic figuration which, however, does not hide deep, under its’ surreal joy, a thread of melancholy.
I mention these two tendencies because the abstract expressionism of the Russian Malevich and of the American Johns from one side, and Chagall’s surreal figurative art, from another, are meeting each other, and merge, to some extent, in the pop art of the sixties; in fact Johns, – and therefore, his predecessor Malevich – are considered precursors of pop art.
Returning to the art of the early twentieth century, Marinetti who wrote in the first manifesto of Futurism in 1909: “We are on the last promontory of the centuries. Why should we look back when what we want is to throw down the mysterious doors of the impossible?..”
Mysterious doors of the impossible. Here is what, as I think, is represented in the works of Michael Rogatchi. That is, he tries to throw down for himself and for others the mysterious doors of the impossible.
His paintings are, or giving the impression, to be romantic in the way Chagall’s ones were romantic, but also having a substratum of abstract expressionism, shared also with Malevich and Johns. And, as the works of Pop artists of the sixties, they have what in English we call an edge, the sharp point of a knife. Among his works there is even an oil painting, Portrait of Rain, where everything appears as grey, with a grey rain from which appears a woman’s face, grey, too.
And that combination is what makes Michael’s work fascinating and beyond it, moving. According to art experts, some paintings perspire a sense of spirituality that adds an extra dimension in the works of the artist. In Venice – for example – in contrast with the beautiful Veronese, we sense this spiritual dimension in the frescoes by Tintoretto, who worked for forty years on biblical scenes in the School of San Rocco.
Where is this spirituality is coming from? Goya’s resulted from his illness: he became deaf while he saw first-hand, in person the misdeeds of the corrupt and arrogant Spanish court.
In the case of Michael, apart from an innate sense of colors – like the Blues in this series -, and also forms, texture, touch in his work, we must consider his extraordinary life and career. Searching for the reasons of the spirituality of Rogatchi’s artistic world, one just cannot stop to think that the set of experiences he has lived through is truly extraordinary for an artist of any kind in any country.
It is true that Michael does not like to talk much about himself, but few artists have had so rich and diverse experiences and this is inseparable from his paintings. In my view, it is the primary source from where the spirituality of his work emerges so powerfully.
Michael Rogatchi born under Stalin’s rule in early 1953 in a Soviet Gulag in the Far North of the Soviet Union, where his father was jailed as a political prisoner in a concentration camp. The family was later exiled to Kazazkhstan. From there Michael Rogatchi eventually succeeded in reaching Ukraine, the native land of his immediate family, and graduated in neuro-chemistry there. Becoming an expert in biochemistry, he became a part of The Pavlov Institute for Experimental Medicine in St. Petersburg (Leningrad at that time).
While writing scientific papers, he also continued his studies of arts, both at the Academy of Fine Arts of St. Petersburg and at the Theatre & Film University – as Malevich had during his time – thus he found himself designing costumes and sets for three major theaters of St. Petersburg in the mid 1980s, before moving with his family to live in Finland and finding a real home for them there.
Over the years, this scientist-turned-artist has devoted much time to painting images of the Old Testament figures, including a series on the Patriarchs and Matriarchs from Jewish tradition. As written by Julia Weiner – art historian at the Regent’s American College in London – ‘The Jewish identity of Rogatchi was always central in his art. Many of his works […] have been inspired by Jewish texts that he studied continuously […].They express a powerful message about the importance of universal Biblical heroes and heroines, who are at the center of the world of the artist.’ And of course, we remember that Chagall did find an inspiration for himself for his work in general, and brought to us a modern visual reading of the Bible, too.
The search for universal values for Michael is continuing in the current exhibition The Life of Two of Us which opens now. This is evident in his paintings that are also a tribute to Florence: in spells of moons, in its dreamy women, in that naked woman emerging from within a black diamond, in his Cappuccino for Two.
One of Michael’s and mine beloved poets and singers, Leonard Cohen searching the world for those universal values in his own unique and widely appealing way, made a gift to us all with creating a credo of “there is a crack in everything: this is where the light is coming in. This is where the light is coming in”.
In many of Rogatchi’s works, also those presented in this exhibition as well, in his new collection The Life of Two of Us, there are quite a few ‘cracks’ where from the light is coming in – in the flying over Florence and sleeping on the Moon woman, in another female figure looking for such crack in her lonely night, in that guitar player – who resembles Cohen himself – living in his world but giving the light coming from his ‘crack’ to all of us.
By the end of previous year (2010) Michael Rogatchi has had over 70 solo exhibitions in many different countries. One called Dream, Memory, Love made the tour throughout Europe. In recent years, with Bolero he has landed in London. His new series, called Forefathers, are already scheduled for a tour in Europe and then to be shown in the United States. Twelve Nudes and Their Stories will be presented next year at Villa Mangiacane, near Florence, the place where Machiavelli lived after being exiled from Florence and where he has wrote The Prince.
After an exhibition in London, the British critics, who are not used to overstatement, expressed flattering words for Michael’s style that has been defined as metaphorical expressionism. Among others, the critic Charlotte Gait wrote that ‘Rogatchi paintings are characterized by its magical colors‘, and that ‘they are overwhelming‘. For the Finnish writer and diplomat Lasse Lehtinen, Michael’s works are ‘strong, clear and powerful continuation of Chagall”.
Magical, overwhelming, strong, powerful – it would be difficult to go beyond these words, so I limit myself to one: Bravo, Michael!
Judith Harris
Author and art critic
Florence
4-5 May, 2011
Judith Harris is the author of Pompeii Awakened, and art consultant for a number of exhibitions based on the book in New York, San Francisco, and many other US cities, 2011-2013. Previously prolific author for Time magazine and Wall Street Journal, and the long-termed host of the culture programme at the Italian RAI radio, she currently writes also for ARTnews, New York.
by Inna Rogatchi (C), 2011
Melody for Two is a six-piece collection of original drawings in mixed technique, of ink and pastel applied on coloured paper. The collection complements The Life of Two of Us collection of works by Michael Rogatchi and follows the same essential motifs.
“To create a compact collection of drawings that continues the broad theme of the larger The Life of Two of Uspaintings in oils just seemed entirely logical and natural to me: there were motifs and ideas still whirling around my head after completing the collection in oils. I also wanted to try some new perspectives, to examine some already created images in a new context,” says the artist.
Melody for Two may be divided into three mini-groups: Florentine Nocturne and Memory Mirror, Full Moon Drink and Black Trombone Variations I, and Violet River and Melody for Two.
Florentine Nocturne and Memory Mirror are love stories, one set in Florence and the other in a more generic location. “Florence does add its own charm, its unique essence, to people’s relationships. I am sure about that. I can see it among my friends and the people we know, and it also works this way for me personally. So, for me, where there is romance in Florence, there are always three tangled up in the knot: she, he, and – Florence,” says Michael.
Memory Mirror is a romantic story of a couple, still happily together in their advanced age – their youthful selves still living inside those aging bodies. It is an artistic recipe for wholesomeness, if ever there was one.
Black Trombone Variations I and Full Moon Drink portray a lyrical situation. In the case of Black Trombonethat lyricality is energized and energizing; in Full Moon Drink it works in the opposite direction, possessed of a slightly melancholic touch.
Black Trombone is a conscious reminiscence of Michael’s Homage to Serge Gainsbourg in the signature work for his The Life of Two of Us collection, C’est Fini. But in the drawing, the artist’s accent changes markedly. There is no duetto any longer; our Gainsbourg-inspired man moves into a musical monologue, letting out his feelings and – crucially – his thoughts, but still staying rooted inside the unique world that his Black Trombone helps him to create.
Full Moon Drink, which the artist sees in turn as the signature work for the Melody for Two collection, is the story of loneliness for the fairer sex. Or just a lonely moment. The girl in the drawing does not even need to lift her head to see and sense the full moon and the mood it can bring to all of us. The moon’s mini-reflection is just in front of her, in that untouched glass. And she seems ready, for all the world, to sit and reflect there the whole night long.
Violet River and Melody for Two are grouped together mostly on colouristic grounds. After presenting and inhabiting so many blues in his collection, the artist takes us into a violet world. It is as demanding artistically as blue, though blue has a very wide range of variations, and violet is more direct. The result is nevertheless encouraging: both violet drawings are very expressive.
Violet River is a lyrical nude portrait where beauty speaks for itself, and the sense of meditation is palpable. It is one of the most atmospheric works in the collection.
Melody for Two can best be described as ‘a visual symphony’. The artist returns to his trademark image of Mozart, whose musical scores are flying in the air. “In my understanding and imagination, Mozart just could not keep his music papers in order; it does not go with the character,” says Michael on his favourite composer. There is a special world created by the artist in this drawing. In this world, the musical score has eyes, the world itself is shaped as an unfinished Guarneri, and Amadeus‘ melody makes the dreams of people live. In the eyes of the artist, “all of us have that melody of our own; and the lucky ones – a melody for two”.
Inna Rogatchi
Curator of the ROGATCHI’s BLUES exhibition in Florence, Italy, May – December 2011.
PAINTING IN BLUE: MEANS OF EXPRESSION IN ROGATCHI’S BLUES A CURATORIAL NOTE
by Inna Rogatchi (C), 2011
Regarding the means of expression, the most visible is motifs of natural elements in various combinations. Not surprisingly for blue-dominated canvases, an array of sky-connected elements is extensively present: stars making for subtle context in Amadeus: Star Rain, Yet Another Window, and some others; little clouds in Tuscan Wind, so unbelievably gentle and almost alive that one is willing oneself to touch, subconsciously following the charming girl on the canvas; and the talking moon which seems to be an essential part of the ‘arsenal’ of the collection’s images. But these moons are interestingly different: almost crying in Longing; surprised as if taken by the hidden beauty inside the stone in Black Diamond; gently opaque as some of our own memories in Blue Night Ballad; passionate in the quasi-sensual Arno Blues. And finally, a queen of dreams and inspiration in The Florentine Dimension, one of the most expressive works of the collection.
Customarily for Michael’s style, there is also a plethora of mirrors and windows. Those images are fundamentally important for the artist – “not just due to their reflecting qualities, but mostly because through them we see the reflections of people’s innermost thoughts and memories,” he says.
The composition of the paintings shows through once again as one of the strongest aspects of Rogatchi’s work. Michael is tirelessly looking for bold compositional decisions, and there is a number of original outcomes among the collection’s work as a result: the originality of My Night Guest, the almost empty but in fact hugely accomplished Tuscan Wind, and the almost over-populated, but somehow also very light and airy Blue Night Ballad; the intellectually challenging composition of the first part of the Concert for Cello & Violin diptych (Him), the compositional solutions of The Florentine Dimension and Arno Blues which are typical of the artist’s manner, giving both intellectual and visual joy. The fine balance of Longing, the harmonious C’est Fini, the elegant simplicity of Amadeus, Insomnia and Yet Another Window all bear revealing witness to the artist’s particular brand of thoughtful composition.
Attention to detail is equally characteristic of Michael’s art. In this collection, the artist has developed an interesting way of transforming the significance of certain images beyond what one would habitually expect. The zoomed-in on hands of the guitarist in A Blue Sound, the violinist in Concert for Cello & Violin: Him; the beautifully out-of-proportion feather floating over night-time Florence; the human eyes of the mare in Insomnia and her flowing mane; and that extraordinary red hat among the sea of blue – all these details illuminate the work overall, creating new and memorable images and perspectives.
The artist also uses the reverse effect while working on points of detail, transforming anticipated images into less obvious features. We can see it in the semi-hidden female figures in both Black Diamond and Tuscan Wind; in the semi-transparent male figures in the opaqueness of memory’s mirror in Blue Night Ballad, and also in a dramatic man’s profile in Cappuccino for Two. But perhaps the most interesting of all this category is the barely recognisable but clever and moving shadow of Him behind and above Her, playing on her cello in the Concert for Cello & Violin.
Michael’s taste for depicting fabric is recognisable throughout the collection, and adds to its artfulness. The semi-opaque canvases symbolising dreams, hopes, and instincts are organic to Yet Another Window, Longing, and C’est Fini. And the silky veil that transforms the dreams of a beautiful woman into the images of one of the artist’s most beloved cities, Florence, in The Florentine Dimension, somehow looks and feels like a melody on canvas.
The artist’s use of colour contributes hugely to the overall gentleness of the entire collection – his ability to use white and lighter colours in brilliant contrast to deep blue, yet in a very delicate way, bringing a softness as a unifying and deeply personal and original effect to the whole collection.
Inna Rogatchi, curator of the ROGATCHI’s BLUES exhibition in Florence, Italy, May – December 2011.
There are some particular works in that more than 50-piece retrospective exhibition that make an exceptional impact.
Over and over again one returns to The Final Solution portraying the tragedy of the Holocaust with the same open love and clear strength as the Schindler’s List movie does.
My favourite painting is Lullaby. Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, which happens to be a portrait of Michael’s mother. There is certainly Chagall’s inheritance in that wonderful work, which literally embraces you with its’ light and gentleness.
In this work especially, but throughout the entire exhibition one can see how many different images Love can produce.
And leaving the Tampere Hall, one can be positive that for Michael Rogatchi, despite all tragedies in his life, Images, first and foremost mean Love.
Matti Posio, Finland.
