Category: Reviews

REWIEW BY LEADING ART CRITIC

By Orly Goldkeleng,  Maariv, Israel, 2004

The exhibition Dream, Memory, Love of the work by Michael Rogatchi has a powerful impact on many people visiting the gallery and exhibition place of the Gerard Bechar Centre in  the centre of Jerusalem. Some of the compositions originated from the artist’s dreams. In these compositions, like in all his works, he finds a room for hope. “One of the works is based on a dream that comes from my childhood, with a mare lost in an empty concentration camp of Gulag that has been abandoned recently at the time. I was feeding that poor, hungry and lost mare with small pieces of sugar, and I wished her very well. In the work Capriccio coming from that experience and the dreams about it, the main motif is hope. And my hope is in the wisdom of mankind. Hope can be found even in the most desperate place. Our wish to combat evil, even if it means , as it happened, that we would be fighting it alone, still is ordained with hope” – says the artist.

The Memory part of the three-fold exhibition is the most impressive one. It consists the works dedicated to the memory on Holocaust and to the Bible.  Sometimes, there is something difficult to hold in these works, something so painful in the artist’s choices. His King David, for example, does not look to be at the pinnacle of his splendor, or at the height of his youth. The moment that the artist has chosen for his work on King David is the moment when the King heard of the death of his beloved son Absalom, just prior bursting in uncontrollable tears. “In my paintings, I would like to commemorate a certain, powerful moments. In the case of King David, I tried to understand what he went through, this wise and pure man, at the time of crisis, how did he cope with such terrible experience”. Rogatchi’s King David is painted looking at a side corridor, his face bereft and his right hand slumped. “At though all his strength has been taken from him” – comments the artist. It is an astonishing, mesmerising work.

The love part of the exhibition is attracting and gentle. The most attractive and gentle figures there is two women, the artist’s wife and his mother. Their smiles on his portraits of them are very fine and special, their expression is meaningful and beautiful. “According to the Jewish scriptures, a man’s mother and his wife are the centre of his life. There are the most significant shapers of his character’, he explains. “So, those works are both natural and immediate for me, but it also provides me with extra light, metaphorically”. The portrait of the artist’s Mother inter-connects the different parts of the exhibition, as Rogatchi opted to resolve his Mother’s portrait as he remembers her from his childhood , when she was still a young woman. Around his Mother’s face, there are little kids from a Yiddish lullaby that Michael’s mother used to him.

“Dream, Memory and Love are the three paths that lead a person throughout one’s life”, says the artist – ” All three paths are essential for coping with a future. Without memory, where have we come from and what is our history? In some cases, due to different circumstances, some of our Jewish people in many generations were forced or did it themselves, with intention to forget their Jewish roots. Usually, a very high price had been paid for such efforts. I believe that especially in the case of Jewish history and heritage, it is simply impossible to put it behind.

Holocaust theme is very prominent in this exhibition which is not that usual case for an art shows in Israel, especially in the case of contemporary artists. Michael’s family and his wife Inna Rogatchi-Bujanover families did lost many members to the Shoah, and the history of the Shoah is literally very close to the artist. 

The organisers of this large exhibition, the Municipality of Jerusalem and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, emphasised in interview with us that ‘this exhibition of leading contemporary Jewish artist from Finland  has been shown with great success around the world. It had been in many countries before Israel and will be shown in many countries after. As you can see, the themes of the works of Michael’s at this exhibition are predominantly Jewish. The more valuable, in our view, is that fact that the international recognition and praise of this exhibition and its works in many countries is based not on the fact that the artist is Jewish or that he paints Jewish subjects or reflects on Jewish themes, but on the artistic merits and level of the works. This is a special sign of this exhibition and of this artist” – said to us Yossi Shochat who is responsible for organising the exhibition in Jerusalem. 

This caused our interest, too. How has the exhibition been received by non-Jews in the world who visited your shows? – we asked the artist. “With a great favour – answered Rogatchi. – Of course, there are haters of Jews here and there, but most visitors have been quite impressed by the compositions. The work Final Solution ( in which shattered glasses and a tossed away streimel on a spotless Polish street are depicted) was the favourite in Poland, despite its being quite harsh, particularly for them. For Jews and non-Jews alike”. 

“is there a difference between the responses of Jews in Israel and Jews in Diaspora?” – we asked the artist. – ” I think that there is a certain difference, – answers Michael. – I do not think that my interest in the topic of Holocaust is exceptional. Shoah is the part of our genetic memory, in my understanding. As I can seeing it, the difference might be is that Jews in Israel are busy with surviving in numerous military conflicts, with an immediate and present danger. In this situation, it might be harder to focus on the tragedies of the past”. Rogatchi believes that his special attention to the theme of Holocaust is only natural. “The theme is simply essential for us” – believes the artist. 

This exhibition is astonishing also by its variability. Among the works, there is a great Bolero composition, exceptional artistically, stunning achievement of the artist. The large composition is comprised by 21 parts which are assembled in three large panels. All of it forms a single entity which , like in the Bolero form and step, returns to the point of origin. In this composition, Rogatchi examines the variety of emotional aspects between matador and a bull which are a prototypes of many protagonists: man and an animal, force and defence, aggression and compassion. ” Bullfighting is much more than a sport, it is a model and reflection of life – that’s why I choose it to examine many of life’s aspects’ – explains the artist. – In it – and in the composition – you are see a relationship between a man and an animal, or metaphorically, between our human and animal souls which are in every of us. You can see an every type of rivalry. You can also see a victimhood. And the choices we all have to make at different stages of our life which one can imagine in the form of a bolero.” 

The astonishing parts of this superbly impressive composition are the works where a bull is reflected in a man’s eyes and visa versum. And the one of the most emotional parts is a great portrait of a horse with blinded eyes.

Rogatchi says that he does not start his work until he sees the complete picture with many of its details, if not all of them, in his imagination. In his understanding of art in general, imagination, and ability to it , is a key-element of the real art. The artist works in his individual way when he is working on a certain canvas for months while finishing it then in a couple of days. 

Very often, his inspiration comes from the Bible, he says. Reading the Bible and other Jewish scriptures form in his a kind of an associative network that leads to his best paintings, he believes. “There is not a single random letter in our scriptures, and it is the source of life both literally and metaphorically. The more I am reading and trying to learn the Bible and other Jewish spiritual works, the more interest is risen for it in me. And it does affect my work as an artist directly” – he said. 

Among most original works in the exhibition, there is Clean Page oil canvas which is painted as a white sheet that it s not completely white, torn here and there, and from the teared parts, a glimpses of life can be seen. “When a child is born, the whole world is a white sheet for him or her. As his life progresses, more silhouettes are added, one after another. All these new shadows can been seen, from an artistic perspective, and philosophically too, as yet another shade of white. When a person passes away, the whole world resumes the same white perfection that he knew in his infancy. The ability to contain all the colours in white is metaphoric. This is a double-metaphor: of attitude to life, philosophically, and of creativity.  The fortunate ones among us are able to express their selves within their compositions, adding colours to the first and last Clear Pages which is, really, just one page”, – explains the artist.

Michael says: “The attempt to expand the boundaries of mankind is the true challenge of every Jewish artist. In my work, I am trying to capture the movement of the soul in artworks, rather than just a physical movement. In every of my works, I am motivated  by the aspiration to express the various sides of a beauty of my people”. 

There is no doubt that Michael Rogatchi is successful in this noble ambition. His art is a very powerful creation of Judaism on canvas, right here and right now.

REVIEW BY THE LEADING JOURNALIST

Review by Michael Tuzhikov, The Latvian Times, Riga, August 2004

If one can define architecture as a music standing still in stone, the artworks by Michael Rogatchi should be defined as philosophy that has materialised on canvas. Importantly, Michael’s philosophy is of a special kind. I read it as a wisdom based on priorities of love, kindness and warmth. 

The artist does not impose his world-view, but is pondering about life together with his audience, shares with us his contemplations, invites us to the dialogue. His works causes one’s soul to awake and to become in awe. It evokes one’s own analogues  – which means that the artist did reach the highest possible goal by inducing his own soul of creator with souls of his audience to be in parallel. When we are looking on Michael’s canvases, our souls are getting to the same emotional phase as the soul of the artist. This is extremely rare phenomenon in contemporary art which is predominantly cold. 

The more of his own soul an artist has put in his creation, the more of emotional charge will get his viewer. In the case of Michael Rogatchi, this special artist did succeed in creation of original in its design intellectual system in which reverse connection is permanently on, and where an eyes is a dominant, would it be the eyes of his viewers, of his own, of a child, of a woman, of an elderly man, of a horse, of a bull, or of a torero. 

And this is not an accidental phenomenon. Eyes is the continuation of our brain, it is a generator of the warmth of our souls. Eyes are observing the world around us, eyes are searching inside ourselves in an introvert motion,  eyes which are looking towards viewers, and getting inside viewers. Observing Michael’s works, in the end, one realises that those eyes on his works reflecting something which is around you all the time, but for some reason, you are fixing it in your consciousness. It does not because your eye is altered by the life’s routine, as a rule. 

I always thought that the mysterious Gioconda by Leonardo looks on you with a kind of smirk, plus there is that cold glass around it in the Louvre – as the result, I for one is feeling myself a grain of sand facing eternity. In a contrast, personages on Michael Rogatchi’s canvases are speaking to us, they live their emotional lives together with us. We have a direct emotional contact with them. They are close to us. They are attracting us, enormously attracting. You would like to speak with them. It is a rare sensation in front of painting when you feel the people on them as so close and interesting to you.

Portrait with Rain is striking in its emotional openness. The work has a physical magnetic effect. It is hypnotic, too. It makes your own soul to respond. These huge, beautiful, all-understanding eyes which has accumulated many centuries of wisdom and suffering of ancient people, these eyes are filled with bipolar charge of amalgamated joy and sadness. Incredibly, that ecumenical, if I may, sadness does not fences the other feelings and emotions, but to the contrary, it illuminates hope, striving towards light, warmth and love. That so very fine just a hint of a smile on this work is filled with super-powerful shut of kindness and tangible belief in highest fairness. This all charges us, viewers, with a great ‘injection’ of optimism. It is felt as unbelievable, unexpected Gift. Spiritualised face of the artist’s Wife is the best possible illustration and proof of two ancient Greece terms, phileo and sophia, I love, and wisdom. Together, those two terms produce philosophia, philosophy in its authentic meaning. 

The theme of philosophy in art is continued in this exhibition in the very interesting work called The Wheel of Fortune. The very title of the work immediately sets one for a gaming associations: luck – or no, roulette, astrological predisposition, mystery all around. There are various interpretations of the Wheel of Fortune throughout history of art. For Michael Rogatchi, it is confirmation of materiality of a thought. If a weightless, illusory little feather produces a shadow, it means that it is material, real, and in fact it pictures the process of transformation of formulated thoughts  into tangible reality. I was thinking that this work has a lot in common with known quote from an Indian sages: “we are calling a destiny a substance which reflects unseen qualities of people”. 

Michael’s philosophical refections on the horrors of war are deeply and essentially human, as paradoxically, as it gets. To explain my thought: we know famous work by Vassily Vereshagin, War’s Apotheosis, with its dreadful mountain of skulls in the middle of merciless desert. This is really dreadful symbol of a war, created in 1981, is the end, abyss, an ultimate dead-lock.  Vereszhagin wrote on the frame of his painting: “To all great conquers, former, present, and future ones’. His idea did not work, and did not prevent any of the horrors of revolutions, genocides, or Holocaust. 

Michael Rogatchi found the other solution. Final Solution. On that great painting, there is a hat and there is a glasses, the end of everything – but at the same time, ongoing memory about everything. This work calls to think and to remember, not to shudder because of overwhelming horror, neither to seize a weapon being overwhelmed by desire of revenge. But there is more meaning in that work, in my view: one cannot kill human thought and human memory.

We can discuss every single work by Michael endlessly, these are the paintings which are providing more and more thoughts and nuances, full of rich hidden meaning. Remarkably, in all of Michael Rogatchi’s canvases there is a powerful philosophical ‘base’, the pillars of every work which are saturated with wisdom, kindness, warmth and love.  There is no coincidence in the title of that unique exhibition. Michael Rogatchi has shared with us his Dream, Memory, Love and enriched us in a great way.

REVIEW OF MICHAEL ROGATCHI EXHIBITION IN LEADING MAGAZINE

MICHAEL ROGATCHI is a fighter against cynicism, and his paintings are providing the viewer with a clear and high moral stand.

One of Michael’s deeply impressive and touching works displays the endless grey column of people suffering from cold and humiliation. There is a trace of Michael’s own childhood in this painting entitled The Year 1953.

There are traces of his family’s and his people’s memory of the Holocaust tragedy in another, very emotional work: My Train – where you are as if getting inside that picture with an unspeakable magnitude of loving memory, following The Train with the many different faces that are falling apart on its’ last and awful journey.

There is also Michael’s new work on the wall. Its’ name is Unforgiving. The face of a Jewish man expresses a highly disturbing mixture of sorrow, dismay and alarm. Michael made this work in one day, as his immediate response to a shameful pogrom undertaken inside a Jewish cemetery in Turku where 173 grave-stones out of 300 situated there were recently vandalised ( pogrom took place in 1998).

We can see how the extremely dramatic lives of Michael Rogatchi and his family have been transformed into his impressive, strong and original paintings.

We can feel that the open fire which is still storming in his soul is producing extremely valuable and rare “products” for many other souls.

Leena Jarsta, Kotiliesi magazine, Finland.

ART REVIEW IN THE LEADING DAILY

The art speaks for itself at Michael Rogatchi’s SHE exhibition at the Topelius Art Gallery in Helsinki. This exhibition is proof that one can recognise life’s great values and make it recognisable to others in the way of a world-class art. This artist uses his trade-mark powerful colours because it is the best way to make paintings as alive as life itself is. Beautiful spring colours dominate the entire Topelius gallery, and the refreshing breath of a full and dynamic life comes out throughout all the paintings, as if there were a nice easy spring wind of renewing.

Michael Rogatchi’s own Jewishness is mixed into his works, with the main patterns of his two predecessors: the expressionism of van Gogh, and another Jewish master, Chagall. Rogatchi’s composition and unique “dream pictures” successfully inherited Chagall’s approach. There is no wonder that the artist, who is working in the rare manner of metaphorical expressionism, has already made a chain of successful exhibitions in London over the years. He exhibits there regularly.

The theme and the name of this one-man show is She. “This is to pay my respect to women who inspires me a lot, as my wife is doing to me, and whom you never could know completely. Woman is a mystery. She always is a mystery, and she always will be. And this mystery is a constant drive for me,” – says Rogatchi standing next to the title work of the exhibition, named She. The work portrays an incredibly gentle woman, a portrait done in a very refreshing manner.

Another very interesting and important work is Clean Page, the work which has got a lot of the viewers’ attention. “When a person is coming into this world, what he or she is entitled to, our potential future, all which is given to us in the beginning of a child’s life is as a sort of a clean page. And this is mainly up to a person what will appear on that page, what it would be like, in the end. No one is predominantly committed to do only good or only bad things in one’s life. But the decisions, decisions are done by yourself. Isn’t it so?,” – explains Michael Rogatchi about this extraordinary painting.

Paulina Ylikoski, art critic, Ilta-Sanomat, Finland.

REVIEW BY NOTABLE ART CRITIC

This artist’s works evokes quite powerful reminding of the tragedy of the Jewish people. But what is more, his works also widen perspective and deepen the concept of the Jewish spiritual world.

One part of the Michael’s Jewish paintings reflects general Belonging to Jewishness, Jewish philosophy, traditions and their rich spirit. All of it the painter himself has inherited with a son’s love.

Rogatchi’s approach to this theme is creative – we can see that traditional Judaic symbols have got an original and fresh interpretation in his works Family Supper and Kaddish.

The artist luckily has found a delicate balance while creating this world, an exceptional combination of wisdom and tenderness. The best sample of that combination is Lullaby. Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, which truly is a wonderful portrait of the artist’s mother. That painting is an indisputable success in Jewish ‘iconography.’ It reminds tenderness and sorrow of Chagall, but Rogatchi adds clearly post-Chagall steadfastness and resolution in this paintings.

Another part of Michael Rogatchi’s Jewish Collection is dramatic works dedicated to the memory of the victims of Holocaust. The artist succeeded in achieving a maximum effect by using a minimum of means. Both laconic and impressive is the artist’s idea in The Final Solution: there is the Hassidic hat which has been as if just dropped onto a pedestrian street. The pedestrian street is spotless, after hours and hours during which kneeled Jews brushed it with toothbrushes being forced to do it by the Nazis. Next to the hat there are crushed glasses, as if it has happened just a few moments ago. There are no Jews, no Nazis, no toothbrushes in the painting – just a hat and glasses on the pedestrian street, and the wall. And a few small stones nearby… Michael Rogatchi did succeed in this painting to portray the symbol of the entire nation’s extermination in a very tasteful and decent manner. Anyone who saw that painting once is going to forget it.

Tatjana Tolonen, art critic, Finland and St Petersburg.

WELL-KNOWN EUROPEAN ART EXPERT ON MICHAEL ROGATCHI’s ART

The art of Michael Rogatchi is said to continue the directions drawn by Marc Chagall and van Gogh. I would add El Greco to the noble company.

The expressionism that radiates from Michael’s works bears certain resemblance to the power and feelings that came to us from El Greco’s heritage.

Dr. Elena Bergman, deputy director, The Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw, Poland.

Resume by the leading art curator

On behalf of the Ben Uri Art Society, we have the pleasure of informing you that the artist MICHAEL ROGATCHI has become one of the highly selected group of finalists of the Nationwide Art Event of 1995. The theme of the Art Event is Visions.

You might like to know that the standard of this Event was very high, and from over 1000 works we have received only 70 that were selected by the Judges for the Finalists’ Exhibition at the Ben Uri Art Gallery, London.

The works submitted were those from five categories: paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings/cartoons, crafts including tapestry, embroidery and jewellery.

The work by Michael Rogatchi selected by the Judges for the Finalists’ Exhibition is The Dance, oil painting on canvas, 1995.

Michael Rogatchi is the only non-British artist among the Finalists.

Among the Patrons of the Nationwide Art Event are: the world famous artist RB Kitaj, Sir Rhodes Boyson MP, The Lady Cocks of Hartcluffe, Da,e Simone Prendergast DBE JP DL, Nicholas Serota, The Lady Sieff of Brimpton.

Julia Weiner, curator of Ben Uri Art Society, London

Legendary European Culture Figure on Michael Rogatchi and His Art

Many of those who saw Michael Rogatchi’s painting My Train were saying: “This train is going THERE. It is the first one. Or the last one. Or the next one. We also feel this train as ours though we are not Jewish…” The train has been torn off of the broken rail, and it is directed to nowhere – as if it has been pulled off against its will. The train is splitting a crowd of people. There are children, elderly men, women. We see them all through the eyes of a boy who is turned away from the viewers with only the back of his head being seeing. This boy is from our time. He forgets nothing.

One of the most tragic moments in Michael Rogatchi’s Jewish paintings is the child’s eyes from the central part of his Faces of the Holocaust triptych. One just can not stop to return to these questioning, beautiful, helpless eyes again and again. Even if somebody would try to avoid his questioning expression, the boy’s eyes will not leave one alone. Because here the artist has portrayed the Jewish Child who is still asking mankind all through the solemn way of his people.

Professor Carl Öhman, Chairman of the Finnish Culture Union, Commander of the Legion d’Honour. 

LEADING FINNISH HISTORIAN ON MICHAEL ROGATCHI’s ART

Michael Rogatchi has expressed the tragedy of the Holocaust in quite laconic way. The artist does not cross the border of taste and measure. In the tone of his works, thought is very deep and can still be perfectly self-controlled. And this is especially important while dealing with such a painful theme as reflecting Holocaust.

The one painting, the same after which the exhibition had been named, The Way, was not exhibited in Espoo, however. A couple of months before the exhibition, Michael Rogatchi presented the painting to Simon Wiesenthal who liked it very much and expressed his warm gratitude to Michael.

“It is impossible to have made a better choice for the present made to very this person,” – Alan Levy, well-known American writer and journalist, the author of the famous book The Wiesenthal File, said during a modest but touching ceremony while Rogatchi’s painting had been handed to Wiesenthal in his Jewish Documentation Centre in Vienna.

People visiting The Jewish Way exhibition are staying there for a surprisingly long while. It is really very difficult to leave that uneasy celebration of Memory.

Professor Mika Vuola, Finland.

PROFILE OF MICHAEL ROGATCHI IN LEADING FINNISH DAILY

Imagine a person whose approach to his work is based on the consideration on what if Pygmalion fell in love with a statue not because of her ultimate beauty but out of his own despair for love? That Pygmalion’s motivation has made him to perceive an unfinished statue, which was far from ultimate beauty, as the most wonderful thing in the world.

Michael Rogatchi, our very well-known artist living in Turku, definitely fell victim to one of Heaven’s mistakes. He should have been born in the last century: in 1853 instead of 1953, when van Gogh would have been his contemporary. In that century, artists, composers, and writers were the masters of life. It was the period when a classical education was engrained into the life and marked and defined it. In those times, there was no need to explain who Pygmalion was. In that world, Michael Rogatchi would be at home.

One of his most impressive paintings is July 29th. In Memory of Van Gogh. Michael painted there the last moments of van Gogh’s life as he himself understand, no, feels it. As a matter of fact, the painter succeeded in expressing an extreme moment of being at the border of life and death , literally so.

In Michael’s painting , van Gogh is wearing rather strange shoes, not only very old and falling apart, but not a pair at all. Michael could not explain why but he said that he ‘knew 100% that van Gogh must have had those kinds of shoes, unpaired ones’. To the artist’s amazement, much later after he finished that his work, Michael learned that yes, prior to his death Vincent van Gogh did wear shoes from different pairs, indeed. It is just one of the many fascinating coincidences in Michael’s work and life. 

We are familiar with Michael’s affection for eyes and an eyes’ expressions. He is still fascinated by it. But now, there is something new, as well, in Michael’s works. One can see that the artist has been interested in hands, too. He paints them in a very fascinating and attractive way, making one symbol using hands, after another, each time with a different meaning.

The artist is saying that “hands, indeed, are an extremely important part of a human body. Hands ‘speak out’ on one’s strength, weakness, and hope. Hands can defend and can reject. Hands invite and say good-bye…” And one can see that however different they are, hands painted by Rogatchi have had experienced a lot.

And what about his famous eyes? They are mostly women’s. Michael does not paint a lot of men, in general. Well, the reason is simple: “Eyes tell everything about a woman. Everything!” – says the artist. 

Each year Michael Rogatchi makes at least one painting of a horse. Horses he loves very much, and understands them profoundly. For Michael, horses are the symbol and even the embodiment of energy. “From the horses in my paintings, one could see quite clearly what kind of year it has been for me. Sometimes, horses are very dynamic, radiating joy and wildness in its best meaning, and it means that I had been quite energetic during that year. Another paintings portrays tired, or sad, or exhausted horses, – and I was the same that year,” – shares Michael.

Together with his wife Inna, well-known writer and movie director, Michael Rogatchi demonstrated unparalleled courage in pursuing their goals. Needless to say, their incredibly hard work has led them both to wide success and recognition. During the last five years, Michael have had as many as seventeen exhibitions, and his works have gone to art collectors worldwide. One of the most interesting works which he has exhibited recently at his large and representative personal retrospective exhibition at the Tampere Hall, was ‘Poor Yorick!…’ In Memory of Marcello Mastroianni. This work is truly an original reading of the famous Shakespearian character from Hamlet. Similarly as Days and Nights of Pygmalion and other works from The Back Side of the Moon Collection, this remarkable painting approaches well-known classical characters and phenomenon from a completely different point of view, and with an independent interpretation.

Michael Rogatchi has obviously learned a lot from the essential cultural figures of the past. And there is definitely a strong presence of this essential linkage in his works.

One of Rogatchi’s most peculiar features as a modern artist is his unstoppable desire to see the Moon from the other side. Otherwise, how on earth would he know about van Gogh’s shoes?…

Tarja Passi, Iltalehti Weekend, Finland, Iltalehti is the biggest and most popular daily in Finland.