Moscow Museum of Modern Art presents a solo show of Nikolai Mukhin — People’s Artist of Russia and a Full Member of the Russian Academy of Arts. This large-scale exhibition will feature early as well as the latest works by the artist: drawings, sketches, fresco fragments, paintings and sculptures, video installations, photographs, and a documentary about the artist. The show will comprise works from the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Yaroslavl Art Museum, as well as from private collections, and the collection of the artist.

The project is conceived to trace the evolution of Nikolai Muhin’s art for the past thirty years. «The art of painting is an exact science, like mathematics or physics, which demands enormous efforts and comprehensive knowledge of the subject. It takes time to sharpen one’s skills, but it’s not the key point; the essential part is your „personal“ perception of the surrounding world, with all its joys and sorrows,» believes the artist.

Throughout his creative career, Nikolai Mukhin has addressed Old Russian painting as an immense cultural and spiritual layer, holding answers to many of the challenges facing contemporary culture. The artist has transformed the iconic tradition of his predecessors, thus creating a unique «timeless» painting style.

The complex three-part exhibition title — «Anatomy of Painting. Bible for the „Illiterates“. Fragments of Life» — defines the artist’s output for the past thirty years. Painting is not only about the subject, it is also about the surface, glazes, rhythms, and color patterns. The artist breaks them down into smallest fragments, into «PIXELS», thus revealing unlimited possibilities for creating a work of art. And it is this break down, that can be referred to as «Bible for the Illiterates», as it gives even the most experiences viewers a chance to really look into paintings.

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«Experiencing Art»

...Like most contemporary artists, Nikolai Mukhin is controversial, complex, and unsteady. He is balancing between timeless human values of the past and piles of monstrosities of the present; he tries to contemplate the outburst of sensuality in a world devoid of spirituality, yet defining itself as Christian.
His art reflects the battle of light and darkness, of spirit and flesh — a painful confrontation of contemporary reality. ...What Muhin’s art resolutely eschews is falsehood and prudish hypocrisy, which, regrettably, can be traced in Russian Orthodox art.

...Old Russian art is not an object for stylized presentation, it is a bottomless spiritual well, holding answers to many of the challenges facing contemporary culture.

...I am immensely grateful to him. He has preserved the Yaroslavl tradition of icon painting, which he knows so well, and feels its every nuance...

Saveliy Yamschikov (art historian, restorer)
from «Nikolai Muknin», 1997

...A modern person in life, interested in contemporary reality, Nikolai Mukhin is a unique artist, possibly judged as «strange», who was bound to appear at this moment in time. In a way, he is a follower and a competitor of Yaroslavl and Kostroma leading «artisans» of the 17th century: Dmitry Plekhanov, Guriy Kineshemtsev, Sila Savin, he is at once their fellow-artist and their disciple. He has mastered the ancient tradition of oil painting, knows the secrets of glazing, of the finest color nuances, so that the parabolically bent figures on his canvases come to life in a completely new way.

Anatoly Kantor (art historian,
International Association of Art Critics, National Committee for Art History)

...Traditions die out unless they accumulate the spirit of the epoch. Therefore artists working within a certain tradition, gets drawn, often against their will, in the labyrinth of historical and cultural connections. There are only two ways to get out of the labyrinth: either to copy images of «old» art mechanically, or to fill them with contemporary ideas. A contemporary Yaroslavl painter, Nikolai Mukhin has chosen the second path, and his art is truly remarkable...

Oleg Tarasov (art historian, ScD Russian Academy of Science),
from «Nikolai Mukhin», 1997