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Artist Reviews:
Le Monde, Paris March
6,1999, Page 1
Ce nouveau membre qui sème le
trouble aux Nations unies
New York (Nations unies) de
notre corresponants
Afsane Bassir Pour
.......... Il ne fait pas de
discours; ne vote pas, n’a pas
le droit de veto: Et pourtant
le nouveau “membre” ...
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Mihail Simeonov Biography:
| Biographical information for Mihail Simeonov can be found below. The artist may choose what information to display. Sometimes the artist chooses not to display personal information to the general public. |
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| Your Personal Biography |
Mihail Simeonov
CAREER NARRATIVE
Mihail was born in 1929 in Plovdiv, the ancient city of Philip of Macedonia where his father, Asen
Simeonov, was a Protestant minister.
In 1944 the Russians rolled over Bulgaria installing communism. It was not easy for the son of an
enemy of the people to attend a university in communist Bulgaria. However, Mihail did enroll in
1946 to study philosophy at the University of Saints Clement and Methodius in Sofia and in the
following year was accepted at Sofia’s Academy of Fine Arts, from where he graduated six years
later, 1954, in monumental sculpture.
Meanwhile the Communist ideology had imposed a strict and dictatorial art style known as
Socialist Realism. What that particular style meant exactly is still shrouded in confusion, but it was
used as a tool for mass propaganda in the service of the absurd. There was to be only one Truth,
the Soviet one. Western art movements were classified as fraud. With typical communist regime
paranoia, during the nigh the Academy of Art was guarded by armed volunteers.
During the following eleven years (1954-1965) leading to his departure from Bulgaria, the artist
created monumental public works that survived to this day the tempest of the times, the
viciousness of the communism system and the anarchy that followed.
His three main public monuments are Zahari Zograf (1953), a bronze statue of the noble 19th
century fresco painter; The 1186 Uprising of Asen and Peter (1954), a bronze sculpture group of
the founders of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom and the bronze monument of Paisii of Hilendar
(1964), father of the 18th century National Revival, for the main capital city square
Mihail’s monument of Paisii of Hilendar became a focal point for the peoples’ rejection of the
Communist system. Flowers laid at the monument were promptly removed by the police and the
monument was covered and roped on it’s granite base for eight months.
With all means of survival gone, the artist took the first opportunity to leave the country. He was
granted a 45 day valid passport to travel to “Tunisia only”. So Mihail left on his self- imposed exile
that would bring him six years later to New York.
TUNISIA
The artist arrived in Tunis in 1965 to a new life of freedom, enchanted by the exuberance of the
Mediterranean colors, so different from the ones he was accustomed to. Paul Klee on a trip to Tunis
in 1914 was also overwhelmed by the intense light there, which inspired his awakening to color.
In Tunis, Mihail exhibited with the artist group Ecole de Tunis. One of his sculptures, a portrait
statue of Ibn Khaldun, the 14th century Arab poet and philosopher, attracted President Bourguiba’s
attention. the President commissioned Mihail to sculpt the 150 meter long Carrara marble walls for
the National Monument, The Martyrs of Bizerte in Bizerte. He carved the marbles in Quercheta,
Italy, where he met Henry Moore, Marino Marrini and Isamu Noguchi all working at the same
quarry courtyard, and Jacques Lipshitz at the nearby village of Pietra Santa.
Influenced by the culture of ancient Carthage, in 1967, the artist developed a group of abstract
symbols he called Sunday Morning. They became the basis of an extended series that included
prints, wood and bronze sculptures and other mixed media works.
Around 1970, Mihail began to long for change. For him life in Tunisia felt like drifting in the past.
Bronze and stone had become hopelessly permanent materials that strained his creativity. The
Bulgarian authorities had refused to further extend his passport. So, he took a deep breath and in
1971 e migrated to the USA and settled in New York in a raw loft space in Manhattan E17th street
and for the next 20 years this was his studio.
Mihail resumed work on the Sunday Morning series. Nothing was to be permanent, all should be
burned, smashed, disposed of. He built floating paper roadblocks and wall configurations
(Columbia University 1973), painted on flattened umbrellas and exhibited with the Poindexter
Gallery in New York.
In 1974, Mihail became interested in casting from nature, emotionally documenting what was
already there. After casting sand in the Sahara desert of southern Tunisia, grass in Alsace-Lorraine,
France, and street details in New York City, Mihail embarked on a project to cast a wild bull
elephant in Africa, This project took him on a journey that lasted a quarter of a century and
involved all of the sub Sahara 14 african countries, along with Nepal and India into a wildlife art
project named CAST THE SLEEPING ELEPHANT. And in 1980 Mihail traveled to Africa where he
cast a live, wild, bull elephant. The elephant was not harmed. Mihail incorporated the cast of the
elephant in creating this work of art given to the United Nations as a gift by Kenya, Namibia and
Nepal and inaugurated by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on October 18, 1998.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10otarDLEZA
SECRETARY-GENERAL'S STATEMENT AT UNVEILING OF BRONZE ELEPHANT IN GARDEN OF
UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS. SG/SM/6800 HQ/589. 18 November 1998.
.....Eighteen years have passed since Mihail Simeonov went to Kenya, tranquillized a wild bull
elephant and took a cast of it before releasing it unharmed into the wild.
Since that day, the story has taken many twists and turns. There have been several rounds of
painstaking negotiations. At one point, there was even the accidental destruction of some of the
original mold in a college boathouse.
The final wrangle concerned the mode of transport from the foundry in Brooklyn. Plans for a boat
ride on the East River and a helicopter lift were discussed and discarded; finally, our friend was
wheeled on the back of a flat-bed truck along First Avenue. A crane was on hand to put it in place.
But as we see this magnificent animal stand before us today, it was worth the wait. The sheer size
of this creature humbles us. And so it should. For it shows us that some things are bigger than we
are. It tells us that Earth is not ours, but a treasure we hold in trust for future generations.
It teaches us that if our global village is to be a truly desirable place for all of us on this planet, it
must be guided by a wish to nurture and preserve, and not to threaten or destroy, the variety of life
that gives it value.
And so, as the animal that never forgets, let the elephant serve as our institutional memory; let us
remember that when future generations come to this garden as mature adults, this elephant will
still be here. As we walk by it in the days and years to come, may all five tones of it stand as a daily
reminder that we are all in debt to Mother Earth; that we ignore this at our peril; and that, if and
when the elephant wakes up because we have failed in our duty, chances are it will ask for much
more than peanuts. I thank you all.
*******
In the following years the artist concentrated on figurative sculptures made of air contained in thin
and transparent metal skin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-SaoIA6Cts&feature=channel_page
The artist’s most recent work in progress, started in 2004, with which he applies for the 2009
Guggenheim fellowship, is the installation project named HUMANITY. New York Grand Central
station is used as an example of a large public space. The project integrates sculptural elements,
projections and music:
About 1000 inflated figures float beneath the vaulted ceiling of a magnificent public hall,
metamorphosing the space into a giant sanctuary of humanity past present and future.
Sublimated image of time compressed and the equivalence of all people.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otwU_CP_az8&feature=channel)
The artist’s present studio is in Pawtucket, RI, and his website is http://www.mihail-art.com |
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