Lena Hades

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Lena Hades, 2013.

Lena Hades ( Russian Лена Хейдиз / Lena Cheidis ; born October 2, 1959 in Kemerovo , Siberia ) is a Russian painter , photographer , writer and art theorist.

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Lena Hades was born in Siberia during her father's business trip on October 2, 1959, a day with a total solar eclipse. Her father worked as a connection system engineer, her mother as a doctor. At the age of 35, the future artist's father fell ill with multiple sclerosis and died at the age of 51. His daughter, Lena Hades, looked after him alone until the day of his death on January 17, 1985. The memories of her father and his tragic life made a deep impression on her. Her father's illness aroused her interest in the subject of death and the philosophical problems of existence. These are the basic themes of their works of art. Lena Hades graduated from Moscow State Pedagogical University (Faculty of Mathematics and Physics) in 1982, she also completed foreign language courses (Spanish, Italian, Polish, French, German, English) and worked as an interpreter for many years. At the age of 35 she decided to become an artist, in 1995 she went to Germany as an artist. In Cologne she created her first works, sold her first painting and received her first fee.

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The most important work by Hades is the cycle of paintings Also sprach Zarathustra , dedicated to the main poetic and philosophical work of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche : Also sprach Zarathustra . The cycle consists of 40 oil paintings and watercolors spread across various museums, including the Tretyakov Gallery Moscow, the Pushkin Museum Moscow, and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art . The cycle was also shown at the first Moscow Biennale . Lena Hades has exhibited in more than 60 group and solo exhibitions in Russia and abroad and has taken part in important international exhibitions, for example the Triennial of Graphics 2003 in Krakow and the sixth International Month of Photography in Moscow Photo Biennale 2006.

The book Also Spoke Zarathustra with 20 reproductions from the painting cycle was published in German and Russian in 2004 by the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences . This scientific edition also contains contributions by Jean-Christophe Ammann , Alexander Jakimowitsch and Olga Juschkowa. The cover and dust jacket shows two pictures of Lena Hades. She understands the oil paintings in the cycle as visual metaphors, not as illustrations. Hades tries to interpret Nietzsche's text with the help of painting. She currently lives and works in Moscow.

reception

“Lena Hade's imagery is often consciously bold because she is concerned with 'display boards' that want to shake things up, arouse. In this respect, nothing has changed in the artist's task: he is the dervish who conjures up the collective memory less than sets it in motion, but always from an awareness and thinking of the present. Lena Hades is a dervish. ”( Jean-Christophe Ammann ).

The famous works

Lena Hades is known all over the world not only for her artificially graphic cycle Also Sprach Zarathustra , but also for her two paintings, which Russian nationalists call “Russophobic”. In connection with this, the group of Russian nationalists (more than 300 people) sued the artist in court in March 2008, in their opinion these 2 paintings stir up “racial and national hostility and hatred”. The first painting is called Welcome to Russia (1999), was acquired by the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, the name of the second painting - Chimera of the Mysterious Russian Soul (1996), it was exhibited only once, during the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Modern Art in 2005. Russian nationalists were insulted because the artist portrayed the Russian soul as a terrible monster with a bottle of vodka in hand, a harmonica, a book by Dostoevsky and a companion. The nationalists decided that it was a parody of the national coat of arms of Russia and an insult to the country and its inhabitants. The second painting, entitled Welcome to Russia, shows the true unadorned Russian character - as being too aggressive and at the same time very godly. The nationalists have decided that such truth is an insult.

Social activity

In June 2010, Lena Hades was summoned to the Basmannaya Procuratorate in Moscow to give statements about these two paintings. She was threatened with judicial investigations and heavy penalties because she could be charged with hate and hostility propaganda. On July 6, 2012, she went on a hunger strike to support the Pussy Riot group. She called for the prisoners of the punk group to be released. The hunger strike lasted 25 days and resulted in serious health problems. During the strike and before the strike, the artist painted a series of Pussy Riot portraits. In March 2015, Lena Hades announced an art marathon in memory of Boris Nemtsov . Within a week she drew more than 30 portraits of Nemtsov.

Autobiographical series

Full contrast to the above works is the autobiographical series of paintings Girls with Ribbons . The painting Girl with pigtails, woman with scythe. Dance is a personal revelation of the artist. In this painting in particular, the artist courageously and fearlessly presents the ambiguous world of the realm of death. Hades - that is god of the dead. Such a representation of the realm of death is not connected with the Christian world, it is closer to Nietzsche's idea of ​​hell “even God has his hell - his love for people”. The painting Girl with pigtails, woman with scythe. Dance becomes the culmination of the entire series of paintings. This illustrated dance around pagan fire gives the artist the opportunity to speak equally with the afterlife, to initiate fire. The very fire of death helped to rebuild and harden their spirits. There is no longer any fear, she has overcome the fear of death, this gives the opportunity and strength to master the sacred theme of death. The graphic cycle of skulls is proof that Lena Hades is an artist and a person who can live on the border between life and death and who carries this knowledge through her art.

Books

Web links

Commons : Lena Hades  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Художники: Хейдиз Лена ( ru ) ART4.RU Contemporary Art Museum. Archived from the original on December 13, 2013. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 13, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.art4.ru
  2. ^ Artist Sued for Russophobia . In: Russia-InfoCentre . May 8, 2008. Retrieved April 12, 2012.
  3. Natalya Krainova: Artist Investigated in Test of Extremism Law . In: The Moscow Times , June 22, 2010. 
  4. ^ Artist Lena Hades Accused of Russophobia . In: Russia-InfoCentre , June 22, 2010. 
  5. ^ Rose Griffin: The art of revolution . In: The Moscow News , June 12, 2010. Archived from the original on September 18, 2012 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved September 11, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / themoscownews.com 
  6. В картинах Лены Хейдиз обнаружили экстремизм ( ru ) In: Kasparov.ru . June 15, 2010. Retrieved April 12, 2012.
  7. Химера Басманной прокуратуры ( ru ) In: newtimes.ru/ . June 28, 2010. Retrieved September 22, 2014.
  8. Lena Hades: Голодовка в поддержку Pussy Riot ( ru ) July 6, 2012. Retrieved September 22, 2014.
  9. Lena Hades: What is Pussy Riot? ( Closely ) on August 11, 2012. Accessed September 22, 2014.
  10. Lena Hades: Московская художница хочет провести арт-марафон памяти Немцова ( ru ) March 9, 2015. Archived from the original on April 23, 2015. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 9, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.belaruspartisan.org
  11. ^ Hades art catalog, 1999, p. 29