Vladimir's Night
Roee Rosen
2014
Maxim Komar‑Myshkin
Vladimir's Night is the chimerical final work by Maxim Komar-Myshkin, one of the most elusive and tragic figures in Israeli-Russian art. Part children’s book, part gory political assault and part erotic farce involving elaborately detailed paintings that draw from the most disparate sources, the work is not only Komar-Myshkin's magnum opus, but an instrument of psycho-aesthetic retaliation against Vladimir Putin, whom the artist believed had a personal vendetta against him. Komar-Myshkin committed suicide in 2011, soon after completing the album.
In her annotations, Rosa Chabanova explores the book’s many layers, covering such wide-ranging topics as the financial schemes of Russian oligarchs, medieval literature, political assassinations and the massive immigration wave of Russians to Israel. In so doing, Chabanova unravels the haunting story of Komar-Myshkin and arrives at startling conclusions as to what actually transpired during Komar-Myshkin's final years.
Maxim Komar-Myshkin was born in Moscow in 1978. He immigrated to Israel in 2004. There, he founded the Buried Alive group, a circle of artists, writers and filmmakers who vowed in their manifesto to operate as cultural zombies.
- Pages: 170
- Type of binding: Hardcover
- Dimensions (cm): 20.5X31
- Printing: Petit SK
- Binding: Petit SK
- Publication: Sternberg Press
- Place of publication: Berlin
- Supported by: Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Dofinansowano ze srodkow Ministra Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego, Beit Berl College, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Rosenfeld Gallery
- Book photography: Leafing Magazine
- ISBN: 9783956790591
Roee Rosen (born 1963 in Rehovot) is an Israeli-American multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and writer known for his multilayered, provocative works that blur the lines between history and the present, documentary and fiction, and politics and erotica. Educated in philosophy and literature at Tel Aviv University before earning a BFA from the School of Visual Arts (1989) and an MFA from Hunter College (1991), Rosen is a professor at Beit Berl College’s HaMidrasha Faculty of the Arts and at the Bezalel Academy. He is known for fabricating intricate fictional personas like Justine Frank and Maxim Komar-Myshkin, and for works such as Live and Die as Eva Braun, The Blind Merchant, The Dust Channel, and Kafka for Kids. His films Out (or Tse) and The Buried Alive Videos have garnered international acclaim, and his work has been exhibited worldwide in institutions such as Centre Pompidou, documenta 14, and in retrospectives.
