Maxim Kantor, b.1957

Travelling exhibition Maxim Kantor: New Empire including:
Berlin, Kunst Aademia, december 2005 -February 2006,
Venice, Querini Stampalia Fondazione, March-April 2005,
Duisburg Felix-Neusbaumm-Museum, Oct-Nov 2005,

Maxim Kantor: New Empire, Bramsche: Rasch Verlag, 2004, p.57 (illustrated)

10 Stray Dogs functions as a chapter in a book, and part of Maxim Kantor’s ever-evolving oeuvre. It is an intense visual projection of the artist’s thoughts, and, works alongside his texts, expanding their meaning.

Kantor's artistic style is often compared to German expressionism, particularly to George Grosz, and there is similarity with Francisco Goya's series of visions. His paintings have a dream-like quality, each with recurring and striking imagery: a building, a tree, a dog, a wasteland. Each image has its own significance and becomes the centre of an individual work at least once. In 10 Stray Dogs however, the images combine together to server both as a banal urban landscape and a philosophical metaphor. The alienation of every creature, even while belonging to a group or to society at large, is a frequent subject of Kantor's works. He examines the conflict between the herd-instinct and the wish to break free and assert individuality, between the safety of the group and the fear that another being may cause harm. Unlike Winter Night, Kantor's painting of the same year with a similar setting, the dogs here have not chosen to stay as a pack but are kept together by the red fence. This reminds one of the red fence in Open Society (2002) where people are stuck together, bound to each other and yet desperate to escape.

It is never summer in Kantor's world: trees never blossom, houses look uninhabitable and too small to protect against the chill. The only sign of life comes from the dogs, as in the unusual portrait of a dog Motya (2001). Motya, highly likely Kantor's alter ego, appears in many of the artist's works and might be recognised as one of ten dogs in the wasteland in the present picture. Some of them are actively scampering around, howling or peer desperately beyond the fence. Others remain impassive, waiting. Kantor's philosophy is, in fact, not totally pessimistic but rather, as pointed out by many critics, it is one of resigned acceptance.