Andrey Makarevich

Biography

In 2012 the tea service “Five o’Cat”, painted by Andrey Makarevich at the Imperial Porcelain Factory, took first place in the “Graphics” category at the Catalan festival “Lunar Cat”. The prize was the Golden Cat medal, a diploma from the city hall and a cup.

He was born on 11 December 1953 in Moscow. His father, Vadim Grigorievich Makarevich, was an architect and a teacher at the Moscow Architectural Institute; according to his son, the father was an amateur painter, and Makarevich regards him as a model to follow. The father’s paintings are now kept by Makarevich’s younger sister. His childhood was spent in a communal apartment on Volkhonka Street, opposite the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, and then the family moved to Komsomolsky Prospekt. At twelve Makarevich began teaching himself the guitar, in 1966 he heard The Beatles, and in 1969, with his classmates, he founded the band Mashina Vremeni (Time Machine). It still exists, and most of his life has been tied to it. He has worked in mixed-media graphics since 1970. After school, in 1971, he entered the Architectural Institute, and as a student he drew for the magazine “Tekhnika – molodyozhi” (Technology for Youth). In 1974 he was expelled: officially for failing to leave work at a vegetable warehouse on time, by other accounts because of his rock music. He began working as an architect at Giprotheatre, a state institute for designing theatres, in 1975 was reinstated in the evening department, and in 1977 received his diploma as a graphic artist and architect. Among his architectural projects was a circus. He left Giprotheatre in 1979, after the state concert agency Soyuzconcert signed a contract with Mashina Vremeni.

Music, television and books for a long time left drawing in second place. He began showing his work publicly when he was already past thirty. His first Moscow exhibition was held in 1990 at the Palace of Youth, where a solo exhibition of graphics opened in 1991. In 1991–1993 his work was shown at the Borey gallery in Saint Petersburg, jointly with the artist Andrey Belle, and in a series of touring exhibitions across Russian cities. In 1991 came his first exhibition abroad, in Caserta, Italy, where he exhibited again in 1995; in 1996 there were shows in Riga and at the Central House of Artists in Moscow.

In the late 1990s Makarevich’s work appeared at Moscow art fairs: Art-Manege (1998, 2000) and the Central House of Artists (1999, 2000), and also at the Alla Bulyanskaya gallery. In 2000 an exhibition was held at the Russian consulate in London. In December 2003 the solo exhibition “50 Women of Andrey Makarevich” opened at the Manege. Later came “Fish & More” in San Francisco (2005), a joint exhibition with Michael Cartelone in New York (2006) and “FEMME” at the National Arts Club in New York (2010).

In April 2008, together with Andrey Belle, he showed the exhibition “Anatomy of Memory” at the Tretyakov Gallery. In spring 2013 works by Vadim and Andrey Makarevich were shown, partly in memory of the father. In 2012 and 2018 there were exhibitions of “Sketches from the Life of Cats” together with Alexander Galitsky; in March 2018 the two showed “The Flood”, drawings on canvas made four-handed. In winter 2018–2019 the exhibition “… And You Can Hear Them Singing” opened at the Multimedia Art Museum.

Makarevich also designed for music: he drew covers and illustrations for albums by other bands, among them Dialog, Romario, Sergey Minaev’s “Just” and an album by Psoy Korolenko. In 2017 his book “Stikhi. Grafika. Pesni” (Poems. Graphics. Songs) appeared.

Since 2022 he has lived in Israel. In December of that year the exhibition “Drawings on Paper and Iron”, made jointly with Andrey Kumanin, opened at the CREATORS gallery in Jaffa.