Amazonski @ Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich - A selection of works by women artists of the Russian Avant-Garde

AMAZONSKI
Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich
June 8 - September 8, 2019

Galerie Gmurzynska presents “AMAZONKI,” a selection of works by women artists of the Russian Avant-Garde. With this project, Galerie Gmurzynska consolidates one of its main programmatic lines, dedicated since its origins in 1965 to women artists – a pioneering approach for that time.

After putting together several solo shows on women artists, Krystyna Gmurzynska organized the acclaimed exhibition “Women Artists of the Russian Avant-Garde” in 1979, the first ever exhibition to concentrate on the women of the Russian Avant-Garde. More recently, the Malaga branch of the State Russian Museum hosted the well-received show “Graphic works by Russian Women Artists from the collection of Krystyna Gmurzynska,” still on view until September 2019.

The exhibition in Zurich features some of the most remarkable women artists of the Russian Avant-Garde such as Maria and Xenia Ender, Natalia Goncharova, Liubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova, and Varvara Stepanova. The selection of works includes both visual and applied forms of art, from graphic works and theater designs to decorative projects. 

“AMAZONKI” is the Russian word for the mythological “Amazons,” and it was first applied to the female Russian Avant-Garde artists by the Cubo-futurist poet Benedikt Livshits, who described them as “real Amazons, Scythian riders.” An iconic exhibition, entitled “Amazons of the Russian Avant-Garde” was held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1999-2001, to which Krystyna Gmurzynska was invited as the only non-institutional private lender in recognition of her famed 1979 exhibition “Women Artists of the Russian Avant-Garde.”

The work of these pioneering women artists was extremely influential in the world of the Avant-Garde and was highly significant in defining modernism as a whole. There was a remarkable boom in women’s creativity in early-20th century Russia, where the rapid modernization of society changed the status of the female artist and marked the beginning of women’s integration into cultural areas that were formerly the preserve of men only. Never before in the history of Western art had women played such an important role in the formation of new art movements or the redefining and reconfiguration of cultural spaces. 

Their influence can be clearly seen throughout the 20th Century. “AMAZONKI” thus continues with a separate exhibition of the preeminent female artist of Russian origin in the US: Louise Nevelson.

Though the “Amazons” were distinguished by their tremendous energy and a great force of will, they at no time constituted a single, uniform group formed through a common support of “feminist” ideas. Possessing a bright talent, each offered her own vision and direction to the development of Avant-Garde art, playing a vital role in larger artistic circles, where they were as individualistic, productive and exceptional as their male colleagues such as Kazimir Malevich, Mikhail Larionov and Alexander Rodchenko.

GALERIE GMURZYNSKA
Paradeplatz 2, Talstrasse 37, Zurich
www.gmurzynska.com

Natalia Goncharova @ Tate Modern, London

Natalia Goncharova
Tate Modern, London
6 June – 8 September 2019

Tate Modern presents the UK’s first ever retrospective of the Russian avant-garde artist Natalia Goncharova. This exhibition is a sweeping survey of a pioneering and radical figure, celebrated during her lifetime as a leading modernist artist. Throughout her varied career she challenged the limits of artistic, social and gender conventions, from parading through the streets of Moscow displaying futurist body art and scandalising newspapers of the day, to creating internationally acclaimed designs for fashion and the theatre.

Natalia Goncharova’s artistic output traces, influences and transcends the art movements of the 20th century. Born in 1881, she was inspired by the traditional customs and cultures of her native Central Russia – inspirations that pervade her life’s work. By the age of 32, she had already established herself as a leader of the Moscow avant-garde and was the subject of the first monographic exhibition ever staged by a Russian modernist artist. Arriving in Paris in 1914 at the invitation of Sergei Diaghilev, Natalia Goncharova was feted for her vibrant costume and set designs for the Ballets Russes.

The exhibition gathers together over 170 international loans which rarely travel, including from Russia’s State Tretyakov Gallery which houses the largest collection of Natalia Goncharova works in the world. At the heart of the show is a room evoking Natalia Goncharova’s remarkable 1913 retrospective that was held at the Mikhailova Art Salon in Moscow, which originally featured some 800 works.

Highlights include early paintings such as Peasants Gathering Apples 1911, formerly owned by the Morozov family, one of great art collectors of the early 20th century; the monumental seven-part work The Harvest 1911, bringing together paintings from four international collections; and her scandalous paintings of nudes, the first public display of which led to her trial for obscenity. A section devoted to Natalia Goncharova’s religious painting includes the Evangelists 1911, a four-panel work which had delighted London in 1912 but shocked Russia’s capital of St Petersburg in 1914 where the authorities removed it from display. A room is dedicated to her work in fashion design and her collaborations with Nadezhda Lamanova, couturier of the Imperial court, while her forays into interior design are represented by the decorative screen Spring 1928, commissioned by the Arts Club of Chicago and never lent until now, and Bathers 1922, a monumental triptych displayed in the UK for the first time.

In seeking to underline Natalia Goncharova’s ground-breaking experiments with the modernist styles of cubo-futurism, abstraction and rayonism, the exhibition reunites Linen from Tate’s own collection with Loom + Woman (The Weaver) from the National Museum of Wales and The Forest from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, all created in the same studio in 1913 and on display together for the first time since then.

Finally, the exhibition closes with a room dedicated to her collaborations with the Ballets Russes, the work for which she was best known from 1914 to the 1950s. It presents the artist’s most groundbreaking work for the theatre, including costume designs for Le Coq d’or (The Golden Cockerel) and Les Noces (The Wedding), both performed on London stages in the 1920s and 30s, as well as examples of actual costumes used in historic ballet productions.

Natalia Goncharova is curated by Natalia Sidlina, Curator of International Art, and Matthew Gale, Head of Displays, with Katy Wan, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern. It is supported by LetterOne, with additional support from Mr Petr Aven, and is organised by Tate Modern in collaboration with Palazzo Strozzi, Florence where it will open on 28 September 2019 and the Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki where it will open on 21 February 2020.

TATE MODERN
Bankside, London SE1 9TG
www.tate.org.uk

Costakis collection & Russian avant-garde, SMCA, Thessaloniki

The Costakis collection and the Russian avant-garde. 100 years since the collector’s birth
State Museum of Contemporary Art, SMCA, Thessaloniki, Greece
Through January 31, 2014

© National Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki

2013 is an anniversary year for the State Museum of Contemporary Art -SMCA- in Thessaloniki, Greece, since it has been 100 years since the collector George Costakis was born in Moscow. On this occasion the SMCA holds a big exhibition, with over 250 artworks from the famous Russian avant-garde collection, dedicated to the collector himself, a large part of whose collection belongs to the Museum. The other part was donated by the collector himself in 1977 to the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. 

GEORGE COSTAKIS in his apartment in Moscow.

Photo Igor Palmin, 1974

© National Museum of Contemporary Art - Collection Costaki

The collector GEORGE COSTAKIS

© National Museum of Contemporary Art - Collection Costaki

The Costakis collection is the largest collection of Russian avant-garde art (1900-1930) and has a great mobility in exhibitions all over Europe and the USA. It is a big presentation of the Costakis collection and the archive which follows and shows the collector’s gaze and method, through monographic artists’ presentations, enriched by guided tours, educational programs, talks, book presentations and lessons on the Russian avant-garde period. 

Among many others, on view are artworks by artists Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935), Solomon Nikritin (1898-1965), Ilya Chashnik (1902-1929), Lioubov Popova (1889-1924), Alexei Morgunof (1884-1935)

KAZIMIR MALEVICH

Portraiture, 1910

Gouache on paper

© National Museum of Contemporary Art - Collection Costaki

SOLOMON NIKRITIN

Man and Cloud, circa 1930

Oil on paper mounted on plywood

© National Museum of Contemporary Art - Collection Costaki

ILYA CHASHNIK

Σουπρεματιστικός Σταυρός [Souprematistikos (?) Cross], 1920-1921

Oil on canvas

© National Museum of Contemporary Art - Collection Costaki

LIOUBOV POPOVA

Κυβοφουτουριστικό Πορτρέτο [Cubist Futurism Portrait], 1914-1915

Oil on cardboard

© National Museum of Contemporary Art - Collection Costaki

LIOUBOV POPOVA

Architectural painting, 1918

Oil on canvas

© National Museum of Contemporary Art - Collection Costaki

ALEXEI MORGUNOF

Aviator, 1912-1913

Oil on canvas

© National Museum of Contemporary Art - Collection Costaki

This exhibition is part of the 4th Thessaloniki biennale of Contemporary Art 2013 (September 18, 2013- January 31, 2014)

Curators:  Maria Tsantsanoglou, SMCA Director,  Angeliki Charistou, SMCA Art Historian

STATE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART
Moni Lazariston building (Northeast wing)
21 kolokotroni Str., Stavroupoli, Thessaloniki, Greece
Museum's website: www.greekstatemuseum.com

Kazimir Malevich and Suprematism in the Ludwig Collection, Cologne

Kazimir Malevich and Suprematism in the Ludwig Collection - Project series on the Russian Avant-Garde Part 2 
Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
5 February - 22 August 2010 - 20 February 2011

After the exhibition “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste. Cubo-Futurism and the Rise of Modernism in Russia” Museum Ludwig continued its project series on the Russian avant-garde with a cabinet exhibition of its Malevich collection. This is one of the largest collections worldwide of KASIMIR MALEVICH’s work and was exhibited for the first time in nearly twenty years. The approximately fifty graphic works, four paintings and one sculpture from all periods of his work afforded viewers an insight into the artist's development from figurative art to abstraction and back again to figuration. As part of the exhibition preparations, museum restorers subjected the four paintings to an art-technological examination. Ten suprematist works by artists from Kasimir Malevitch’s circle, Ekaterina Bugrova, Ivan Kliun, Nina Kogan, Liubov Popova, Kliment Redko, Nikolai Suetin and Ilya Chashnik, complements the exhibition and demonstrate Kasimir Malevich’s influence on his contemporaries.

The concept of Suprematism denotes both abstract composition using pure shapes as well as Malevich’s own theory of pure abstraction in art; for him, this implies “everything that goes beyond what has to this date been created in art”.

The focal point of this exhibition was the presentation of the two paintings from his Suprematist period, “Supremus No. 38” from 1916 and “Suprematist Composition” from 1915. The latter underwent substantial restoration for the exhibition and both paintings were subjected to an art-technological examination. The findings were comprehensively documented as part of the exhibition.

On the basis of the results of the examinations carried out (UV, infrared, X-ray) and based upon the history of the paintings (exhibitions; change of owner; earlier restoration measures), the state of preservation of the paintings as they are today, and also how they were created, were rendered visible. From detailed close-ups, the viewers learn how to spot certain traits of painting technique like, for example, surface structures and brush strokes – but also the impact restoration can have on the appearance of the paintings. In preparation the exhibition, also numerous works on paper by Kasimir Malevich were restored.

Like the paintings in the collection, the drawings by Kasimir Malevich too stem from various periods of his work, from his beginnings around 1903 to his famous invention and development of (abstract) Suprematism all the way to his return to figuration. This change of course in his later work has only recently become the subject of art historical research. The extensive Ludwig Collection is ideally suited to the exploration of abstraction as well as figuration. The exhibition gave a better undertanding of the development of Malevich’s work. The confrontation of his early concrete works with his later ones makes a unique comparison possible.

With over 800 works, the Museum Ludwig is home to one of the world’s largest collections of the Russian avant-garde. In May 2009, a series of exhibitions started which highlights new aspects of the collection and its main emphases. The series goes hand in hand with intensive research into the techniques used in the works, the picture frames and the dates.

Curator of the series is Katia Baudin, the deputy director of Museum Ludwig, with Emily Joyce Evans acting as assistant curator. Petra Mandt worked on the art technological examinations and their documentation.

A catalogue which documents the complete findings of the art technological examinations and features further scholarly essays on Kasimir Malevich was published with the support of the Friends of the Wallraf Richartz Museum and the Museum Ludwig e.V.

Museum Ludwig Cologne
Heinrich-Böll-Platz
50667 Cologne - Germany
www.museum-ludwig.de 

Russian Avant-Garde, MoMA, NYC - The Russian Avant-Garde Book: 1910–1934

The Russian Avant-Garde Book: 1910–1934

MoMA, New York

March 21 - May 21, 2002

The Russian Avant-Garde Book, 1910–1934 is prompted by an extraordinary gift to MoMA of over 1,000 Russian avant-garde illustrated books from The Judith Rothschild Foundation, New York. The gift is the largest to the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books since Abby Aldrich Rockefeller established the collection in the 1940s with her donation of 1,600 prints. The Rothschild gift represents all the significant artistic developments of the period and features works by major artists including Kazimir Malevich, Olga Rozanova, Natalia Goncharova, El Lissitzky, Aleksandr Rodchenko, and many others. It also encompasses areas of special interest to members of the Russian avant-garde, including children’s books and Judaica. This comprehensive resource has been characterized by experts in the field as among the most significant collections of its kind worldwide.

The Rothschild gift joins over 400 works from the Russian avant-garde period already in the Museum’s collections of painting and sculpture, drawings, photography, film, architecture and design, prints and illustrated books, as well as the library. MoMA’s founding director, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., initiated the Museum’s interest in this crucial period in the history of modern art.

It is widely recognized that Russian avant-garde artists’ experimentation was fundamental to the development of abstraction in the early years of this century. The 1917 Revolution brought about a complete transformation of the artist’s role in Russian society with utilitarianism defining the new cultural climate. The exhibition is organized around three major themes:

A Slap in the Face of Public Taste

The first section is titled after an early manifesto by artists and poets, in which they responded to what they considered the stultifying conventions of academic taste and bourgeois sensibility. Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Olga Rozanova, Kazimir Malevich, among others, collaborated with writers and poets, including Aleksei Kruchenykh, Velimir Khlebnikov, and Vasilii Kamenskii, to forge a new language of abstraction through experimentation with Cubo-Futurism, Primitivism, and Rayonism. Many of these poets and painters practiced both mediums, and most were friends, siblings, or spouses; collaboration on books was one important result of this creative ferment. Early books were intended to shock the reader with variously sized pages made of coarse papers, illustrations entwined with printed, hand-written, and rubber-stamped text, as well as provocative covers.

Transform the World!

The second section expands on the developments of the earlier period. Artists turned to book design with great optimism to reach the masses. In both paintings and printed treatises, Malevich pushed abstraction to its limit in his development of Suprematism, conceived as a metaphysical visual metaphor for heralding the new world. Aleksandr Rodchenko and El Lissitzky were major artistic voices in the development of Constructivism, which focused on the rational and machine-made and came to symbolize a new future. Typography became an important aspect of Constructivism, often combined with bold black and red abstract designs. Poets such as Vladimir Mayakovsky, who was also an artist, played an integral role in the interdisciplinary development of illustrated books during this period. Photography was also a primary vehicle of communication, and photomontage dominated many covers and illustrations.

Building Socialism: Agitation Art

The final section of the exhibition presents the variety of ways the art of the book was used to serve the Soviet government’s agenda. Journals showcased modern Soviet architecture with covers of bold graphic design. Trade catalogues promoted Soviet industry with innovative layouts and typographical design. Magazines designed by avant-garde artists utilized photography and photomontage to spread the message of Soviet modernization and progress to the broadest possible audience. Innovative works by Lissitzky and Rodchenko, as well as by other artists including Varvara Stepanova, Solomon Telingater, Gustav Klutsis and the Stenberg brothers, demonstrate a continued experimentation with the book format. The exhibition ends with the notorious 1934 decree by Stalin that only Socialist Realism would be tolerated. Thus, a remarkable period of innovation in the production of illustrated books came to a close.

Catalogue

The Russian Avant-Garde Book: 1910–1934

Catalogue of the exhibition

© The Museum of Modern Art

A major publication illustrating all the books in the exhibition accompanies the exhibition. In addition to over 600 illustrations, the catalogue contains essays by the co-curators and other specialists: Jared Ash, Nina Gurianova, and Gerald Janecek. These includes an overview of the Russian avant-garde book in the context of the history of modern illustrated books; studies of the book both before and after the 1917 Revolution; and texts on specific stylistic and literary issues. The documentary portion of the book includes a complete checklist of all the books in the gift from The Judith Rothschild Foundation. There is also be a comprehensive bibliography and index.

The exhibition is organized by Deborah Wye, Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books, The Museum of Modern Art, and Margit Rowell, Guest Curator.

The Russian Avant-Garde Book, 1910–1934 travels to the Museo Nacional Centra de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, November 4, 2002-January 27, 2003; and the Museum fur Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, September 24, 2003-January 25, 2004.

MoMA - MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NYC

www.moma.org

Updated 16.01.2021