Victory over the Sun

The first comprehensive exhibition on the subject in Israel The Russian Avant-Garde and Beyond will explore avant-garde trends in Russian art during the 20th century, focusing on the emergence of the art movements that accompanied the historical and political upheavals in the country

Pavel Pepperstein, Lissitzky’s autostrada in the Alps in 2401, 2017. Watercolor on paper. Purchase, Ruth and Joseph Bromberg Fund and Barbara and Eugene Schwartz Contemporary Art Acquisition Endowment Fund

The evolution of avant-garde and nonconformist art in Russia went hand-in-hand with the country’s tumultuous history over the course of a century: the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and its aftermath, the political and cultural events from Stalin’s death to Glasnost (openness), Perestroika (reform), and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union. This exhibition presents some of the key figures and follows the artistic waves that swelled and ebbed with that stormy history, from the seminal avant-garde of the early 1900s through underground radical manifestations half a century later until the work of recent artists.

Kazimir Malevich, Bully, costume design for the opera Victory over the Sun by M. Matyushin and A. Kruchenykh, 1st Futurist Theater, St. Petersburg, 1913. Graphite and watercolor on paper. Photo © The St. Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music

Kazimir Malevich, Funerarian, costume design for the opera Victory over the Sun by M. Matyushin and A. Kruchenykh, 1st Futurist Theater, St. Petersburg. 1913. Graphite and watercolor on paper. Photo © The St. Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music

We begin with the artistic revolution introduced by Kazimir Malevich already prior to 1917: the adoption of purely abstract geometric forms to embody reality, a system he called Suprematism. Displayed as a prologue are Suprematist paintings by Malevich, as well as earlier designs for the Futurist opera Victory over the Sun. These include a sketch that may be said to mark his system’s moment of birth, in which he unveiled the most radical and influential symbol of the avant-garde’s nonobjective approach, the Black Square. Works by important artists who became disciples of Suprematism after 1917 amplify our presentation of this groundbreaking movement.

Following the eclipse of the avant-garde by Communistdecreed Socialist Realism, a wave of nonconformist art appeared only after Stalin’s death in 1953. The work created by a group of unofficial artists in the 1960s–1980s – among them, Erik Bulatov, Michail Grobman, Ilya Kabakov, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Mikhail Roginsky, and Vladimir Yankilevsky – lies at the heart of the exhibition. Theirs was the dissenting voice of the era, expressing both artistic opposition to the Socialist Realist hegemony and a type of reconnection to the creative forces of the early twentieth century, which had been erased from collective memory.

Vladimir Yankilevsky, Big Forms→ Objects→ Door (Dedicated to the Parents of My Parents…). First and Second positions 1972. Object. Mixed media. Private collection; courtesy Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris. Photo © Jean-Alex Brunelle

Vladimir Yankilevsky, Big Forms→ Objects→ Door (Dedicated to the Parents of My Parents…). First and Second positions 1972. Object. Mixed media. Private collection; courtesy Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris. Photo © Jean-Alex Brunelle

Vladimir Yankilevsky, Big Forms→ Objects→ Door (Dedicated to the Parents of My Parents…). Third and Fourth positions 1972. Object. Mixed media. Private collection; courtesy Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris. Photo © Jean-Alex Brunelle

Vladimir Yankilevsky, Big Forms→ Objects→ Door (Dedicated to the Parents of My Parents…). Third and Fourth positions 1972. Object. Mixed media. Private collection; courtesy Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris. Photo © Jean-Alex Brunelle

An epilogue to the exhibition explores developments since the liberalization of the late 1980s and the subsequent demise of the USSR. Works by contemporary artists like Andrei Filippov, Vadim Zakharov, and Pavel Pepperstein reveal thoughtprovoking reflections about the avant-garde legacy as well as the ongoing interest in it as a historical movement.

Offering a key connecting thread among the various preoccupations and manifestations of radical Russian art is the centrality of the book. A special section of the exhibition presents innovative books created by such early twentiethcentury artists as Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Olga Rozanova, Kazimir Malevich, El Lissitzsky, and Aleksandr Rodchenko. It explores a moment of early experimentation, when the artists and writers who collaborated on volumes of poetry, prose, and theory defied conventional categories, merging text and illustration, word and image. In the 1970s the written word became an integral element in the work of unofficial artists, notably Ilya Kabakov, and experimentation with text and image also characterizes recent works by contemporary artists.

Erik Bulatov, Red Horizon, 1971–72. Oil on canvas. Museum of Avant-Garde Mastery (MAGMA). Erik Bulatov © ADAGP, Paris, 2018. Photo courtesy of Museum of Avant-Garde Mastery

Exhibition curator: Tanya Sirakovich, Michael Bromberg Head Curator, Ruth and Joseph Bromberg

Department of Prints and Drawings, Edmond and Lily Safra Fine Arts Wing, The Israel Museum

                      December 28, 2018 – June 10, 2019

Photos courtesy of Israel Museum