"On demand. Collections of the Russian avant-garde of regional museums. 1900-1930. Part III" Automatic translate

On February 17, at the Heydar Aliyev Center (Baku, Azerbaijan), the opening of the first foreign exhibition project of the Jewish Museum on Demand. Collections of Russian avant-garde regional museums. 1900-1930 ". The project collected the most outstanding works from two exhibitions of the same name held in Moscow in 2016 and 2017 and became the first author’s traveling exhibition of the Jewish Museum, giving rise to its international activity.

At the exhibition in the futuristic space created by Zaha Hadid, the Heydar Aliyev Center presents 60 works by recognized avant-garde classics - Kazimir Malevich, Vasily Kandinsky, Alexander Rodchenko, Vladimir Tatlin, Alexandra Exter, Marc Chagall, and not so famous artists - Victor Bart, Alexei Morgunov, Sergey Romanovich, Pavel Mansurov and many others - who made a significant contribution to the history of Russian avant-garde art.

Director of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center Alexander Boroda noted that holding an exhibition at the Heydar Aliyev Center will be the beginning of an active international activity of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center: “We are pleased that the“ On Demand ”exhibition project, which we are truly proud of, is starting its international fate in the unique space of the Heydar Aliyev Center. Russian avant-garde is one of the main cultural brands of Russia. The names of Kazimir Malevich, Vasily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall are widely known throughout the world. The paintings of the beginning of the 20th century have an interesting fate - because of the policies of the People’s Commissariat for Education, they were scattered in the regional museums of a huge country. On the one hand, this is undoubtedly a positive fact, on the other hand, it is difficult to imagine a Russian going on a cultural expedition to the cities of Russia. The “On-Demand” exposition includes works from museums in 17 Russian cities, selected by well-known art critic, specialist in Russian avant-garde Andrei Sarabyanov. We wish the people of Baku a pleasant and meaningful acquaintance with the unique, revolutionary art world of the Russian avant-garde. ”

“There was a time when the works of the Russian avant-garde were in the storerooms of museums and no one saw them, but now these paintings are triumphantly marching around the world. It is no coincidence that Baku accepts the works of the Russian avant-garde. Back in 1921, a famous poet, one of the largest figures of the Russian avant-garde Velimir Khlebnikov, lived here for six months, and he left us wonderful poems about Baku. Therefore, the current exposition is a kind of continuation of traditions. Many of the works on display are unique, and the fate of the artists is tragic, they died in Stalin’s camps, prisons or during World War II. Here are even such works that in a single copy remained from these artists. The exposition gives a general picture of the history of the development of the Russian avant-garde, ”said the curator of the Center for the Avant-Garde of the Jewish Museum and the curator of the exhibition project“ On Demand ”Andrei Sarabyanov.

The exposition combines exhibits from the “Demand. Part I ”(2016) and“ Poste restante. Part II ”(2017), and covers the period from the formation of the avant-garde in the mid-1900s to its sunset in the early 1930s. The main idea of ​​the project is to show the works of famous, little-known or completely unknown avant-garde artists stored in the collections of regional museums and demonstrate the main styles in Russian art of the first third of the twentieth century. For this exhibition project, curator Andrei Sarabyanov studied avant-garde works on display at regional museums and their storerooms throughout the country for 20 years.

The Jewish Museum is planning an international tour of the “On Demand” exhibition project, the first stop of which was Baku. In the future, the museum will continue to work on exhibitions that can be shown not only in Russia, but also abroad.