"NEW ART OF THE NEW STATE"

Venue of the exhibition: Gallery ’HERITAGE
Dates: March 30 - May 29, 2017
Curator: Kristina Krasnyanskaya
Design and set design: Ada Karbatova
Project Managers: Anastasia Dokuchaeva and Anna Kim
Project participant: State Central Theater Museum named after A.A. Bahrushina
Co-organizer of the exhibition: A. V. Shchusev State Research Museum of Architecture

We were inventors and remade the world in our own way. A. Rodchenko

The exhibition covers the first two decades after the revolutionary events, revealing to the viewer suprematist and cubist experiments in the field of painting and graphics by artists such as A. Drevin, N. Udaltsova, V. Stepanova, A. Rodchenko, A. Lentulov, D. Shterenberg, Yu. Annenkov, photographs by A. Rodchenko and G. Petrusov, as well as unique works by leading artists in the campaign field, affecting such industries as architecture, sculpture, design, campaign poster, decorative and applied art (agitation bone, agitation porcelain, agitation varnish, agitation national textiles).

The exhibition presents the works of the greatest masters of Palekh, rare propaganda posters, unique porcelain items of the 1920s by S. Chekhonin, rare items of furniture of the 1920s. from the House on the Embankment by B. Iofan, a unique example of campaign design is the Memorial Office of the NGO “Voroshilovsky Corner”, architectural projects of A. Schusev, P. Shadrikov, K. Alabyan, D. Chechulin, V. Schuko and V. Gelfreikh and others. Items of propaganda design are also presented - pieces of furniture in the style of Soviet art deco of the Ivanovo International Orphanage for Spanish children No. 5, as well as furniture of the Lenoblono children’s military labor community, designed by architect A. Dmitriev, teacher M. Ginzburg. Design in the culture of the avant-garde is a systemic phenomenon, manifested primarily in the conceptual approach to life and the world. In the field of design and architecture, artists actively designed and built “models of the desired future”. The exhibition presents various fields of art: design, architecture, painting and graphics, posters, arts and crafts, photography, cinema and theater… The curtain of the Bolshoi Theater based on a sketch by F. Fedorovsky, which was the first in the history of the Bolshoi, was the program piece in the exposition. As the main artist of BT, F. Fedorovsky in the early 1930s worked on sketches of a new curtain on the anniversary of the revolution in the spirit of propaganda art of that time with the repeated use of Soviet symbols: sickle and hammer, ears, details of mechanisms. Dates were also woven on it: 1871 - the year of the Paris Commune, 1905 - the year of the first Russian revolution and 1917 - the year of the Great October Revolution, as well as the slogan "Workers of all countries, unite!" In several languages. The curtain was installed in 1937.

In the concept of the exhibition, a separate theme is the work of artists with the theater.

Sketches of costumes and sets for the main productions in leading theaters - F. Fedorovsky, V. Stenberg, A. Vesnin are presented. This is precisely the sphere where bold avant-garde ideas were embodied very brightly, where art was experiencing a completely new round of development, where campaigning tasks were solved through innovative avant-garde ideas. The 1920s is the time when Russian art was in its heyday. The revolution and the shocks associated with it, which were supposed to reduce artistic activity, in reality gave art a new impetus. The exhibition "New Art of the New State" poses a question for the audience: so what is the Great October Revolution for Russian art? What did she spawn? What brought and opened, and what irrevocably destroyed and took away..? This topic turned out to be so deep that it is hardly possible to answer it within the framework of one project… Nevertheless, the idea of the exhibition was to enable the viewer to get in touch with the amazing discoveries in Russian art that occurred due to the emergence of a new state, to evaluate creative ideas and truly revolutionary works of artists and architects who seriously believe in building a new, ideal, free and beautiful world. Today, after 100 years, we can, having discarded all that is superfluous, see and re-evaluate the unique scale of Russian art of the 1920s - 1930s, which survived all the consequences of the main Revolution of the 20th century, has gone far beyond Russia and the Soviet Union, and today has become a part of world cultural history.

Sofa Lira. Memorial cabinet “Voroshilovsky Corner”. Commissariat of the Commissariat of Defense. 1938. Private collection

The curtain of the Bolshoi Theater. According to the sketch of F. Fedorovsky. 1937. Private collection

Milkman “Let’s give the country metal.” Dulevo. 1920s Private collection

Poster "Long Live the Third Communist International!" 1919. Private collection

Radio. Mammoth bone. 1920s Private collection

Table. 1920s Private collection

Chair. According to the project of B. Iofan for the Government House (“Houses on the Embankment”). The end of the 1920s Private collection

Tureen with a cover. S.V. Chekhonin. 1920s Private collection

Tribune. Set of the children’s military labor commune "Lenoblono". According to the project of A.I. Dmitriev. 1934. Private collection

Kettle with Suprematist painting. 1920s Private collection

Screen. Set of the children’s military labor commune "Lenoblono". According to the project of A.I. Dmitriev. 1934. Private collection

Figurina (theatrical sketch). V.F. Stepanova. 1920. Private collection

Iofan B.M., Schuko V.A., Gelfreich V.G. The design of the Palace of Soviets. Perspective. 1933. State Research Museum of Architecture named after A.V. Shchuseva

Chechulin D.N., co-author K. Kaurkov Aeroflot Office Building Project. Contest. Perspective. 1934. State Research Museum of Architecture named after A.V. Shchuseva