Exhibition "David Burliuk. A Word to Me!"

From October 4, 2018 to January 27, 2019, the Museum of Russian Impressionism will present the exhibition “DAVID BURLYUK. WORD TO ME! ” The exposition will include more than 50 works by the artist from 14 state museums and private collections. Among them are works that have never been exhibited at the monographic exhibitions of the master.

David Davidovich Burliuk - painter, graphic artist, poet, art critic, “father of Russian futurism” - does not need to be introduced to a narrow circle of connoisseurs and admirers of the Russian avant-garde, but remains almost unknown to the general public.

He was a man of a unique warehouse. Possessing a rare talent to bring people together, to be the center of attention, he evoked different and often opposite feelings - from enthusiasm to extreme irritation and criticism. Vladimir Mayakovsky called Burliuk his teacher: “A great friend. My real teacher. David made me a poet. He read me the French and Germans. Stuck books. He gave me 50 kopecks daily to write without starving. " The legendary Anton Ashbe, with whom Burliuk studied at a private school in Munich, enthusiastically called the student “a beautiful wild steppe horse”, and Benedict Livshits beautifully called him “one and a half-eyed archer”. Nikolay Evreinov introduced the neologism into circulation - "burlyuk". The name Burliuk really became a household name.

The exhibition is designed to show the versatility of the artist, to reveal him not only as the “father of Russian futurism”, but also as a lyricist, an impressionist colorist, as a poet. A retrospective of the artist will be a logical continuation of the previous exhibition of the museum “Impressionism at the forefront”, because David Burliuk came to the forefront through impressionism.

The exposition will feature works of the 1900-1930s - a kaleidoscope of creative transformations, various paintings by the artist. Looking at some of them, you understand that after almost a century we still don’t know David Burliuk. What was he like, how did his work develop?

The decoration of the exhibition is designed to help visitors see the paintings with the eyes of the author himself and to feel involved in his works and era.

The exhibition will highlight three main thematic blocks. The first part of the exhibition will be represented by plein air landscapes, impressionist and textural-pictorial expressionist works. The artist’s early works opening the exhibition may come as a surprise to visitors.

Like all Russian avant-garde artists, David Burliuk passed the school of new French painting, but impressionism was manifested in his works throughout his creative life, unlike other masters. In the famous leaflet “The Voice of the Impressionist in Defense of Painting”, written in 1908, the artist says: “Impressionism is the hope of Russian renewed painting.”

One of the central works of this block is the painting “Mother” (1906) from the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery. Decorativeness is harmoniously combined with the naturalness of the drawing - these are the very features that Burliuk called “desperate realism” in his works. Nothing in this portrait predicts the imminent transformation of the artist into a bold avant-garde futurist.

Most of the artist’s early impressionist works are landscapes. Possessing physical strength and internal energy, he worked tirelessly in the open air. One of his first teachers, Kyriak Kostandi, even criticized Burliuk, saying that it was "not art, but some kind of factory production." But it was precisely this approach that allowed the future master to develop his own recognizable style of painting.

David Burliuk was called omnivorous, and he really was all interested and curious. He was not afraid to repeat what others had observed: among Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso, and his fellow artists in Russia. For Burliuk, Matisse’s experience turned out to be decisive in the further development. Therefore, at the exhibition special attention is drawn to two paintings “Oxen” (1908) and “Rose Bush” (mid-1910s) that stand out from the general series. Relatively thin, painted on unfinished canvas - they guess the influence of the French Fauvist.

Step by step, the visitor will go with Burliuk the way from impressionism to Fauvism and enter the era of the avant-garde, see futurism in the way Burliuk understood in painting.

Perhaps the artist’s most recognizable work in this block is “Portrait of the Song Fighter of the Futurist Vasily Kamensky” (1916). The artist portrayed the poet, who also became one of the first Russian aviators. Little is known, but it was Kamensky who coined the word “airplane”. A muse hovers above it, but with quite earthly proportions. Kamensky holds out a rose to her, perhaps we are witnessing the birth of inspiration.

“Portrait of My Uncle” (second half of the 1910s) is the only work in the exhibition that shows the obvious influence of Picasso. It is interesting that during the artist’s journey through Russia in 1918–1920, the author’s repetitions of this painting were sold best, she literally fed the Burliuk family, which needed funds for further travel. About Picasso were heard already in the province. This name aroused both indignation and hot interest. According to the testimony of the artist Yevgeny Spassky, Burliuk “did it [portrait] quickly, in a hotel, gluing pieces of newspaper into a face torn by corners, having three eyes, two noses, and so on.”

For the first time since Burlyuk’s departure from Russia in 1920, the exhibition will display a unique painting “The Reaper” (1915) from a private Moscow collection. Burliuk wrote about her: "A painting with a mirror center, using various types of surfaces, finely and coarse-conch, hooked, splintery." The work is very fragile, and the owner decided to exhibit it for the first time, solely for the retrospective of the artist at the Museum of Russian Impressionism.

A separate story in the artist’s life is the years of his residence in Japan (1921–1922). This period of David Burliuk’s work is little known in Russia. Even less is known about Japanese futuristic artists with whom David Burliuk organized vivid exhibitions.

Before the arrival of Burliuk, the Japanese had an idea of futurism only in the articles and text of Tommaso Marinetti. In 1920, a number of young artists created the Futuristic Art Association and hosted the "First Exhibition of Futurist Artists." Among the main representatives of this trend are Togo Seiji, Fumon Gyo, Kambaray Tai, Asano Moufu, Kinoshita Saiichiro and others. It is quite natural that interest arose in the Russian artist, who called himself "the father of Russian futurism."

In collaboration with Kinoshita Syuchiro, David Burliuk wrote the book “What is Futurism. Answer ”, which became a kind of art textbook for young artists of that time. Not so much the artist’s painting as his views on art and behavior influenced the development of various areas of Japanese art culture.

The Japanese period in the work of David Burliuk, according to the documents and testimonies of his contemporaries, is distinguished by a diverse and multifaceted activity. During his almost two-year stay in Japan, Burliuk visited Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and other cities, visited the southern islands of Oshima and Ogasawara, and climbed Mount Fuji. He painted with interest both real Japan and futuristic compositions, such as Rice Maker, Japanese Cutting Tuna, Fisherman and others.

Leaving Japan for America, the artist intended to become the "father of American futurism" there, but this was not destined to come true. In an attempt to win the attention of American critics and a conservative public, Burliuk created several large-scale paintings that have not survived to this day and are known only from photographs and individual fragments saved. One of these nearly missing things is the painting "Workers" (1924), from which only the central part has survived to this day. The only time this work was exhibited in 1926 at an exhibition in Philadelphia, where it impressed the audience not only with its size - almost two by three meters, but also stood out as a bright work glorifying technical progress. The Museum of Russian Impressionism will show the surviving fragment at the exhibition and give visitors a unique chance to see the canvas as it was presented to the American public over 90 years ago. A virtual reconstruction of the work will present the picture in its full size.

Speaking of David Burliuk, an artist, one cannot but mention David Burliuk, a poet. The artist wrote: “I am talking about creativity in poetry. For I am equally a poet and an artist. ”

The exposition will feature the collection “The Balding Tail” in two versions: the original layout of the book, as Burliuk wanted to see it, and the typographic copy of the collection, which was published without illustrations. The layout shows all the corrections in the lines made by Burliuk’s hand, as well as black and white drawings glued to the pages. This is the only collection of the artist, printed in Russia before his emigration.

He was as good a graphic artist as a painter. This is perfectly illustrated by the original drawings in several copies of the futuristic poem collection “Milk of the Mares”. The collection was published by the Gileya group established by Burliuk.

At the exhibition, the voice of an artist reading his poems will be heard - audio recordings made during Burliuk’s visit to Soviet Russia. Then the artist was already over 70. He repeatedly proposed to publish his literary works, but his idea was never realized in the USSR.

David Burliuk possessed a striking flair for talents, rallying such gifted smart people as Vasily Kamensky, Velimir Khlebnikov, Benedikt Livshits, in different years he talked and collaborated with Kazimir Malevich, Mikhail Larionov, Natalya Goncharova, Alexandra Exter and others. The artist, who did not leave his contemporaries indifferent, remains just as interesting after a century.

An illustrated catalog will be published for the exhibition, which presents the artworks of David Burliuk, his poems, drawings, articles.