Amaravella Exhibition

Savitsky Karakalpak State Museum of Arts - 18th May 2010

An exhibition of graphics and art belonging to the so-called cosmist artists of Amaravella group will open in the Karakalpak State Museum of Arts named after Savitsky on 18th of May 2010. More than 110 pieces out of 175 available in the Museum’s stocks will be presented at the exhibition. Unfortunately, brilliant and original art of these remarkable artists, who in 1923 created an artistic union, was not previously given due credit.

The group started to emerge in 1923. There were four artists behind it – Pyotr Fateev, Vera Pshesetskaya, Aleksandr Sardan and Boris Smirnov-Rusetsky, who originally created a group called Kvadriga. Later, they were joined by Sergey Shigolev and Viktor Chernovolenko. In 1927, the group was formalized and started calling itself Amaravella. 

The times during which the Amaravella artists lived and worked was marked with remarkable discoveries in science: N. Fyodorov, K. Tsiolkovsky, V. Vernadsky, A. Chizhevsky published their works about the universe, inhabited by sentient beings, on mysterious correlation of cosmic rhythms and the planet Earth, on the prototypes of the future human being – a human being who will overcome the shackles of geocentrism and who will understand other worlds.

Several artistic movements emerged in art in the early 1920-ies, characterized by rational and analytical approach to art, and enamored of purely formalistic pursuit as well as geometrization of artistic language. These include suprematism and constructivism. 

Artistic group Amaravella followed these changes attentively, and while interpreting the new artistic language, used it to talk about great issues of the contemporary world – about the place of human being in the universe, about the artistic evolution of intellect, about death and immortality.

The fate of the artists of the group was tragic.  In 1930 Vera Pshesetskaya and Alexander Sardan were arrested. In the early 1940s Sergey Shigolev and Boris Smirnov – Rusetskiy became subjects to repressions. Others were forced to work underground. But nobody rejected their creative convictions and conform to the regime. Those who survived (Fateev, Smirnov – Rusetskiy, Chernovolenko) began to expose their works only in the middle of 1960s. Sardan never resumed his artistic endeavor.

The creative potential of “Amaravella” was tremendous, so it is painful to think that because of such tragic circumstances this potential was not used completely.

Visit the museum NEW page at the I.V.Savitsky State Museum of the Arts website (English).

Location and Contact Information:

I.V.Savitsky State Museum of the Arts

K.Rzaev Street, Nukus

Republic of Karakalpakstan, 230100

Tel/fax: (998-61) 222-25-56

e-mail: museum_savitsky@intal.uz

http://museum.kr.uz/eng