Russian Avant-garde.
Albergo delle Povere, Pallermo - December 2nd 2011 - March 20th 2012
Kandinsky. "Moscow. The Red Square. " 1916.
The year 2011 has become the year of Italian culture and language in Russian and the year of Russian culture and language in Italy. It was opened in February in Rome by a wide retrospective exhibition of an extraordinary master of Russian art of 1930s-1950s, Alexander Deineka, attended by the heads of both countries. Another event no less important was the exposition of masterpieces by a great master of Italian Renaissance Antonello da Messina, from Sicilian museum collections. The paintings were shown in one of the largest Russian Museums - the State Tretyakov Gallery. As an exchange exhibition, the RF Ministry of Culture has sent to Albergo delle Povere in Palermo the exhibition "Russian Avant-garde".
The choice was not accidental. Russian Avant-garde art expositions of 1910s-1920s have achieved popularity all over the world. This is not surprising. The bright, festive, emotionally open art finds a living echo in the hearts of both specialists and the most unprepared spectators. This short historical period of time was densely packed with events, out of the ordinary from the artistic point of view, and has become an turning point in the path of art development, the beginning of a new era.
The accepted view is the the Avant-garde has grown on the denunciation of all traditions, the toppling of all authority. That is imprecise. One of the singularities of the Russian Avant-garde was the wide absorbing of different sources. As Natalia Goncharova has said: "All that which has been created before me is mine".
The French Cubism has served as one of these sources. The Italian Futurism with its dynamics and special techniques of showing motion has played an important role for the formation of the language of Russian Avant-garde.
Interpretation of this and other movements on Russian soil has given birth to a bright original style. Russia has come forward to the frontier of the new art, has become one of the leaders of the European Avant-garde art. However, the face of the Russian Avant-garde was defined by other, national, peculiarities, more than the European characteristics. The Avant-garde has taken a great deal in the old Russian and peasant art, it was consumed to no lesser degree by the national urban culture in the manner of the lubok and the shop signs.
Still the above mentioned have merely facilitated the appearance of the Russian Avant-garde phenomenon. The artists themselves with their various talents and individual visions were its main driving force. It was a boiling cauldron, where various different movements and directions were melting and reshaping themselves. Each new artistic achievement was immediately taken and transformed into personal creative style. Names such as Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin, Wassily Kandinsky, Aristarkh Lentulov, Marc Chagall, Robert Falk, Alexandr Rodchenko, Mikhail Larionov stand in the front lines of the Avant-garde art. The women line is just as spectacular: Natalia Goncharova, Olga Rosanova, Lubov Popova, Nadezhda Udaltzova, Alexandra Exter.
The exhibition organizers have done their best to represent all the Russian Avant-garde main movements, figurative and non-objective alike. For this purpose they have collected works from 12 museums and one private collection; it has so happened that these works have become dispersed in various cities large and small in the great Russia: Moscow, Kazan', Kirov, Krasnodar, Nizhniy Novgorod, Pskov, Samarra, Saratov...
Exhibition was organized by the State Exhibition Centre of Museum Pieces "Rosizo".
The information on this page was translated from the "Rosizo" announcement webpage (Russian).
Location and Contact Information:
Albergo delle Povere, Pallermo
Corso Calatafimi, 217 in Palermo (90129), Sicilia
Tel: +39 091422314 |
