Upon Request. The Russian Avant-Garde Collection of the Regional Museums. Part II

The Jewish Museum and the Encyclopedia of the Russian Avant-garde present the sequel of the major exhibition project curated by Andrey Sarabyanov; it is the unique collection from the regional museums of 17 cities: Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Vyatka, Ekaterinburg, Ivanovo, Kostroma, Krasnodar, Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Tagil, Omsk, Samara, Saratov, Smolensk, Tula, Cheboksary, Yaroslavl, and Yaransk.

This exposition is the follow-up of the first exhibition held at the Museum in spring 2016. It covers the period from 1917 to the beginning of the 1930s – a period when such artistic styles as Cezannism, Cubo-Futurism, Primitivism, which had appeared in the 1910s, were evolving and such new styles as Non-objectivity and Constructivism appeared.

The generation of young artists appeared on the Avant-garde scene; they had graduated from Higher Art and Technical Studios in Moscow and were schooled by the most influential maîtres, mainly, the representatives of the Jack of Diamonds. It was time when the students started to shape the future of new art. They all worked within figurative art and developed such new Avant-garde styles as Expressionism and Surrealism. In the meantime, the schools of the acknowledged masters of the non-objective Avant-garde were founded – Kazimir Malevich’s one in Vytebsk and Michael Matyushin’s one in Petrograg-Leningrad. Alexander Rodchenko also gathered a group of young representatives of Non-objectivity and emerging Constructivism.

For the second exhibition the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center selected more than 100 works of the acknowledged classics of the Avant-garde: Wassily Kandinsky, El Lissitzky, Michael Matyushin, Lubov Popova, Alexander Rodchenko, Pavel Filonov, and less known artists: Michael Menkov, Yakov Pain, Roman Semashkevitch, Lyudmila Shmidt-Ryzhova, Valentin Yustitsky and others.

The exhibition is based on the research materials of the three-volume Encyclopedia of the Russian Avant-garde.

Media partners:

The project is realized with support of M.S. Gutseriev, the businessman and founder of SAFMAR Charity Fund. 

As reference:
SAFMAR Charity Fund is among the largest noncommercial charity organizations of Russia. The founder of the fund is AO NK RussNeft which is headed by Mikhail Gutseriev, a famous Russian entrepreneur and art patron. SAFMAR Charity Fund is founded to realize socially important long lasting projects in the sphere of culture, art, education and spirituality development. The Fund program corresponds to the criteria of transparence, precision of strategy and consistency of realization. When carrying out its activities the Fund relies on the best traditions of the Russian practices in the sphere of benevolence. The Fund supports several large-scale good-will projects carried out together with many famous educational, scientific, museum and non-governmental organizations of Russia.