sign in sign up
<<
Home , Aleksandra Ekster, Alexander Archipenko, Alexander Rodchenko, Aristarkh Lentulov, Ilya Mashkov, Ivan Kliun

Revolutionary! Russian Avant-Garde Art from the Vladimir Tsarenkov Collection

Edited by Ingrid Mössinger and Brigitta Milde

with contributions by Hubertus Gassner, Katharina Metz, Brigitta Milde and Ada Raev and biographies of individual artists by Hubertus Gassner, Ulrich Krempel, Verena Krieger, Brigitta Milde, Ingrid Mössinger, Ada Raev, Boris Raev and Jule Reuter

Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz Contents

Acknowledgements …… 5 Terk …… 82 Mikhail Fyodorovich Larionov …… 148 Nikolai Mikhailovich Suetin …… 216 ADA RAEV ADA RAEV JULE REUTER Preface …… 9 INGRID MÖSSINGER Olga Vyacheslavovna Eiges …… 88 Aristarkh Vasilevich Lentulov …… 154 Nadezhda Andreevna Udaltsova …… 222 Messages by the Russian Avant-Garde A. Svishchev ADA RAEV ADA RAEV Sent to the Future …… 16 BORIS RAEV ADA RAEV Vyacheslav Vyacheslavovich Levkievsky­ …… 158 …… 224 Boris Vladimirovich Ender …… 90 ADA RAEV ADA RAEV Vladimir Baranoff-Rossiné ADA RAEV In a Synaesthetic Rapture …… 29 …… 160 Alexander Alexandrovich Vesnin …… 228 HUBERTUS GASSNER Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Ekster …… 92 BRIGITTA MILDE VERENA KRIEGER HUBERTUS GASSNER “All is well that begins well and has not ended” Kazimir Severinovich Malevich …… 170 David Aronovich Yakerson …… 232 Aspects of the Reception Robert Rafailovich Falk …… 102 HUBERTUS GASSNER BORIS RAEV of the Russian Avant-Garde …… 34 HUBERTUS GASSNER BRIGITTA MILDE Pavel Andreevich Mansurov …… 182 Georgy Bogdanovich Yakulov …… 244 Soviet Russian Porcelain 1917 – 1930 ……. 272 Vladimir Georgievich Gelfreich …… 104 ULRICH KREMPEL HUBERTUS GASSNER KATHARINA METZ Vladimir Alexeevich Shchuko ADA RAEV, BORIS RAEV Ilya Ivanovich Mashkov …… 184 Vasyl Dmitrievich Yermylov …… 246 ULRICH KREMPEL ADA RAEV Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova …… 108 CATALOGUE ADA RAEV Mikhail Vasilevich Matyushin …… 188 Kirill Mikhailovich Zdanevich …… 250 JULE REUTER JULE REUTER | | Mixed Media | Graphics | Boris Dmitrievich Grigoriev …… 120 Models | Theatre and Poster Designs ULRICH KREMPEL Kuzma Sergeevich Petrov-Vodkin …… 192 ULRICH KREMPEL List of works …… 252 Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko …… 44 VIKTORIA WILHELMINE TIEDEKE …… 126 INGRID MÖSSINGER ULRICH KREMPEL Lyubov Sergeevna Popova …… 194 ADA RAEV Vladimir Davidovich Baranoff-Rossiné …… 48 David Nestorovich Kakabadse …… 130 CATALOGUE ADA RAEV JULE REUTER Ivan Albertovich Puni …… 200 VERENA KRIEGER Porcelain Alexander Konstantinovich Bogomasov …… 62 …… 132 ULRICH KREMPEL ADA RAEV Olga Vladimirovna Rosanova …… 204 List of works …… 290 VERENA KRIEGER KATHARINA METZ, LIANE SACHS David Davidovich Burliuk Ivan Vasilevich Kliun­ …… 136 Vladimir Davidovich Burliuk …… 66 HUBERTUS GASSNER Alexander Vasilevich Shevchenko …… 206 BRIGITTA MILDE JULE REUTER APPENDIX Gustav Gustavovich Klutsis …… 140 Ilya Grigorevich Chashnik …… 70 Artist biographies …… 370 JULE REUTER Solomonovich Shkolnik …… 208 JULE REUTER BORIS RAEV Literature …… 390 Pyotr Petrovich Konchalovsky …… 144 Glossary …… 409 Sergey Vasilevich Chekhonin …… 76 ADA RAEV Vladimir ­Augustovich Stenberg …… 210 Index of Persons …… 414 JULE REUTER JULE REUTER Author Biographies …… 420 Alexander Vasilevich Kuprin …… 146 Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Deineka …… 78 Colophon …… 422 JULE REUTER Varvara Fyodorovna Stepanova …… 214 HUBERTUS GASSNER ADA RAEV statements and manifestos (fig. 2). Their public pres- ADA RAEV Messages by the Russian Avant-Garde ence was promoted by membership in artistic groupings, with names pointing in many cases to Sent to the Future the credo of their members: Jack of Diamonds, the Union of Youth, UNOVIS, LEF, Four Arts etc.6 Before the Revolution , , , described them- selves and their comrades as futurists, as “left-wing” artists or, following , as “Budetlya- ne” (“citizens of the future”). After 1917 the emphatic future-orientation of Visual power from crisis consciousness Chagall, Sonia Delaunay Terk, , parts of the Russian art scene took on a well-nigh and belief in progress ­Marie Vassilieff, Boris Grigoriev and .2 state-supporting significance. Newly established Originally stemming from French military idiom educational institutions, in which the division be- The Russian Avant-garde still exerts great appeal to refer to the vanguard of the troop that first en- tween fine and applied arts was abolished, provid- today. Not long ago, an exhibition showing its rich counters the enemy, the term “Avant-garde” has ed a stage for the diverse activities of Avant-garde diversity prompted the claim that in effect, multiple been connected with art for nearly 200 years. It was artists, both male and female, including , Avant-gardes must be at work. Boris Groys, making Henri de Saint-Simon who first used it in this context research institutes such as INKhUK in and one of his usual provocative attacks, has gone so far in 1820. The forefather of utopian socialism raised GINKhUK in Petrograd/Leningrad, publishers, theatres as to interpret the Russian Avant-garde as a history the artist to a leading personality, advancing in front and firms etc. These were even given the opportunity of the sick.1 Art works of various kinds and genres of the scientist and the industrialist, the latter two to erect their own contemporary museums under from the first three decades of the 20th century in being both protagonists of the modern age. The their own supervision7, a cause of envy throughout and the early , as well as art hap- term anticipates the emphatic leading role that the whole of . Today the works of the Russian penings and verbal utterances, do indeed commu- ­numerous artists and whole groupings in various Avant-garde are the pride of important collections Fig. 1 nicate a lively sense of rebellion and optimism, of countries claimed for themselves in the 20th century, and museums all over the world.8 , design for a and sustained awakening (fig. 1). This is in the “Age of the Avant-garde”.3 The most radical artists, with Alexander Rod- newspaper kiosk with the motto also true of the works of those female and male art- The artists, male and female,4 of the ­Russian Avant-­ chenko, , El Lissitzky, Alexander “The future is our only goal”, 1919, ists of Russian, Ukrainian and Russian/Ukrainian garde, among them not a few artist couples5, prac- Vesnin and leading the way, saw watercolor, ink, drawing pen and Jewish origin, who for various reasons worked tised in the aesthetic field with an enormous sense themselves as Constructivists and production artists sponge on paper, 51.5 × 34.5 cm, abroad in the long term, such as Wassily Kandinsky, of mission. An echo of this can be found in the in- (fig. 3 and 4). Here they followed the maxims of the- Private Collections Museum at Alexej von Jawlensky, , Marc numerable self-portraits, happenings, theoretical oreticians such as Ossip Brik, who considered the the of Fine Arts, art of the future to be proletarian and proclaimed Moscow the path from “I” to the “collective”. Others, such as the somewhat younger Aleksandr Deineka, contin- ued to paint but took up contemporary themes.

Fig. 3 Fig. 2 Varvara Stepanova, caricature of Double spread from the manifesto Alexander Rodchenko, 1922, ink on paper, “Why We Paint” by Mikhail Larionov 23.5 × 18 cm, private collection and Ilya Zdanevich from the ­newspaper Argus, with photos by Fig. 4 Mikhail Le Dantu, Mikhail Larionov, Varvara Stepanova, self-caricature, Natalia Goncharova and Ilya 1922, ink on paper, Zdanevich, Christmas number, 1913 23.5 × 17.5 cm, private collection

16 17 Fig. 5 Fig. 7 a “Comprehensive Exhibition of the “First Russian Art Exhibition” at ­Results of the Capitalist Epoch” Galerie van Diemen, 1922; in Moscow’s , left to right: David Sterenberg, ­November 1931 to February 1932, D. Marianov (in charge of promotion), with works by Wassily Kandinsky, , and Alexander Rodchenko, Kazimir Friedrich A. Lutz ­Malevich and and the wall slogan “Bourgeois art in the cul-de-sac. Formalism and self-denial”

tionally carried considerable weight in a land where, “There is nothing more awful in the world than an With his pictures of young, muscular men partici- The disbanding of the many competing artist on the one hand, the modern press was still greatly artist’s immutable face, by which his friends and old pating in team sports and greatly exerting them- groupings and the accusation of formalism, which restricted and, on the other, the picture in combina- buyers recognise him at exhibitions – this accursed selves (cat. 25 and 26; Football and Baseball), Deineka was repeated like a mantra, however, sealed the end tion with orthodox rites had been held in awe for mask that shuts off his view of the future (…).”13 created the incarnation of the New Man. The pub- of the Avant-garde in what had become the Stalin- centuries. Both contemporary art and icon painting lication of these images in newspapers and maga- ist Soviet Union by 1932 at the latest. (fig. 5). In the were closely tied up with the social discourse about She was not the only one to set about getting rid zines reached a mass public. following years the canon of “Socialist ” was the national identity of Russia. In the Avant-garde of this mask and aiming for constant artistic self-re- established. For many artists of the Russian context the canonical formal stringency and the definition. Russian Avant-garde artists took impuls- Avant-garde this shift had many adverse effects on luminosity of the colours of rediscovered and re- es from Russian popular culture to begin with, their creativity, disrupting their biographies and of- stored early icons, along with the divinely-orientat- which they brought up to date and redefined with Fig. 6 ten precipitating withdrawal, self-abnegation or ed pictorial concept of a traditional icon, took on a playful delight and often an ironic twist. They Natalia Goncharova, Saint George, even physical destruction.9 new and far-reaching relevance (fig. 6)11. aimed to overcome the symptoms of alienation sheet one from the portfolio The development of the Russian Avant-garde inherent in established art trends by going back to Mystical Pictures of the War, 1914, Vital down-to-earthness and can be described as an interaction between the the origins of artistic creativity and generating an lithograph, image: 31.4 × 23 cm; radical innovation traditional Russian and western European trajecto- art of the future beyond all bourgeois conventions. sheet: 32.2 × 24.8 cm, Moscow 1914 ries. Given the continuing popularity of Slavophile In the course of these efforts towards renewal, the In order to understand the dynamism and charisma ideas this duality was perceived as a polarity in axiomatic commitment to the representational in of the Russian Avant-garde it is important to bear in broad circles of Russian society. World-changing art was challenged under the influence of French mind the initial conditions of its genesis. Russian art competencies were ascribed to art in Russia in view Postimpressionism, and . Paths first began to follow western European models at of art-philosophical concepts such as the aesthet- towards formal autonomy were explored before the time of Peter I, albeit with temporal discontinu- ics of world change according to Vladimir Solovyov these artists became politically active in the service ities and shifts in subject matter. Contemporary fine or the Sobornost utopia of Vyacheslav Ivanov. of the new society. art made a substantial contribution to the modern- Terms such as “life-creating” or “life-building” were The German public learnt about what had hap- isation of the , spanning the epochs used.12 After the Revolution technology and effi- pened in the arts in the years before the Russian alongside and in dialogue with literature. At the ciency, which were equated with Americanism, Revolution from Konstantin Umansky’s book, Die same time, the traditional art of icon painting con- gained in importance. neue Kunst in Rußland 1914 – 1919 (The New Art in tinued, even after the reforms of Alexander II, as the Olga Rosanova, who made a name for herself as Russia), which was published in Potsdam in 1920. tempo of development in economy, society and art a painter and experiment-loving book designer, Two years later original works by the Russian in Russia gathered speed.10 Visual messages tradi- wrote in a manifesto in 1913: Avant-garde could be seen at the “First Russian Art

18 19 Fig. 7 b Dynamic synchronicity Fig. 8 Catalogue of the “First Russian of the asynchronous Aleksandra Ekster in front of Art Exhibition”, 1922, ­’s pictures cover design by El Lissitzky In the two decades before and after the October at the “First Futurist Exhibition Revolution art in Russia, as in other countries, was ‘Tramway V’” in Petrograd, 1915 marked by a “synchronicity of the asynchronous” and was sustained by a variety of protagonists.17 The had close links with the Court and remained a powerful institution to the end of the tsardom, but its influence crumbled steadily away due to its conservatism, even after the reform of 1893.18 Other educational establishments too, including the Moscow School of Painting, Sculp- ture and Architecture, permitted at best a moderate . The same is true of the strong Associa- tion for Travelling Exhibitions as representing the interests of Realism, promoting the World of Art as a union that praised the spirit of the stylistically-dis- guised cult of the past, and the Union of Russian Artists that saw itself as a collecting point for various artistic directions. The Russian Avant-garde formed in Kiev, Moscow and outside the state institutions as a force in opposition to everything established. Private art schools enjoyed a large influx of students and the exhibition landscape profited from private patronage. Thus, the first exhibition of the group Exhibition” at the Berlin Galerie van Diemen in 1922. Jack of Diamonds, for example, was financed by the At this time it was already clear that, in essence, the businessman Sergey A. Lobachev, who was por- Russian Avant-garde drew on a combination of aes- trayed by (cat. 76). Other bet- thetic innovations and visions, on the one hand, and ter-known organisers of Avant-garde exhibitions political, even utopian aims, on the other. 14 The left- were Nadezhda Dobychina or Vladimir Izdebsky. wing critic Adolf Behne enthused: Only recently has awareness grown that the Russian Avant-garde was significantly influenced by people “The image is an aesthetic matter; whereas what the and aesthetic resources from the provinces, namely, radical artists of all nations want is to directly shape the and Belarus, and had reverberations reality itself (the call it production art), and there.19 it was this new goal, stubbornly warded off by Ger- The fact of diversity, including multiple cross-­ man “art friends”– no had yet exhibited the references, is widely applicable: to artist groups, to German Constructivists – to which Soviet Russia the oeuvre of individual artists and even to single gave free rein and which it first made possible.”15 works. There was common ground in understand- ing of art and even double membership between Today we know that most of the Avant-garde art the Moscow Jacks of Diamonds – Mikhail Larionov, shown at the exhibition, which had come about in Natalia Goncharova, and Aristarkh worthy of being counted as art and were in the pro- of representation within a very short space of time, the context of the Treaty of Rapallo and later trav- Lentulov – who opted for a combination of “Cézan- cess of disappearing in the wake of industrialisation or even adopted different stylistic systems in paral- elled to Amsterdam, was shown for political reasons nism” and modern “Barbarism” and the Union of and urbanisation: shop signs, clay toys, ginger-bread lel. They rejected the current models of develop- – modern Soviet Russia intended to win over the Youth20, to which , Joseph Shkol- moulds, popular woodcuts, metal trays painted ment and progress: West with abstract and Constructivist works, includ- nik, Vladimir Markov, and Kazimir with huge flowers, daubed railings and much more. ing a lot of agitation porcelain. According to the Malevich belonged. Neither the reception of mod- Lubok inspired an exaggerated ironical idiom, de- “We declare that there has never been such a thing organisers, the exhibition in Berlin attracted about ern French painting nor the ideas of the Italian liberately kept rough and disparate, that could be as a copy and recommend painting from pictures 15,000 visitors.16 ­Futurists prevented the take-up of impulses from described as Neoprimitive.21 painted before the present day. We maintain that the vibrant Lubok idiom. This term designates a In keeping with the generally accelerated pace art cannot be examined from the point of view of range of objects that hitherto had not been deemed of trends, Avant-garde artists altered their manner time.”22

20 21 Catalogue Painting Sculpture Mixed Media Graphics Models Theatre and Poster Designs Vladimir Davidovich Baranoff-RossinéВладимир Давидович ­ Баранов-Россинэ

Vladimir Baranoff-Rossiné was born in what is now position and colour scheme. In consequence, he the Ukraine and began his studies in 1902 at the grappled with Cubism, accepted influences from Art School. The artistic freedom that held Fauvism and and finally became engaged sway at the school must have been welcome to this with the of and Sonia Russian, who until then had spent most of his life bus- Delaunay Terk. All these painterly systems were ily trying out new things. Perhaps it was the opera non-mimetic representational methods, tending in Odessa that awakened his love of music and was more towards autonomy. the reason for his later interest in the phenomenon Rhythm is essentially about movement, whatever of synaesthesia. In 1908 he transferred to the Rus- the artistic genre or stylistic means. Baranoff-Ross- sian Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg and also iné discovered movement in landscapes and still took part in exhibitions in Moscow, Saint lifes, but preferably in works with moving figures. Petersburg and Kiev. In 1910 he moved to , like These last are often at the centre of the universe, many of his countrymen, where he lived in the whether on their own or interacting with others. His famous artist colony in the 15th arrondisse- conception of movement and rhythm was very ment and later also frequented the sophisticated broad, as can be seen in his and colourful salon of Baroness von Oettingen. In order to facili- that are liberated from their mass. The his integration into the Paris art scene from 1912 scope of his work ranges from the depiction of he at first signed his works as Daniel Rossiné. rhythmic work processes, to strongly abstract ren- A charge of eclecticism is often attached to any derings of dancing couples constructed out of met- appraisal of the art of Vladimir Baranoff-Rossiné. Put al and wood, through musicians and naked dancers positively, one can interpret his many-sidedness as in a frenzy of coloured and planar rhythms to inter- receptiveness to various artistic influences. He in- twined and interlocked bodies being dragged off corporated impulses from Postimpressionism and in an apocalyptic maelstrom of coloured circles.1 Avant-garde painting into his oeuvre without reject- ing the grand themes of older art and also addressed technological innovations. His belief that musical ADA RAEV

1 Extract from “Die Rhythmi­ and painterly regularities and structures are con- sierung des Raumes. Vladimir nected – a conviction shared with Wassily Kandinsky Baranov-­Rossiné. Werke and – culminated in his inven- 1911 – 1917”, in: Hamburg 2009, tion of his Optophonic Piano. It was the imbuing of pp. 251 – 255. Reprint with space with rhythm that fascinated him across all the friendly ­permission of boundaries of “isms” – it was the focus of his atten- Self-portrait · 1915

­Hamburger Kunsthalle. tion in painting and sculpture in terms of both com- CAT 11 Автопортрет

48 49 Vladimir Davidovich Baranoff-Rossiné

Nude · ca. 1915 Motherhood · 1910 CAT CAT 12 Обнаженная 3 Материнство

51