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The Russian Avant-Garde 1912-1930" Has Been Directedby Magdalenadabrowski, Curatorial Assistant in the Departmentof Drawings

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The Russian Avant-Garde 1912-1930 Trustees of The Museum of Modern Art leV'' ST,?' T Chairm<ln ,he Boord;Ga,dner Cowles ViceChairman;David Rockefeller,Vice Chairman;Mrs. John D, Rockefeller3rd, President;Mrs. Bliss 'Ce!e,Slder";''i ITTT V P NealJ Farrel1Tfeasure Mrs. DouglasAuchincloss, Edward $''""'S-'ev C Burdl Tn ! u o J M ArmandP Bar,osGordonBunshaft Shi,| C. Burden,William A. M. Burden,Thomas S. Carroll,Frank T. Cary,Ivan Chermayeff, ai WniinT S S '* Gianlui Gabeltl,Paul Gottlieb, George Heard Hdmilton, Wal.aceK. Harrison, Mrs.Walter Hochschild,» Mrs. John R. Jakobson PhilipJohnson mM'S FrankY Larkin,Ronalds. Lauder,John L. Loeb,Ranald H. Macdanald,*Dondd B. Marron,Mrs. G. MaccullochMiller/ J. Irwin Miller/ S.I. Newhouse,Jr., RichardE Oldenburg,John ParkinsonIII, PeterG. Peterson,Gifford Phillips, Nelson A. Rockefeller* Mrs.Albrecht Saalfield, Mrs. Wolfgang Schoenborn/ MartinE. Segal,Mrs Bertram Smith,James Thrall Soby/ Mrs.Alfred R. Stern,Mrs. Donald B. Straus,Walter N um'dWard'9'* WhlTlWheeler/ Johni hTO Hay Whitney*u M M Warbur Mrs CliftonR. Wharton,Jr., Monroe * HonoraryTrustee Ex Officio 0'0'he "ri$°n' Ctty ot^New^or^ °' ' ^ °' "** H< J Goldin Comptrollerat the Copyright© 1978 by TheMuseum of ModernArt All rightsreserved ISBN0-87070-545-8 TheMuseum of ModernArt 11West 53 Street,New York, N.Y 10019 Printedin the UnitedStates of America Foreword Asa resultof the pioneeringinterest of its first Director,Alfred H. Barr,Jr., TheMuseum of ModernArt acquireda substantialand uniquecollection of paintings,sculpture, drawings,and printsthat illustratecrucial points in the Russianartistic evolution during the secondand third decadesof this century.These holdings have been considerably augmentedduring the pastfew years,most recently by TheLauder Foundation's gift of two watercolorsby VladimirTatlin, the only examplesof his work held in a public collectionin the West. Althoughthe surveyfeatures drawings and prints,selections from otherof the Museum'sdepartmental collections are also included.These other departmental collectionsare: Paintingand Sculpture;Architecture and Design;Photography; and Film. Theexhibition "Revolution: The Russian Avant-Garde 1912-1930" has been directedby MagdalenaDabrowski, Curatorial Assistant in the Departmentof Drawings. William S. Lieberman Director,Department of Drawings Tallin.S tudyfor a Counter-Relief1914. Giftof theLauder Foundation REVOLUTION:The RussianAvant-Garde 1912-1930 In Russiaduring the first third of the twentiethcentury, there emerged an avant-garde that produceda body of work now regardedas one of the mostsignificant developments in world art of the period.In the socialand culturalclimate fostered by the recent industrializationof Russia,new artisticmovements sprang up and fadedwithin an extraordinarilycompressed span of time. Thepictorial revolution they broughtabout was of internationalconsequence, even though it originatedin a countryisolated by World War I and then by the OctoberRevolution of 1917. Theworks in the presentexhibition provide an overviewof Russianavant-garde developmentsfrom 1912through 1930, the periodof the mostcrucial changes in artisticcredos. It was a periodof transitionfrom figurativeto abstractpainting, followed by an evolutionfrom planar,two-dimensional composition to three-dimensional construction,the distributionof volumesin space.The search for new meansof artistic expressioncompatible with modernreality precipitated a varietyof experimentswith color, line, texture,and materialsand generatedthe "isms" now emblematicof the period.These were: Neo-Primitivism, Rayonism, Cubo-Futurism, Suprematism, and Constructivism.Neo-Primitivism, the first of thesemodernist movements, eventually formedthe "native" basisfor developmentof otheravant-garde trends. Created by Larionovand Gontcharovaaround 1908, and also practicedby Malevichin the early stagesof his career,it soughtto revitalizeart by turningto the nationalheritage. Folk art, especiallywoodcuts (lubok) but also the Russianicon, signboardpainting, and children'sdrawings, became an importantinfluence in evolvingan idiom characterized by largecolor areas,often contoured with thick black linesand organizedinto planar compositionsthat rejectedthe principlesof Renaissanceone-point perspective. This idiom evolvedas the expressionof the artists'dual attitudetoward contemporary aestheticcriteria - a contemptfor Westerntraditions, along with a near-reverencefor the art of Cezanne,van Gogh,and Gauguinand his school. By 1912 Neo-Primitivismin effecthad run its course,but its lastvestiges can be seenhere in Gontcharova's1915 drawingsfor the decorof fhe never-realized experimentalproduction Liturgy, intended for SergeiDiaghilev's Ballets Russes, and her 1914 lithographsof the MysticalImages of War. Neo-Primitivismwas a catalyzingfactor for Russianart, muchas was the Japanese printfor FrenchSymbolism or primitivesculpture for Cubism.It broughtto the forethe meaningof a work of art seennot as an illusionof reality,but as an independententity. It rejectedverisimilitude and openedup the way for investigationsinto the intrinsic elementsof painting- color,form, and fexture- and thenceinto the nonobjectiveworld. Theseinvestigations led to an upturnin art criticism(in quantityas well as quality) and to a proliferationof new radicalartistic groupings. Theearliest stages on the way to nonobjectivecreation are representedhere by a Rayonisfwatercolor of Larionov,Composition #8 (1912), and severalCubo-Futurist works:Malevich's print SimultaneousDeath of a Manin an Airplaneand a Train (1913) and his oil paintingPrivate of the FirstDivision (1914), and Bogomazov's drawingWoman Reading (1915). Rayonismand Cubo-Fufurism,movements that coexistedduring 1912-14, incorporatedthe influencesof FrenchCubism and Italian Futurism.These were known firsthand in Russiathrough exhibitions and throughworks includedin the two famouscollections of modernart in Moscow,those of Morosovand 6 Shchukin Cubismand Futurismwere also presentedin art magazinesthat coveredthe latestdevelopments in Westernart. TheCubo-Futurists combined Cubist fragmentation of form with the Futuristinterest in the movement,light, and energyof modernurban civilization.Rayonism in additionprofited from the discoveriesof Delaunay'sOrphism- it concerneditself not with the representationof objects,but with capturing,in a surface patternof intersectingcolor lines,the spatialrelations of the light raysreflected from objects.Cubo-Futurism also exploredthe Cubist-originatedtechniques of collageand anticipateda Dadoelement - applyingready-made objects, such as the thermometerin MalevichsPrivate of the FirstDivision, to the surfaceof a work. Thesearch for newvalues and new solutionsin the visual arts was paralleledby a questin literatureleading to a linguisticrevolution. Just as the artistsstressed the importanceof the work of art as a self-referentialentity, regardless of its narrative content,so the Futuristpoets Velimir Khlebnikov, Aleksander Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovski,and othersextolled the importanceof the word not for its meaning,but or its sound.Kruchenykh's creation of "zaum"-a transmentallanguage based on the word emptiedof its sense- was theirformal equivalentof the Cubo-Futurist fragmentationof form and incorporationof the elementof speed.This affinity between the two disciplinestook on tangibleform, especiallyduring 1912-14, in illustrated booksproduced in collaboration.A numberof thesebooks are includedin the present exhibition. Russianenthusiasm for Futuristideas ran high, and the Italianprophet of Futurism, HlippoTommaso Marinetti, was invitedto visit Moscowand St. Petersburg.A document of that trip, which took placein January 1914,is shownhere: a portraitof Marinetti doneby NikolaiKulbin, a military doctorfrom St. Petersburgwho had embracedthe causeof modernismand had himselfbecome a painterand art theoretician. A furtherstep in the questfor purepainting" was markedby Malevich's Suprematism,which madeits first public appearancein December1915 at the "Last FuturistExhibition of Pictures,0.10," organizedby the artistIvan Puniin Petersburgas one in a seriesof Futuristshows, all carryingeccentric titles. Themain goal of Suprematismwas to achievethe spiritualquality in painting throughthe manipulationof basicgeometric forms of pureprimary colors set in unstructured,neutral space. The fundamental formal elementsof Suprematismwere the square,the rectangle,the triangle,and the circle,as exemplifiedin the Malevich drawingsincluded in the presentexhibition. Simultaneously, the searchfor the spiritual m art was pursuedby WassilyKandinsky, who at the outbreakof WorldWar I returned er,T.any-y' /°!T ? t0 hlSnative country Formal| however,his stylewas in directopposition o that ot Maievich;if madeuse of soft, amorphousforms loosely organized into an overallcomposition, as demonstrateshis Untitledof 1915-a yearduring which he concentratedon watercolorsand drawingsand did not executea singleoil painting.The compositionof his laterworks, those done after his departurefrom the SovietUnion in 1921(e.g., BlackRelationship, 1924, in the exhibition),reveals that contemporary geometrism,probably that of Malevichabove all, did exertan influenceon Kandinsky's development.The "hard edge"forms and their morerigid organizationsuggest a debtto Suprematism. Theyear 1915 markedan importantpoint in the developmentsin art precedingthe RussianRevolution. The "0.10" exhibition,besides presenting Malevich's Suprematism, madeapparent the emergenceof a second,opposite tendency within the avant-garde: the explorationof volume.Here for the
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