Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Art and Design Theses Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design Spring 5-2011 From Performer to Petrushka: A Decade of Alexandra Exter's Work in Theater and Film Laura A. Hunt Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/art_design_theses Part of the Art and Design Commons Recommended Citation Hunt, Laura A., "From Performer to Petrushka: A Decade of Alexandra Exter's Work in Theater and Film." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2011. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/art_design_theses/70 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Art and Design Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. FROM PERFORMER TO PETRUSHKA: A DECADE OF ALEXANDRA EXTER’S WORK IN THEATER AND FILM by LAURA HUNT Under the Direction of Dr. Maria Gindhart ABSTRACT The subject of my thesis is Russian artist Alexandra Exter’s work in the performing arts, with a focus on her theatrical set and costume designs in the Kamerny Theater, her creations for Iakov Protazanov’s 1924 science fiction film, Aelita , and finally her exquisitely fabricated set of approximately forty marionettes. Within these colorful wooden figures are reconciled conflicting notions of stasis and dynamism, sculpture and performer, human and object. Drawing upon Victor Shklovskiĭ’s formalist de- finition of “enstrangement,” I examine her introduction of the object in place of the human performer as a means of exposing the creative process, forcing the viewer to actively engage with the production.