VOYAGE
“On Demand” at the Jewish Museum and tolerance center
V. V. Kandinsky. Musical Overture. Purple wedge.
The first large-scale exhibition project of the Avant-garde Center, curated by Andrew Sarabyanova is a unique collection of avant-garde art from the collections of regional museums from 19 cities: Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Yelets, Ivanovo, Kirov, Kozmodemyansk, Kostroma, Krasnodar, Nizhny Novgorod, Omsk, Rostov, Samara, Saratov, Slobodsky, Totma, Tula, Ufa, Cheboksary, Yaroslavl. Important role in the formation of avant-garde collections in regional museums has played a pioneering project IZO the Department of people’s Commissariat for education on the formation of the “museums of artistic culture”. It was initiated in 1918 by Vasily Kandinsky and continued by Alexander Rodchenko. For the first time in world practice came the idea of establishing a Museum of contemporary art. For this purpose a special Commission for several years bought the work of avant-garde artists and distributed them in those cities, where they were art schools. From 1918 to 1920 it was bought 1926 from 415, 1211 of them were distributed to 30 museums of Russia. The plan of the IZO department of the people’s Commissariat for education was consonant with the utopian ideas of the early revolutionary years and, like many initiatives of that time, was soon rejected. However, the result was a unique collection of avant-garde in many Russian museums. For the exhibition at the Jewish Museum were selected more than 100 works recognized as classics of the avant-garde: Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, Mikhail Larionov, Natalya Goncharova, Lyubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Marc Chagall, and some not quite so famous artists – Victor Barta, Alexei Grishchenko, Moses Kogan, Alexei Morgunov, Savelia Shleifer. Some of the paintings were specially restored for the exhibition.
“On Demand” until June 10, the Jewish Museum and tolerance center, Moscow, Obraztsova str., 12A
Text: Elena Panteleeva
