“The Russian Revolution in Art—3”

The more examples there are of early 20th-century Russian avant-garde art hanging in one place, the better it all looks. This group show of work from 1914 to 1925 includes familiar names from the pioneering generation (Alexandra Exter, Kasimir Malevich, Liubov Popova), a few of their younger colleagues (El Lissitzky and Alexander Rodchenko), and others who have become best known for their relationships with Malevich (Vassily Ermilov and Ivan Kliun, who reflected Malevich’s influence at different stages of their own careers, and a few of his more orthodox Suprematist followers among the Unovis group—Nikolai Suetin, Ilya Chashnik.)

The kinds of esthetic, formalist investigation, that were of concern to this group—involving relational studies of colors, lines, and planes, in addition to practical design-related problems, including book design and theater work—can be gleaned from the 26 examples on view. The show also included a videotape of the California Institute of the Arts production of the Malevich-designed opera, Victory Over the Sun, written by the Russian Futurist poet Alexei Kruchenykh. The majority are small works on paper, executed in various media, including gouache, watercolor, pencil, and ink. Among them are Popova’s dynamic color constructions and Malevich’s simple pencil sketches, which are representative of his development from Suprematism to a mystical expressionism. Two works by Rodchenko— a gouache on cardboard (1915) and another on paper (1917)—exemplify his early, pre-Constructivist-Productivist career. One of the few oils on canvas is a 1925 Purist-related still life by Kliun; indicative of the high degree of Russian interest in Western developments throughout this period. The knock-out in the show is the pair of three-dimensional figure-costume constructions by Alexandra Exter. It is probable that they were once used as models in the courses that Exter taught in stage and costume design in Russia and then in Paris. She was the first to create and to teach a truly Modernist style of constructed theatrical design, one which successfully integrated both visual and dramatic elements into a dynamic whole. Exter conceived of costume as a kind of three-dimensional living sculpture, moving through space, and she applied the abstract qualities of the designs—i.e., silhouette, planar distortions, color and textural relationships, etc.—emotively towards revealing that character. These two constructions are superbly illustrated.

—Ronny H. Cohen