The exhibition is not open yet, but here’s a preview for those who want to know what the exhibition is about. Anyone interested in the society part of the preview this evening may be advised to visit the FB pages of Nic Iljine. Here I will quickly take you through the rooms. Please follow me.
Room I. POST-REVOLUTIONARY FERVOUR IN VITEBSK
Upon entering the exhibition we see Chagall celebrating his marriage and the Revolution. A strange combination indeed. He paints himself flying over Vitebsk with his wife Bella, and he designs banners for the celebration of the first anniversary of the Revolution. “Вперёд, вперёд, без остановки !’ is the slogan on one of the banners depicting a man who makes a giant leap for mankind: “Forward, forward, without stops !” There is a small film fragment of these celebrations on which you can see some of the Chagall banners above the crowds on the main street of Vitebsk.
Room II. THE PEOPLE’S ART SCHOOL
Education, also art education, was very important for the early Soviet government. It was seen as a means to enlighten the proletariat. As a Fine Arts Commissioner, Chagall wanted to establish an art school for everyone. In a few years, a whole generation of proletarian artists would be ready to take on new artistic tasks in a new society. Chagall invited a wide range of colleagues to teach at the school in order to provide a broad education in the visual arts. In this room we see works by some of the teachers, e.g. Mstislav Dobuzhinsky Ivan Puni, Robert Falk, Yuri Pen, Chagall’s former teacher, and the sculptor David Yakerson.
Room III. LEFTIST ART ACCORDING TO CHAGALL
The Soviet authorities in Vitebsk did not understand anything of the works by Chagall. They asked questions such as: “Why is the goat green? And why is this person flying?.” This dreamy imagery certainly did not match the expectations the authorities had of propaganda. At the same time, Chagall had another artistic battle to fight. As an individualist, Chagall did not like the collective way of working that Lissitzky and Malevich propagated, and moreover, Chagall’s art was deeply rooted into figuration. In this room, you see him struggling with the abstract forms that Malevich introduced in the People’s Art School.
Room IV. NEW SYSTEMS IN ART: LISSITZKY AND MALEVICH
The Soviet authorities in Vitebsk did not understand anything of the works by Chagall. They asked questions such as: “Why is the goat green? And why is this person flying?.” This dreamy imagery certainly did not match the expectations the authorities had of propaganda. At the same time, Chagall had another artistic battle to fight. As an individualist, Chagall did not like the collective way of working that Lissitzky and Malevich propagated, and moreover, Chagall’s art was deeply rooted into figuration. In this room, you see him struggling with the abstract forms that Malevich introduced in the People’s Art School.
Room V. A COLLECTIVE UTOPIA
UNOVIS was the name of the artistic collective that Malevich and Lissitzky formed in Vitebsk. It means «champions of new art». Working as a group and mostly anonymous, they made posters, reviews, banners, shop signs and ration cards, created decors for popular festivities and stage shows in the city of Vitebsk, they decorated the tramways, built speakers’ rostrums and painted all kinds of motifs on house façades. In June 1920, Chagall left Vitebsk and UNOVIS took over the school. The collective established branches in Smolensk, Orenburg and Moscow. This room shows some of the UNOVIS works, e.g. by NIkolai Suetin, Vera Ermolaeva and Lazar Khidekel. When Eisenstein visited Vitebsk, he was impressed by the city decorations.
Room VI. AN ART COLLECTION AS MODEL
The Soviet government helped Chagall to realize another dream in his native city, namely to create a museum of contemporary art in the People’s Art School. A permanent collection would be of use for art education, as well as for the general public. As a first step towards this museum, Chagall staged the «First State Exhibition of Local and Muscovite painters» in the school in December 1919. In this room you see some of the works that were in this exhibition and that were later included in the museum of the school: works by Pen, Larionov, Goncharova, Kandinsky, Shterenberg, Rozanova and Malevich.
Room VII. AFTER VITEBSK
The three protagonists of this exhibition each went different ways after their teaching period in Vitebsk. Chagall was the first to leave. He went to Moscow to work on the decorations of the Jewish Theatre and soon afterward left for France. Lissitzky also went to Moscow, to work with the Constructivists as a representative of UNOVIS. In 1921 he would start traveling to Germany and other European countries. And Malevich left for Petrograd with many of his students in 1922. As an epilogue, this room shows some of the Moscow sketches of Chagall, the architectons that Malevich made in Petrograd and the Proun room that Lissitzky made for the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung in 1923. It is in this Proun room, that the germ for my next exhibition lies…
That’s it for now. I could not take the right photos this evening. It was too crowded. One more reason why you should come and see the exhibition.
And for those of you who want to do some shopping…
