Artist of the Soviet Union are often stamped as a state artist. Wrongly, Nicolas Liucci-Goutnikov. He has curated an exhibition at the Grand Palais, which shows that Good art there is in every era.
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Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin: “Fantasy” (1925)
Of the October revolution in 1917 until Stalin’s death in 1953 – this time, the Show is devoted to “Red. Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets” in the Grand Palais. It illustrates the change from a free and diverse art under the Bolsheviks, to a state-instrumentalised under Stalin. This avant-garde work of Petrov-Vodkin impresses with its Red-and-Blue-contrast.
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Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets
Isaak Brodski: “The coffin of the leader” (1925)
The same year, but a completely different topic: The scene shows the departure from a Bolshevik leader Lenin in the column hall of the unions. Brodskis work illustrates the wide range of styles and themes in art throughout the 1920s, in which neither an aesthetic Dogma, nor is it a compulsion to Propaganda prevailed…
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Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets
New forms of theatre
However, the Revolutionaries were in favour of a move away from “bourgeois art”. In this sense, the circulation of the theatre by Vsevolod Meyer is expected to hold the image shows to have been his production of Sergei-Eisenstein-piece “gas mask” from 1923 -. So Meyerhold’s motto: “a Lot of light, good size, plenty of infectious enthusiasm and participation of the audience.”
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Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets
Alexander Samochwalow: “The mobilized Komsomol” (1932)
With the seizure of power by Josef Stalin in 1927, the claims of the art has changed: you should now be in the abstract or constructivist, but in the ideal socialist society. The bandwidth of the Shown ranges during the 1930s, the workers, the soldiers and the young people, members of the Komsomol (image) to the leader himself, Josef Stalin.
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Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets
“USSR in construction” (1935)
Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova were Stalin with this graphics for the large-format magazine “USSR in construction”. It’s Rodchenko’s Art is to deal with the changed political circumstances, after he had created during the 1920s, especially avant-garde works. Striking at him: unusual perspectives, as well as in this work.
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Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets
Alexander Kursk Deineka picture: “Lenin’s excursion with the children” (1938)
The changes in Deinekas art from the 1920s up to the 1940s are striking. His Works range from the constructivist to the American realism-influenced Works during the Stalin Era. Only the topics have remained the same: they move between proletarian labour, the heroic events of war, and ideally, isolated cult of the Body.
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Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets
Alexander Kursk Deineka Picture: “Complete Freedom” (1944)
With the idealized presentation of a healthy and athletic body in the art of the socialist utopia of a new people was met. Workers, soldiers, farmers, athletes – they all were for the Communist leadership, heroes of the proletarian mass. Kursk Deineka picture put many of them in the scene, which is why he is considered one of the main representatives of Socialist realism in the Soviet Union.
-
Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin: “Fantasy” (1925)
Of the October revolution in 1917 until Stalin’s death in 1953 – this time, the Show is devoted to “Red. Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets” in the Grand Palais. It illustrates the change from a free and diverse art under the Bolsheviks, to a state-instrumentalised under Stalin. This avant-garde work of Petrov-Vodkin impresses with its Red-and-Blue-contrast.
-
Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets
Isaak Brodski: “The coffin of the leader” (1925)
The same year, but a completely different topic: The scene shows the departure from a Bolshevik leader Lenin in the column hall of the unions. Brodskis work illustrates the wide range of styles and themes in art throughout the 1920s, in which neither an aesthetic Dogma, nor is it a compulsion to Propaganda prevailed…
-
Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets
New forms of theatre
However, the Revolutionaries were in favour of a move away from “bourgeois art”. In this sense, the circulation of the theatre by Vsevolod Meyer is expected to hold the image shows to have been his production of Sergei-Eisenstein-piece “gas mask” from 1923 -. So Meyerhold’s motto: “a Lot of light, good size, plenty of infectious enthusiasm and participation of the audience.”
-
Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets
Alexander Samochwalow: “The mobilized Komsomol” (1932)
With the seizure of power by Josef Stalin in 1927, the claims of the art has changed: you should now be in the abstract or constructivist, but in the ideal socialist society. The bandwidth of the Shown ranges during the 1930s, the workers, the soldiers and the young people, members of the Komsomol (image) to the leader himself, Josef Stalin.
-
Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets
“USSR in construction” (1935)
Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova were Stalin with this graphics for the large-format magazine “USSR in construction”. It’s Rodchenko’s Art is to deal with the changed political circumstances, after he had created during the 1920s, especially avant-garde works. Striking at him: unusual perspectives, as well as in this work.
-
Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets
Alexander Kursk Deineka picture: “Lenin’s excursion with the children” (1938)
The changes in Deinekas art from the 1920s up to the 1940s are striking. His Works range from the constructivist to the American realism-influenced Works during the Stalin Era. Only the topics have remained the same: they move between proletarian labour, the heroic events of war, and ideally, isolated cult of the Body.
-
Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets
Alexander Kursk Deineka Picture: “Complete Freedom” (1944)
With the idealized presentation of a healthy and athletic body in the art of the socialist utopia of a new people was met. Workers, soldiers, farmers, athletes – they all were for the Communist leadership, heroes of the proletarian mass. Kursk Deineka picture put many of them in the scene, which is why he is considered one of the main representatives of Socialist realism in the Soviet Union.
Deutsche Welle: The color Red is irrevocably associated with communism. And also part of your exhibition’s title, “Red. Art and utopia in the Land of the Soviets”…
Nicolas Liucci-Goutnikov: Red is a metaphor for me. I wanted to make not a historical exhibition about art in the Soviet Union, but food for thought about the fate of political art. How have artists reacted to the Communist idea? And how this has, in turn, generates a new, specific forms, like in other countries?
They lead the visitors through the Russian avant-garde, modern and abstract art, the Socialist realism, the supposed figure of reality. How do they fit together?
This is not an either or, but rather a Transition from one utopia to another. We start with the constructivists of the 1920s, and the utopian fusion of art and life. It continues with the 1930s and the dreamed utopia of Socialist realism. As a visitor, one moves chronologically from a time a variety of art forms section to the next, learns, initially, as a response to the upheavals in the 1920s, and then the unification of art in the 1930s. Here there is also a link: artists such as Alexander Kursk Deineka picture turned to the radical constructivist approaches again to figurative painting, which was in the Socialist realism predominant. In the second part of the exhibition, you will encounter avant-garde artists like Rodchenko and the arts under Stalin.
The curator with Russian roots, Nicolas Liucci-Goutnikov
Artists of Socialist realism are often dismissed with the stamp of “state artist”. Wrong?
In Western Europe we tend to put all the art of the Soviet Union in a bag. In my Show I try to show that there were very capable and, above all, courageous artists under Stalin. They painted, although figurative, as it did Socialist realism, but experiment here at the same time. I understand it, Socialist realism is a kind of academic art, the strict adherence to the formal and aesthetic rules. This we show in the last room of the exhibition. And here, too, I think that there are very good artists. Even if this is certainly in no comparison with the tragedy of totalitarianism, so you can keep the Socialist realism to the Good that he has preserved the Tradition of painting in an upright position. It is certainly not by chance that nowadays the great painters come from France but from former Eastern bloc States such as the GDR, Romania, China, and Russia.
Certainly, however, it is also no coincidence that this exhibition is now on view in France and not in Russia?
I can’t say anything. In discussions with Russian colleagues, however, it became clear that our curated compilation would not be seen so well in Russia. I think the Russian authorities (?) a difficult relationship to their past – in contrast to the Russian youth, the estimates of the constructivist past.
What attracts you personally in the East?
My mother was born in the Soviet Union. I had for our visits, even a Soviet passport. The impressions have me and my Childhood very marked, I was on a certain kind of fascinated by the Propaganda. Everything was so different than in France.
What artist could learn nowadays, even in Western Europe, from your Show?
I have the feeling that nowadays, the reference is lost, a positioning of the artist in terms of a political ideology. Our exhibition is attempted: As an artist, at least – to participate, whether in Good or in Bad, what they believed, that it is right, such as communism, before it was murdered by Stalin.
France is currently mired in politically troubled times…
Yes, I think our exhibition is coming at exactly the right time. Policy as a concept is losing in France is becoming more and more restraint. After all, we have jackets currently, the movement of the Yellow, but she is very disorganized compared to the highly organized protests that culminated in the Bolshevik Revolution. That’s why I’m very excited to see how the exhibition is particularly popular among the young visitors, which, I believe, all of these things do not know. It could be useful.
The conversation Nadine Wojcik.
The Exhibition “Rouge. Art et utopie au pays des Soviets” is of 20. March to 1. To see July at the Grand Palais in Paris.