Groundbreaking early-modern Russian avant-garde art to be unveiled in Seoul

"Improvisation" (1913) by Wassily Kandinsky / Courtesy of the Primorye State Art Gallery

By Park Han-sol

Like many revolutionary art movements, Russian avant-garde faced numerous dynamic historical events during its early modern era, which led to its ups and downs.

It first emerged in the 1890s ― born out of a thirst for artistic innovation and liberation from old dogmas ― and reached its height both in creative output and popularity during the early 20th century, marked by the fall of the Russian Empire and the subsequent rise of the Soviet Union.

Its heyday was cut short, however, when the Stalin regime decided to label the movement as "bourgeois and elitist" in the mid-1930s, decreeing socialist realism as the sole state-sanctioned artistic style.

It wasn't until the mid-1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, that this pioneering art genre, many of which works had been gathering dust for decades in the storage vaults of various regional museums, were brought into the global spotlight once again.

"Mowers" (1911) by Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova / Courtesy of Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts

After having toured around Europe, the works of some of the most renowned Russian avant-garde masters will finally arrive in Korea this December at the exhibition, "Kandinsky, Malevich & Russian Avant-Garde."

Co-hosted by The Korea Times and its sister paper the Hankook Ilbo, the upcoming exhibition will offer a glimpse of this momentous wave of early modern art through the paintings of 48 leading figures ― including Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Rodchenko and Natalia Goncharova ― from Dec. 31 to April 17, 2022, at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts.

"Most of the 75 pieces to be showcased have never been seen by viewers in Korea before, except for two ― Kandinsky's 'Improvisation No. 217, Gray Oval' and Malevich's 'Suprematism'," Lee Hoon-suk, the show's curator and an art historian, told The Korea Times.

"Compared to the reputation and significance that Russian art currently holds in the global art scene, domestic interest ― both mainstream and academic ― in the genre has been extremely low," he said, adding that the large-scale exhibition will enable long-overdue recognition of Russia's avant-garde movement by Korean art experts, artists and the general public.

"Improvisation No. 217, Gray Oval" (1917) by Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky / Courtesy of Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts

One of the show's highlights will be three pieces produced by Kandinsky, a trailblazer of abstract art, specifically from his "Improvisation" series. The artist defined the first stage of painting to be "Impressions," which should start from the observation of external reality. The subsequent stages ― "Improvisations" and "Compositions" ― should be more spontaneous and unconscious.

Another towering figure that the exhibition calls attention to is none other than Malevich, with his iconic piece, "Suprematism."

Often described as a pioneer of pure abstraction, he rejected basing his geometric forms on the existing natural reality, unlike Kandinsky or Mondrian, who took gradual steps in simplifying observable shapes and forms until they reached a stage of abstraction.

Instead, perfectly geometric shapes dominate his canvases ― ones that cannot be found in nature. "He saw that only geometric figures can be the pure representations of human's creative power, spirit and reason, something that befits the art of the new era," Lee said.

"Suprematism" (1915) by Kazimir Severinovich Malevich / Courtesy of Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts

The show also introduces artist-photographer Alexander Rodchenko, one of the founders of constructivism, who has had a tremendous influence in the modern field of design. Notably, he incorporated a compass and ruler in his works, tools that were implicitly forbidden for traditional artists ― who valued expressive handwork ― as they were seen as belonging to the field of architecture and technical drawing.

"His experimentation, along with others who subscribed to the philosophy of constructivism, has left a huge impact on the applied art of the present day, including trends such as the German Bauhaus movement," Lee stated.

"Kandinsky, Malevich & Russian Avant-Garde" is the 11th large-scale art exhibition hosted by the Hankook Ilbo. Previous events were themed around the work of Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.

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