Pavel Filonov. The Russian Avant-Garde and Afterwards
Location: 2nd floor, Great Hall
Kumu offers an opportunity to explore the Russian avant-garde and the classics of social realism.
“The exhibition focuses on the work of Pavel Filonov, one of the most exceptional and unique masters of the Russian avant-garde in the first half of the 20th century, in a wider context,” says the coordinator of the exhibition Elnara Taidre. “Filonov can be compared to the key figures of the Russian avant-garde, Wassily Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich; his uniqueness, however, is visible in the synthesis of the legacy of the Academy and a new art language.”
The display has been compiled in cooperation with the State Russian Museum, whose collections hold the majority of Filonov’s legacy, and the best part of the Russian avant-garde.
“I am extremely pleased that this first major cooperation project with the State Russian Museum after the regaining of independence has been realised,” said Anu Liivak, the director of Kumu. “I visited the first retrospective of Filonov at the State Russian Museum about 25 years ago, and ever since I have dreamt of a chance to introduce his work in Estonia. Filonov lived in an interesting, but difficult time. The exhibition offers museum-goers a unique opportunity to experience this controversial and tragic era through contemporary works of art.”
Filonov’s works on display at Kumu include the significant paintings Feast of Kings and Formula of Spring, as well as works from the series Formulae and Heads. A general context is created with the works of the Russian avant-garde masters Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky and Natalia Goncharova, which are supplemented by the paintings of several other interesting artists, such as David Burliuk, Mikhail Matyushin and Pavel Filonov’s pupils. As a contrast to experimental art, works that are part of the anti-innovation canon of social realism will be on display, including the oeuvre of Stalin’s court artist Isaac Brodsky, and the huge collective painting by Yuri Kugach, Wassily Nechitailo and Viktor Tsyplakov entitled Glory to the Great Stalin! (3.5 × 5.25 m).
The artist, art theorist and creator of the system of analytical art Pavel Filonov (1882/1883–1941) examined in his oeuvre the invisible processes in visible things in an attempt to show the structure of living matter to the observer. In 1925, he founded the group “Masters of Analytical Art”. Filonov, his family and students were persecuted because he never became a supporter of social realism, and his works were not allowed to be exhibited until the perestroika era. The artist was “rediscovered” in Russia and in the West in the 1980s. Nowadays, he is considered a classic of 20th-century art, and his works are exhibited all over the world.
The exhibition is accompanied by a wonderfully illustrated catalogue in Estonian, Russian and English.
Exhibition coordinator: Elnara Taidre
