About the Book
'Revolution: Russian Art, 1917-1932' encapsulates a momentous period in Russian history that is vividly expressed in the diversity of art produced between 1917, the year of the October Revolution, and 1932 when Stalin began to suppress the avant-garde and its debates. Based around the great exhibition of 1932 held at the State Russian Museum in Leningrad, the book explores the fascinating themes and artistic developments of the first fifteen years of the Soviet state, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, posters, graphics and film. The exhibition itself was to be the swansong of avant-garde art in Russia: new policies quickly ensured that Socialist Realism - collective in production, public in manifestation and Communist in ideology - was to become the only acceptable art form. This volume is a timely and authoritative exploration of how modern art in all its forms flourished, was recognised, celebrated, and broken by implacable authority all within fifteen years. AUTHOR: Natalia Murray is a Visiting Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute of Art. 350 colour
About the Author :
John Milner is former Co-director of the Cambridge Courtauld Russian Art Centre. Natalia Murray is a Visiting Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Other contributors include: Faina Balakhovskaya, John Bowlt, Masha Chlenova, Ian Christie, Christina Lodder, Nicoletta Misler, Natalia Murray, Nick Murray, Evgenia Petrova, Zelfira Tregulova.
Review :
a fascinating interrogation of the relationship between art and politics, and a serious indictment of the dangers of disrupting the balance.--Francesca Wade "Studio International"
groundbreaking ...explores the deeply political contexts that shaped Russian art of every aesthetic stripe in the rapidly changing period between the rise of the Bolsheviks at the Russian Revolution's outset and Joseph Stalin's brutal crackdown of 1932.--Mary Tompkins Lewis "The Wall Street Journal"
But this is no display of communist propaganda. What makes Revolution such a momentous, even historic exhibition is that it brings together all of the art from that period. Not just the Soviet dross - socialist realist utopias, hymns to mechanisation and films of peasants waiting gratefully for the arrival of the first steam train - but the art of the avant garde too. It is the first time we have been able to see the art of the Revolution whole.--Laura Cumming "The Guardian"
By juxtaposing a huge number of works (from an impressively wide range of media), which express both approaches, the exhibition provides an intriguing and rare insight into the dialogue between art and politics, the individual and the state, freedom of expression and the pull of ideology.--Francesca Wade "Studio International"
Incorporating painting, sculpture, architecture, filmmaking, ceramics and popular ephemera, it offers a highly informative, brilliantly comprehensive, and cautionary case study of how art and politics can interact in an age of increasingly authoritarian rule.--Mary Tompkins Lewis "The Wall Street Journal"
Revolution's three curators do a marvellous job of marshalling their material, presenting the history of the early Soviet era in a lucid and compelling fashion. Stylishly designed, the show proceeds with verve, and has a lovely flow. It also contains several mesmerising works of art.--Alastair Sooke "The Telegraph"
So much of the art on display is not just beautiful, but essential....What you're watching unfold across these walls is more than just art, it's the death of hope. The revolution started with a belief in the power of change and excitement for the future. That was slowly crushed under the weight of civil war, famine and oppression. This, right here, is art losing its beauty and becoming a tool of the state.--Eddy Frankel "Time Out London"
The exhibition features Avant-Garde artists such as Chagall, Kandinsky, Malevich and Tatlin alongside the Socialist Realism of Brodsky, Deineka, Mukhina and Samokhvalov, amongst others. It presents this unique period in the history of Russian art, when for fifteen years, barriers were opened and the possibilities for building a new proletarian art for the new Soviet State were extensive.-- "Artfix Daily"
The standard Western view of post-revolution Russian art is binary: the bold abstraction of the suprematists and constructivists of the early years (good) versus the leaden figuration of Stalinist socialist realism (bad). But this show explores the nuances and complexities between them, as artists competed aggressively to emblematise the brave new Soviet world.--Ben Luke "The Evening Standard"
The Royal Academy exhibition explores both the cutting-edge abstract art that Stalin repressed and the socialist realism that he championed, presenting the works together, some for the first time in the UK, to showcase what the museum calls "both the idealistic aspirations and the harsh reality of the Revolution and its aftermath.--Shaunacy Ferro "mental_floss"
This encapsulates a certain period in Russia that you just don't get from textbooks. There's nothing more powerful than the artist painting what's going on in the world around him and the fact that artists are seen to be as powerful as soldiers, with their paintbrush using a visual type of propaganda, especially when most of the population were illiterate. It's through the visual arts that a message is passed.--Estelle Lovat "Euronews"
This is a hugely ambitious show with loans obtained from Russia that you will never have seen and many that you will not see again.--Karen Wright "The Independent"
We leave the exhibition shuddering at the thought that, once again, we live in unpredictable times, dominated by leaders with autocratic tendencies in both East and West. This is history made resonant and relevant.--Alastair Sooke "The Telegraph"
