Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich. The Russian avant-garde in Vitebsk
The Pompidou Centre in Paris is organising the exhibition Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich. The Russian avant-garde in Vitebsk, 1918-1922 from 28 March to 16 July 2018. The idea for this exhibition originated at the Van Abbemuseum. Willem Jan Renders, the curator of Russian art at the Van Abbe, researched this important but barely known period in the history of the Russian avant-garde. He realised that no exhibition about this subject had ever been put on and developed a plan for it.
Chagall, Lissitzky and Malevich were all in Vitebsk a hundred years ago. Chagall founded the People’s Art School and invited Lissitzky and Malevich to teach there. In 1919 Malevich founded the Unovis artists’ collective in Vitebsk, together with Lissitzky. It was not possible for the Van Abbemuseum to organise this expensive exhibition itself, but the Pompidou Centre did see an opportunity to carry out the plan. The exhibition includes many of the works from the Van Abbe’s Lissitzky collection.
In addition an international conference will be held on the theme of the exhibition in the Old Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge on 19 and 20 April 2018. This conference, with many international experts in the field of the Russian avant-garde, has also been organised by the Van Abbemuseum. Willem Jan Renders will be one of the speakers.
Read more in the press release.
Images via the Mediabank.
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