Revolution: Russian Art 1917-1932
From the wonderful
red of the first room I was hooked and my O level history came rushing back!
The show concentrated on art but incorporated posters, textiles, ceramics and
film. It also blended the art and
history well. It didn’t assume you knew the history but wasn’t patronising in
its narrative. The rooms were a good mix of themes and looking at artists.
I discovered lots
of fascinating modern artists I’d not come across before. I loved the portraits
of Lenin by Issak Brodsky. I also kept being drawn to work by Pavel Filonov
such as a picture of a tractor workshop with tractor parts forming the pattern
in the middle of the composition. I also liked his dense pictures, which he
called formula, which looked a bit like maps on first view but were lots of
small images brought together in pattern.
I loved the
reconstruction of Malevich’s room at the 1932 exhibition “Fifteen Years of
Artists of the Russian Soviet Republic” which brought together nearly all the
pictures in a photograph of the show shown nearby. Later in the show there was a room dedicated
to Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin which was full of lovely colourful still-lives.
The show dealt
with big themes well using the art cleverly to show off the subject but
allowing it to be interesting work in its own right. Rooms including
industrialisation, the peasants, city life, cultural life and idea of Mother
Russia.
As I said I loved
the way the show incorporated design and it was a great idea to include a
reconstruction of a standard apartment complete with the cityscapes which were
viewable through the windows. I so want some the textiles shown as cushion
covers, who can resist a repeat pattern of tractors!
Closes on 17
April 2017.
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