The Russian (artistic) Revolution on display in Gorizia

To celebrate the centenary of the October Revolution, an exhibition entitled The Russian Revolution will open on December 20. From Djagilev to Abstractionism (1898 - 1922), which will be held at Attems Petzenstein Palace in Gorizia until March 25, 2018. The event is curated by Silvia Burini and Giuseppe Barbieri, who direct the Center for the Study of the Arts of Russia (CSAR) at Ca’ Foscari University Venice, joined by Faina Balachovskaya from the Tret’jakov Gallery in Moscow.

The review will offer a look at artistic expressions that emerged during the tumultuous years of the Russian Revolution: from theater(Chekhov, Mejerchol’d, Stanislavsky) to music(Musorsky, Skrjabin, Stravinsky), from ballet(Djagilev) to photography(Rodčenko) to the figurative arts(Benois, Bakst, Kandinsky, Malevič, Končalovsky, Larionov, Tatlin, Gončarova, Stepanova, Ekster).

As can be deduced from the title of the event, the historical period that will be highlighted ranges from 1898, the year of the founding of the Mir iskusstva (The Art World) group and the magazine founded and edited by Djagilev, to 1922, the date of the establishment of theSoviet Union. The exhibition is divided into 6 sections, each corresponding to a specific and crucial year, and each bearing a thematic subtitle, crossing historical events, cultural movements, artistic practices and concrete works: paintings, works on paper, objects, documents.

“From the research underlying this exhibition,” say the curators, "first and foremost emerged the ’revolutionary’ value and role of artistic practices within Russian society at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, beginning with the underground and decisive literary matrix of 19th-century Russian culture, and here it will suffice to recall at least the names of Blok, Achmatova, Mandel’stam, Pasternak, Majakovsky. But it was an overall revolution, which extended to painting (there is an art before Abstractionism and a later one, the one in which we still live today) and then to graphics, set design, music, to finally record the origins of the experience of cinema, which a few years later would be concreted in the magisterium of Ėjzenštejn and Vertov."

“This major exhibition presents an original sequence of works that are emblematic, but also very little seen in Italy, and is thus intended to be an unusual celebration of a historical event that changed the contemporary world forever, pointing to it as the outcome of an overall dynamic that, just before and just after 1917, radically revolutionized culture and the international art scene.” this is stated by Raffaella Sgubin, Director of the Museum and Historical Archives Service of ERPAC, the Regional Authority for the Artistic and Cultural Heritage of Friuli Venezia Giulia.

Information is available by contacting Palazzo Attems Petzenstein at 348 13047 26. The exhibition is open every day except Monday (closing day) from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets for Palazzo Attems Petzenstein: full price €3.50, reduced price €2.50, schoolchildren €1.

Image: Aleksandra Ekster, Composition (1914; oil on canvas, 91.3 x 72.5 cm; Moscow, Tret’jakov Gallery)

The Russian (artistic) Revolution on display in Gorizia

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