Hans Arp
Dadaists and constructivists with their families at the Congress Dada-Constructivist in Weimar, n.d. [September 1922?]
Several authors; Gustav Klutsis; Aleksandr Rodchenko, Sergei Senkin
Molodaia Gvardiia. Leninu, Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1924
Elena Guro, Velimir Khlebnikov, Aleksei Kruchenykh; Kazimir Malevich
Troe, Saint Petersburg: Zhuravl’, 1913
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Maiakovskaia galereia. Te kogo ia nikogda ne videl, Moscow: Krasnaia nov’, 1923
Kirill Zdanevich
Literatura da skhva, s.l. [Tbilisi?]: Niogal Chachava, n.d. [1924?]
Kazimir Malevich; El Lissitzky
O novykh systemakh v iskusstve: Statika i skorost, Vítebsk: Artel’ khudozhestvennogo truda pri Vitsvomas, 1919
Igor Terentev
Fakt, Tbilisi: 41º, 1919
Francis Picabia
391, n.º 12. Paris: s.n., February 1920
06 June, 2018 - 22 October, 2018
MNCARS, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
Curated: Margarita Tupitsyn
This exhibition explores Russian avant-garde art through the perspective of the anti-art canons associated with the international Dada movement. The anti-academic project of Kazimir Malevich to eclipse classical art and the transrational language experiments (zaum) of Velimir Khlebnikov and Aleksei Kruchenykh are just some of the early contributions that substantiate the reasoning behind this show.
Divided into different sections, the exhibition opens with one of the first operas of the absurd in the zaum language, the influential Victory Over the Sun (1913), which featured the participation of Kruchenykh, Khlebnikov and Malevich, among others. This first part focuses on illogical abstraction, far removed from geometry and music and developed through collage, readymades and publications. The second section spans the period from 1917 to 1924, from the victory of the Russian Revolution to the death of Vladimir Lenin, who frequented Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, shining a light on the revolutionary themes and notions around internationalism. The final section explores the connections between Russia and two of the main Dada centres, Paris and Berlin, manifested through the publications of Russian works in the two aforementioned cities and the presence of artists such as El Lissitzky in Berlin, and Sergei Sharshun and Ilia Zdanevich in Paris.