Avant-garde world exhibitions

Current exhibitions

2002 > 2004

Masterpieces of Russian Avant Garde from the Costakis Collection - Thessaloniki (Greece)

April 30 - end of October, 2004

State Museum of Contemporary Art (Moni Lazariston)

The exhibition includes approximately 120 works of art (paintings, collages, drawings, constructions) from the period 1900-1930, many of which have never been exhibited before. The exhibition consists of pieces by Russian Avant Garde artists (Kazimir Malevich, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Liubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Ivan Kliun, Pavel Filonov, Alexandra Exter, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Solomon Nikritin and others) who put a mark on the map of European modernism’s evolution.
http://www.greekstatemuseum.com/

Cubism and Its Legacy - London

May 24 - October 31, 2004

Tate Modern

This Tate Modern display celebrates Gustav and Elly Kahnweiler’s gift to Tate of works of art by important modern international artists including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris and André Masson.
http://www.tate.org.uk/

Modern/Graphical Europe (1900-1930) - Budapest (Hungaria)

June 18 - September 12, 2004

Magyar Nemzeti Galéria

Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, Edvard Munch, Gustav Klimt, Rippl-R—nai J—zsef, Vaszary J‡nos, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Amadeo Modigliani, Berény R—bert, Nemes Lampérth J—zsef, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluf, Erich Heckel, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Uitz Béla, Tihanyi Lajos.
Virtual exhibition : http://www.mng.hu/kiallitasok/idoszaki_kiallitasok/modernizmusok/index.html http://www.mng.hu/

When Chagall Learn to Fly - From icon to Avant Garde - Thessaloniki (Greece)

May 26 - October 10, 2004

State Museum of Contemporary Art

This large scale exhibition on Russian avant-garde artists, Russian icons and Lubok is a co-production between the S.M.C.A. and the Ikonen Museum in Frankfurt . The exhbition was firstly presented in Frankfurt and now is shown in Thessaloniki. This exhibition explores the spiritual and primitivist sources of European modernist inspirations, stressing the Byzantine influences on Russian avant-garde art and its relations with popular prints (lubki).
http://www.greekstatemuseum.com/

Popova - Palma de Majorca (Spain)

June 4 - September 4, 2004

Museu d’Art Espanyol Contemporani (Juan-March Foundation)

The exhibit features 25 of Popova's works created in 1910-1922. The Tretyakov Gallery, the Guggenheim Museum in New York and private collectors, loaned most of the pieces. Lyubov Popova, a contemporary of Russian avant-garde leaders Malevich, Tatlin and Rodchenko, was a great connoisseur of ancient Russian icon painting and Italian Renaissance art.. She studied cubism and suprematism in Paris and later became a constructivist leader. She designed fabric patterns, clothes and books.
http://www.march.es/

Kurt Schwitters. Merz - a total vision of the world - Basel (Switzerland)

May 1 - August 8, 2004

Museum Tinguely

This exhibition uses a wide range of collages and assemblages to address those aspects of the work of Kurt Schwitters that were an important source of inspiration for the younger Swiss artist Jean Tinguely. At the heart of the exhibition is the reconstruction of Schwitters’ walk-through installation, Merzbau, from the Sprengel Museum in Hanover. Other rooms deal with Schwitters’ artistic principles, such as the systematic employment of refuse and his experiments with the phenomenon of chance and a dadaistic, ambiguous irony. These are grouped by theme. A selection of Tinguely’s kinetic reliefs, junk sculptures and collage-based letter-drawings is also on display. In a parallel exhibiton the Kunstmuseum highlights the relationship between Kurt Schwitters and Hans Arp.
http://www.tinguely.ch

Great Expectations : Art of the Russian Avant-garde - Jerusalem (Israel)

March 17 - August 21, 2204

Israel Museum

Great Expectations focuses on Russia's leading avant-garde artists from the early part of the 20th century, among them Kazimir Malevich, Natalia Goncharova,Mikhail Larionov, El Lissitzky, and Vladimir Tatlin. Combining elements from the major European art movements of the time with local folk art, these artists formulated a new language which helped promote the later emergence of abstract art.
Comprising some 70 paintings and drawings, of which over 50 are on loan from the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the exhibition spans the period before World War I through the start of the Soviet era. Many works from the Tretyakov Gallery are exhibited in Israel for the first time, including a group of drawings which were recently acquired by the gallery and have not been exhibited publicly before.
http://www.imj.org.il/eng/exhibitions/2004/russian/index.html

Soviet Photography in the 1920s and 30s - Zurich (Switzerland)

February 21 - May 16, 2204

Winterthur Photography Museum

The exhibition was organised in collaboration with the Moscow House of Photography. It presents nearly 250 photographs taken after the 1917 revolution.
http://www.fotomuseum.ch

Expanding Vision: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's Experiments of the 1920s - New-York

March 12 - May 30, 2004

International Center of Photography

http://www.icp.org/

Gustav Klutsis and Valentina Kulagina : Photography and Montage After Constructivism - New-York

March 12 - May 30, 2004

International Center of Photography

http://www.icp.org/

Boccioni's Materia : A Futurist Masterpiece and the Avant-Garde in Milan and Paris - New-York

February 6 - May 9, 2004
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

This exhibition takes this seminal painting as its centerpiece and investigates a series of core themes such as Boccioni's evolution from Divisionism to Futurism, the exchanges between Futurism and Cubism, and the relationship between Boccioni's painting and sculpture. Through an exploration of related works by Boccioni and his counterparts in the greater European sphere (Braque, Delaunay, Duchamp, Léger, Picasso, etc.), this exhibition demonstrates the key role Boccioni played within the history of Modernism, broadening the current perspective on his work and, by extension, the Italian Futurist movement.
http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/boccioni/index.html

Marcel Breuer : Design and Architecture - Weil am Rhein (Germany)

Sept. 13, 2003-April 25, 2004
Vitra Design Museum

The Marcel Breuer retrospective conceived and organized by Vitra Design Museum is the very first exhibition that appropriately presents all the different fields in which he was active - and treats them as equal aspects of his oeuvre. While the thematically structured show displays almost all Breuer's major items of furniture design, his very wide-ranging architectural work is essentially presented in the form of 12 exemplary buildings.
http://www.design-museum.de/

Solomon Nikritin Retrospective - Thessaloniki (Greece)

January 31th - March 20th, 2004
State Museum of Contemporary Art - Costakis Collection

Solomon Nikritin had a long creative course as an artist. He studied at the ateliers of Leonid Pasternak, Alexander Yakovlef and Alexandra Exter and was one of the founders of many important Russian avant garde groups of the so-called second generation, such as .Electro-organism., .Projectionism. and .Method.. Nikritin also worked with the Moscow Museum of Painting Education. He developed a unique theory about the relationship of painting with theatre and cinema. Based in this theory, about the composition of the arts, the artist impressed motion on the canvas. The exhibition attempts to demonstrate the fundamental undulations of his work in an equally unique and creative way.
http://www.greekstatemuseum.com/

The Adventure of the Avant-Gardes - Malaga (Spain)

December 3, 2003-March 7, 2004

Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Malaga

http://www.cacmalaga.org/

Mondrian + Malevitch at the center of the collection - Basel (Switzerland)

November 20, 2003-January 25, 2004
Fondation Beyeler

The exhibition traces key steps in the development of these two great innovators. After being influenced by Cubism, each arrived at a unique vision of pure abstract art. With Mondrian - intuitive master of asymmetry and the right angle - and Malevich - mystic of the image behind the painting - the Fondation brings together what were probably the most radical attempts in modernism to conceive of the painting as an absolute quality.
http://www.beyeler.com/

The Russian Avant-Garde Book, 1910-1934 - Frankfurt

September 24, 2003-January 25, 2004

Museum für Angewandte Kunst

http://www.museumfuerangewandtekunst.frankfurt.de/

Picasso : the Cubist portraits of Fernande Olivier - Washington

October 1, 2003-January 18, 2004
National Gallery of Art

Between spring and fall 1909, Picasso produced more than 60 portraits of his companion, Fernande Olivier, in a variety of formats and mediums. In its intense devotion to a single subject, the series is virtually unprecedented in the history of portraiture. Powerful and melancholic, these portraits are among the most compelling in the history of modern art. This exhibition brings together some 50 of the related works, revealing Picasso's exploration of cubism and his radical reformulation of human physiognomy.
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/picassoinfo.htm

Contemporary Italian Architecture. From Futurism to the Possible Future - Brussels

October 21, 2003-February 15, 2004
Centre International pour la Ville, l'Architecture et le Paysage

Through seven works symbolic of the futuristic avant-garde and of Italian masters from the 30s and '50s, the exhibition presents the intuitions and anticipatory proclamations of the architecture of the present and the possible future. Exhibition designed by architect Gae Aulenti.
http://www.civa.be/

Silver Age to Stalin: Russian Children's Book Illustration, 1899-1939 - Amherst (United States)

November 7-January 18, 2004
Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

Drawn from the private collection of Sasha Lurye, the exhibition explores the beauty and artistry of illustration from the last years of the Czars to the Soviet dictatorship under Stalin. The range of work encompasses a rich diversity of artistic expression from Art Nouveau and Constructivism to the politically charged realism that reinforced Soviet dogma. Among the more than seventy original works of art are examples by Ivan Bilibin, Vladimir Lebedev, and Vera Ermolaeva as well as printed books with art by Marc Chagall, El Lissitsky, and Alexandr Rodchenko.
http://picturebookart.org/

The modern approach. Futurism in Italy. 1909-1931 - Brussels

October 16-January 15, 2004
Musée d'Ixelles

The exhibition traces the exhilarating adventure that was Italian Futurism, from the Manifesto of Futuristic Painters (1910) to the Manifesto of Futuristic Airpainting (1931), through approximately 70 works, including paintings, washes, sculptures and drawings.
http://www.musee-ixelles.be/

Russia and the Avant-Gardes - Saint-Paul De Vence (France)

July 2-November 11, 2003 - Fondation Maeght

Archipenko, Chagall, Gabo, Goncharova, Kandinky, Larionov, Lissitzky, Malevich, Pevsner, Popova, Pougny, Rodchenko, Rozanova, Tatlin : more than 50 artists, from 1908 to 1928.
http://www.fondation-maeght.com/

Cubisme - Kubismus - Moscow

September 4-November 23, 2003
Tretyakov Gallery

Information (in German) is available here
http://www.tretyakov.ru/

Frantisek Kupka - Lausanne (Switzerland)

June 27-October 12,2003 - Hermitage Foundation

This summer, the Fondation de l'Hermitage is presenting an exhibition on the Czech painter and draughtsman Frantisek Kupka (1871-1957).
In his passionate quest for light and movement, he was an original protagonist of Fauvism, then Cubism, before moving on to pure painting and non-figurative art from 1910.
This exhibition gives the public a unique opportunity to discover the very fine ensemble of works by Kupka - over a hundred paintings, pastels, drawings and prints - from the Centre Pompidou, Musée national d'art moderne.
http://www.fondation-hermitage.ch/actu_e.html

Ivan Puni - Bâle (Switzerland)

April 11-September 28, 2003 - Musée Jean Tinguely

200 works from the Herman Berninger collection.
http://www.tinguely.ch/

Kazimir Malewitsch: Suprematism - New York

May 22-September 4, 2003 - Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

http://www.guggenheim.org/

Futurism - Radical Avantgarde - Wien

March 3-June 26, 2003
Kunst Forum

The Italian Futurists associated with Fillipo Tommaso Marinetti projected themselves as uncompromising and spectacular. Not only did they revolutionise the visual concept of Modernism but they also campaigned for an extended idea of what makes art. The only exhibition of the Italian Futurists in Austria so far mounted was held in 1912 and has today been forgotten. An intensive preparation period of almost two years precedes the show.
http://www.kunstforumwien.at/

Kazimir Malewitsch: Suprematism - Berlin

January 18-April 27, 2003
Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin

Kazimir Malevich has long been celebrated as one of the seminal founders of non-objective art in the 20th century. Between 1915 and 1932, he developed a system of abstract painting called Suprematism, an art of pure form meant to be universally comprehensible regardless of cultural or ethnic origin. Like his contemporaries Piet Mondrian and Vasiliy Kandinsky, Malevich created an artistic utopia that became the secular equivalent of religious painting--in his case intending to replace the ubiquitous icon of the Russian home--, creating works meant to evoke higher states of spiritual consciousness.
http://www.deutsche-guggenheim-berlin.de/

Kazimir Malevitch: collections from the Stedelijk Museum - Paris

January 30-April 27, 2003

Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris - http://www.paris.fr/musees/MAMVP/

Boccioni's Materia:
A Futurist Masterpiece and the Parisian Avant-Garde - New-York

January 30-April 27, 2003
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

This exhibition at the Guggenheim revolves around Materia (1912), the seminal painting by Italian Futurist painter Umberto Boccioni. ( more details here...)

The Russian Avant-Garde Book, 1910-1934 - Madrid

February 11-May 5, 2003

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sof’a

Bauhaus Möbel - Bauhaus' Furniture - Berlin

October 30, 2002-March 10, 2003
Bauhaus-Archiv

http://www.bauhaus.de

Central European Avant-Gardes: Exchange and Transformation, 1910-1930 - Berlin

November 10, 2002-February 9, 2003
Martin Gropius Bau

http://www.gropiusbau.de

Fernand Léger - Barcelona

November 22-January 23, 2003
Fundaci— Joan Mir—

http://www.bcn.fjmiro.es/

Jaroslav Rössler: Writings, Photographs and Collages - Rennes (France)

December 5, 2002-January 4, 2003
Centre Atlantique de la Photographie

http://www.centre-atlantique-photographie.asso.fr/

Fernand Léger - l'esprit moderne - Salzbourg

July 27-October 20, 2002
Rupertinum

http://www.rupertinum.at/

Central European Avant-Gardes: Exchange and Transformation, 1910-1930 - Munich

July 7-October 6, 2002
Haus der Kunst

http://www.hausderkunst.de

Modernism in the Russian Far East and Japan, 1918-1928 - Hokkaido (Japan)

Jul. 16-Sep. 1, 2002
Hakodate Museum of Art

http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/evt/art/fe-r.mism/

The Second Phase of Italian Futurism, 1915-1945 - Dortmund

March 24-June 16, 2002
Museum am Ostwall

http://www.museendortmund.de/museumamostwall/03_ausst.htm

Central European Avant-Gardes: Exchange and Transformation, 1910-1930 - Los Angeles

March 10-June 2, 2002
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Extending along the Danube and Oder rivers and from the Balkans to the Baltic, Central Europe is a rich ethnic melding of Slavic, Germanic, Hungarian, and Gaelic cultures. These regional cultures prospered even during centuries of rule by the powerful empires of Russia, Prussia, and Austro-Hungary, and they continued to bloom when Central Europe was transformed after World War I into the cluster of nation states we know today. This exhibition examines cities as sites of vibrant exchange - Belgrade, Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest, Cracow, Dessau, Ljubljana, Lodz, Poznan, Prague, Vienna, Warsaw, Weimar, and Zagreb - as they evolved from regional centers into cosmopolitan communities. The cross-fertilization among artistic avant-garde movements in these cities produced a remarkable variety of contributions to the evolution of modern art.
http://www.lacma.org/info/press/ceagPR.htm

Russian Futurism / Futurismo russo : la sfida dell'Avanguardia - Aosta

until April 7, 2002
Museo Archeologico Regionale

http://www.comune.aosta.it/instit/comune.aosta/citta/museoarcheologico.htm

The Russian Avant-Garde Book, 1910-1934 - New York

March 21-June 11, 2002
MoMA

This exhibition celebrates a gift to The Museum of Modern Art of a comprehensive collection of Russian avant-garde books. Covering both the pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary periods, the selection on view will include illustrated books and graphic design by such artists as Kazimir Malevich, El Lissitzky, Aleksandr Rodchencko, Olga Rozanova, Natalia Goncharova, and many others. Neo-Primitivism, Futurism, Suprematism, Constructivism, and other important phases of Russian modernism will be illuminated through a medium that was fundamental to the artists of the period, but until recently was not widely known because of its great rarity. More than 300 books will be on display.
http://www.moma.org/russian/

Kazimir Malevich - Vienna (Austria)

5 Sept-2 Dec

http://www.kunstforum-wien.at/

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy - Lille (France)

26 Oct-2 Jan
Musée d'Art Moderne

http://www.nordnet.fr/mam/

Antoine Pevsner - Paris

11 Oct-31 Dec
Centre national d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou

http://www.centrepompidou.fr/

Abstract Art in Russia: The Twentieth Century - St Petersburg

Dec 2001
The State Russian Museum

The exhibition shows more than two hundred paintings and sculptures from the collection of the Russian Museum. The most important works on display are the revolutionary abstractions painted by Wassily Kandinsky in the early twentieth century, as well as examples of such other non-objective movements as Mikhail Larionov's Rayonism, Kazimir Malevich's Suprematism, Alexander Rodchenko's Constructivism and Pavel Filonov's analytic art.
http://www.rusmuseum.ru/

Modernism in the Russian Far East and Japan, 1918-1928 - Utsunomiya (Japan)

May 26-Jul. 7, 2002
Museum of Art

In the year 1920, the first-ever exhibition of Russian revolutionary art was held in Japan. The exhibition had a wide-ranging impact on a number of Japanese artists, who sought to include the ideas and techniques of Russian Futurism in their work. In this exhibition subtitled "The Russian Avant-Garde and Japan," the curators have borrowed hundreds of vintage prints and posters from museums in Habarovsk and Vladivostok, as well as museums in Japan to throw light on this little-known era in Russia-Japan relations.
http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/evt/art/fe-r.mism/ (information about exhibition)

Natalia Goncharova: The Russian Years - St Petersburg

April 25-July 15, 2002
The State Russian Museum

Natalia Goncharova (1891-1962) was a famous Russian painter, graphic artist and book illustrator. Besides designing and illustrating Futurist books, she also found time to design sets and costumes for Sergei Diaghilev's legendary Ballets Russes.
Natalia Goncharova's oeuvre contains elements of Expressionism often intertwined with religious subjects. In the early 1910s, her Cubo-Futurist manner gave way to Rayonism - a form of non-objective art invented by Mikhail Larionov.
The exhibition displays works of painting and graphic art from the Russian Museum and other collections.
http://www.rusmuseum.ru/

From Futurism to Abstraction - Rome

March 20-June 30, 2002
Museo del Corso

http://utenti.lycos.it/ARTEMOTORE/corso.html
http://www.museodelcorso.it