A large exhibition project in the Pushkin Museum. A. S. Pushkin will present about two hundred works from 53 international and 12 Russian museums, private collections and archives

the Pushkin Museum. A. S. Pushkin
7 Mar — may 21 2017
Moscow, Volkhonka, 12

the Exhibition is organized jointly with the Centre for fine arts BOZAR (Brussels), Centre for art and media ZKM (Karlsruhe) and State Museum-выставочным centre "ROSIZO".

the Exposition tells about a common struggle and victory over the fascist regimes in Europe — on those pages of history that have shaped the modern face of Europe. Despite all the contradictions of the period of the cold war, artists were United by shared values and objectives of their art. The exhibition aims not only to combine neoavanguardia the art of Western and Eastern Europe, but also to provide evidence that all new forms of art that emerged after the Second world war, originated in Europe, or at least developed in parallel with America media arts (photography, film, television, video-арт) to conceptual art and actionism.

• Blue globe
  © Yves Klein. The ADAGP. Paris
  Source: arts-museum.ru
• Hans GRUNDIG Against atomic death. 1958
  the State Hermitage Museum
  Source: arts-museum.ru

the Exhibition consists of five chapters and chronology from 1945 to 1968, which includes photographs, posters and other material, ensuring the immersion of the viewer in the context of the era.

I. the End of the war. Grief and memory

the First post-war years are characterized by the common appeal of the artists to the theme of sorrow and memory of victims of war crimes. During this period, revived such traditional motifs of Christian iconography, like the Crucifixion, the Burial and Lamentation. The existentialist mood of the time is reflected in the predominance of black in the abstract, and figurative works. For sculpture is characteristic of the images of the suffering and downtrodden human figures (Henry Moore, Vadim Sidur, Alina Shaposhnikov).

II. The struggle for peace

the Tragic events of the recent past brought to life a movement to protect the world, which actively supported writers, artists and intellectuals from different countries. However the beginning of the arms race and a series of international conflicts (wars in Korea, Algeria, Vietnam) brought the world to the threshold of a new world war and had threatened to split Europe. In these circumstances, the art has been especially designed to help unite people despite political borders, stereotypes and differences of the art methods.

Alexander DEINEKA Sketch mosaic "Peace building". 1959-1960 the State Tretyakov gallery Source: arts-museum.ru

Mikhail ROGINSKY Wall outlet. 1965 the State Tretyakov gallery Source: arts-museum.ru

III. New realism

For many artists, the war marked the death of art in the prewar sense. They begin to look for answers to questions that were posed by the realities of war, and use new and extended concept of realism. Update realistic forms and means of expression after 1945 happened first in Italy (for Realismo) and in England (the so-called London school).

a Lecture by Eduardo Paolozzi in 1952, where he presented images composed of clippings and advertisingads from American magazines, going them in 1948 is the date of birth of British pop-арта. Even before his American counterpart of the British pop-арт had time to influence the German "capitalist realism" and even left their mark in the arts of the USSR. The French "new realists" found on city streets the finished product in the form of torn and pasted over each other's posters. The technique of collage was moved by them and to work with simple household items. Pop-арт gave aesthetic value to objects of everyday and even vulgar, has created a new system of imagery, where the adjusted "high" and consumer, unique and mass.

IV. A new idealism

1950-60-е years in art were not only the decades of reconstruction, the restoration of relations with the modernism of the prewar years and the development of neoavantgarde, but a time of true innovation, "New trends" (the title of the exhibition in Zagreb, which in 1961 was attended by representatives of the "concrete art" from all over Europe). Alternatively, as new forms of realism, and pessimism painting of informes, the band name ZERO came to mean all the optimistic, idealistic, and technical utopias and innovations, including such trends as op-арт and kinetic art. Artists of both Western and Eastern Europe experimented with new forms of urban utopias, fantastic architecture, they were interested in the dematerialization of art and the overcoming of gravity. All this occurred against the background of the experiments in the field of nuclear energy, dreams about space travel and the development of consumer culture. This pan-European artistic trend applies to the activities of the Patriotic group "Movement" (Lev Nusberg, Francisco Infante-Арана, Vyacheslav koleichuk, etc.).

Fernand ARMAN Burned violin. 1966 GMII im. Alexander Pushkin Source: arts-museum.ru

Heinz MACK Illustration from the magazine of the group "Zero". 1961 Source: arts-museum.ru

V. Political utopia: 1968

New artistic trends in art inevitably affect the formation of a new political and social agenda, they find themselves closely associated with the hope and utopian aspirations of his generation. 1960-е years in Europe is characterized by a wide spread of revolutionary ideas among the youth and in first place in the University environment. The next step was the political movement created by former students and teachers: "Red brigades" in Italy, the RAF in Germany and "Direct action" in France. Emerging pop-культура agree with one point with the young revolutionary ideas, music, movies and art. The sign "68" meant the triple Alliance of the youth revolution, the pop revolution and political revolution.

the curators of the project:

Dr. Eckhart Gillen, independent curator (Berlin)

Professor Peter Weibel, Chairman of ZKM / center of art and media (Karlsruhe).

Daniel Bulatov (Pushkin Museum. A. S. Pushkin).

starring:

Alexandra Danilova (Pushkin Museum. A. S. Pushkin) Daria Mille (ZKM).

Source: arts-museum.ru