Exhibition: "Fragments of Utopia: Photographs from the VKhUTEMAS Workshops"
March 23, 2023 ‑ June 16, 2023
Gallery, Amherst Center for Russian Culture
Free and open to the public, Monday-Friday, 9am-4pm.
- Curated by Maria Timina, Visiting Curator of Russian and European Art, Mead Museum
- Curatorial assistance by Julia Molin, '21 and Karen Koehler, Chair and Visiting Professor of the History of Art, Amherst College
- Translation assistance by Serena Keenan, Smith '23
Monthly Curator's Talks will be held in the gallery. The first talk will be Wednesday, March 29 at 3pm.
The VKhUTEMAS (Vysshie Khudozhestvenno-Tekhnicheskie Masterskie, or Higher Art and Technical Studios) was one of the world’s leading centers for innovation in arts education based in Moscow in the 1920s. Its visionary pedagogy was rooted in the artistic theories and practices of the leaders of the avant-garde movement who taught there—among them Alexandra Exter, Ivan Kliun, El Lissitzky, Lubov Popova, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Vladimir Tatlin, and others. The lasting influence of the VKhUTEMAS on the development of modern art, design, and architecture is often compared to that of the Bauhaus. The Soviet school, however, was several times larger and yet is far less well-known.
The studios opened their doors in 1920, during a brief period of time when bold artistic imagination and diversity of methods were celebrated in the new Soviet state. However, with the rise of Stalinism, the VKhUTEMAS’ pedagogy was ideologically rejected and condemned as “formalist”—a derogatory term used to describe all art movements beyond socialist realism and neoclassicism. Despite the international recognition gained by the VKhUTEMAS, the government declared it “underperforming” and ultimately closed it in 1930.
The photographs featured in the exhibition show models created by the students of the VKhUTEMAS in response to various exercises—largely on the topics of volume and space—assigned by their professors, as well as projects of their own creation, from film sets to architectural projects. These materials are drawn from the archive of Selim Khan-Magomedov (1928-2011)—among the most prominent scholars of Soviet avant-garde art and architecture—who mainly acquired them from the VKhUTEMAS alumni Nikolai Travin, Mikhail Korzhev, and Ivan Lamtsov.
The photographs are put in dialogue with artworks by several professors who taught at the VKhUTEMAS at different times. The faculty members’ and students’ works demonstrate intriguing formal affinities with each other, despite the artists’ associations with different departments and competing art groups. Taken together, these works offer glimpses into the historic VKhUTEMAS—fragments of a lost utopia.
This exhibition was originated by the students in "Modernity and the Avant-Garde," Fall 2021, and is held in conjunction with Professor Karen Koehler's "Architectural Ghosts," currently on view at the Mead.
Related Events
- Curator's Talk: Wednesday, March 29 at 3pm
- Curator's Talk: Friday, April 7 at 12pm (in Russian)
- Curator's Talk: Tuesday, May 16 at 3pm
- Curator's Talk: Thursday, June 1 at 2:30pm