Aleksandr Deineka [1899-1969]

Description

Tent. Madrid, Fundaçion Juan March, 07-10-2011, 15-01-2012. - This is the first exhibition in Spain to present the work of the Russian artist Aleksandr Deineka (1899-1969) and by extension the historical period from which it was borne. With the aim of presenting both in a twofold context: the end of the avant-garde and the advent of socialist realism. This comprehensive retrospective is to date the largest devoted to Deineka outside Russia: over 80 works on view are completed by a broad yet detailed selection of magazines, posters, books, documents, objects, and works by other Russian avant-garde artists, some 250 works and documents. In the past 23 years, various exhibitions devoted to the leading figures of this movement-among them, Kazimir Malevich, Aleksandr Rodchenko, and Liubov Popova -have been staged at the Fundación, including the recent Total Enlightenment: Conceptual Art in Moscow, 1960-1990, held in 2008. This show brought together the work of a number of Soviet artists such as Ilya Kabakov, Erik Bulatov, Vitalii Komar and Aleksandr Melamid. Straddling both concept art and their own particular style of Soviet pop art, these artists focused on and raised issues regarding Soviet culture during the Stalin era, from his rise to power following Lenin's death in 1924 to his death in 1953. The exhibition also presents a selection of magazines, posters, books, documents, objects, and works by other Russian avant-garde artists-with a special focus on their revolutionary output-that mirror the "ambivalent" and "ambiguous" quality of Deineka's art and career. Presented together, these works expose a unique, coherent (and unexplored) set of relationships between socialist realism and the Russian avant-garde