Traveling Exhibitions

 

See All Exhibitions


American Art and Artists

Posing Beauty In
African American Culture

Paul Outerbridge:
New Color Photographs
from Mexico and California,
1948–1955

Civil War Drawings from the Becker Collection


Modern/Contemporary Art

The Apes & The Disciples:
Photographs by
James Mollison

Sight Unseen: International Photography by
Blind Artists

Martin Schoeller: Close Up

A Complex Weave:
Women and Identity
in Contemporary Art

Cuba Avant-Garde:
Contemporary Cuban Art from the Farber Collection

Proto-Modern: Photographic
Innovation of the Russian
Avant-Garde, 1919-1939

Almost Alice: New Illustrations of Wonderland by Maggie Taylor

The Great Picture

André Kertész: On Reading


Artist Retrospectives

Yousuf Karsh:
Regarding Heroes


Architecture/Decorative Art

Julius Shulman:
Palm Springs Modern

Peter Shire:Chairs


History and Culture

E.O. Hoppé:
The Indian Subcontinent
on the Cusp of Change





View Full Gallery

 

 

 

 

 

number of works:
appx 171

frame sizes:
various,
16 x 20 to 20 x 30 inches
(40 x 50 to 30 x 75 cm)

space requirements:
400 linear feet
(122 linear meters)

tour dates:
Fall 2011–2013

participation fee:
*high

support materials:
publication in preparation

see booking information

 

 

Proto-Modern: Photographic Innovation of the Russian Avant-Garde, 1919-1939

Curated by Steve Yates

Proto-Modern: Photographic Innovation of the Russian Avant-Garde, 1919-1939, traces the history of this movement with rare photographic works in a variety of media, including original photographs, montages, collages, avant-garde journals, posters, film and theatre as well as experiments in mixed media. Rarely seen and largely unpublished works from Russian state and private collections are assembled together in this exhibition for the first time.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, Russia was one of the leading centers of modernism. But unlike other European countries where the search for new ways of visual expression was a natural consequence of the overall evolution of art, the Russian innovations in modern arts were encouraged by a unique historic experiment that was the Russian October Revolution of 1917, and the building of the first socialist state in the world. Russian artists, among the first to grasp the idea of the object as a sign, were certainly the first to interpret artistic problems in close relation to the radical changes to life in their nation. The resulting artistic and intellectual output created distinct, powerful, and inimitable art forms which still continue to astound, shock, and inspire.

Exhibition curator Steve Yates illuminates one of the most potent movements in art and social history, presenting pioneering efforts and collaborations by Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Dziga Vertov, Gustav Klutsis and Valentina Kulagina, Georgi and Vladimir Stenberg, El Lissitzky, Boris Ignatovich, Georgi Zelma, and others, who expressed the changing values of their lives and culture during this turbulent era and took modern photographic art to new heights.

Steve Yates was the former Curator of Photography at Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and a three-time Fulbright Scholar (Russia 2006–2007, 1995, and USSR 1991).

email | call 626.577.0044