April 13–July 9, 2017
Big show in Bern: on the occasion of the October Revolution centenary, the Zentrum Paul Klee and the Kunstmuseum Bern are dedicating their joint exhibition The Revolution is Dead. Long live the Revolution! From Malevich to Judd, from Deineka to Bartana to this epoch-making event. The comprehensive exhibition offers unique insights into the history of revolutionary art and inquires into the repercussions and ramifications thereof through to the present. The two Bern museums are pursuing two diverging art-historical traditions, that are irrevocably entwined with the Russian Revolution and which left their stamp on 20th century art in a radical way—the Russian avant-garde and socialist realism.
From Malevich to Judd
The exhibition at Zentrum Paul Klee focuses on the revolutionary spirit in visual epxressions of Russian Suprematism and Constructivism. They both had a radical impact on 20th century art when Kazimir Malevich, the founder of Suprematism, and the circle of Russian Constructivists led by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko, made their breakthrough to geometric abstraction and construction. The Russian avantgarde inspired 20th-century artistic movements and positions, in Europe and Latin America. Its impact was particularly strong on Minimal and Conceptual Art in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s. Russian Suprematism and Constructivism are rightfully considered truly revolutionary art movements even today.
From Deineka to Bartana
The exhibition at Kunstmuseum Bern retraces Socialist Realism in contemporary art and its many shifts and changes since the Russian Revolution. In 1915 Malevich′s first Black Square painting reached the “zero point of painting.” Only two years later, Russia actually underwent a political and social revolution. In its representations of socialist themes, propaganda art not only embraced a realistic style, it also programmatically expressed a societal concept by promoting a society that did not exist then and never will. As the former Soviet Union reached crisis point and began to disintegrate, visual idioms were transformed. Timid criticism eventually turned into pastiche and, in the postmodern period, into subversive set pieces now devoid of ideological messages. Having gradually loosened the stays of socialist rhetoric, artists began to use the now meaningless visual ciphers in works that express their scathing criticism of a disillusioned and cynical late-capitalist society.
Curators: Kathleen Bühler, Kunstmuseum Bern, Michael Baumgartner and Fabienne Eggelhöfer, Zentrum Paul Klee
Featured artists
Kunstmuseum Bern: Samuil Adliwankin, Yael Bartana, Georg Baselitz, Norbert Bisky, Erik Bulatov, Maria Bri-Bein, Nicolas Cilins, Lutz Dammbeck, Alexander Deineka, Vladimir Dubossarsky und Alexander Vinogradov, Wera Adamowna Gitsewitsch, Alexander Gerassimow, Ion Grigorescu, Jörg Herold, Jörg Immendorff, Ilya Kabakov, Martin Kippenberger, Gustav Klucis, Vitaly Komar und Alexander Melamid, Valentina Kulagina, Kasimir Malewitsch, Wolfgang Mattheuer, Boris Mikhailov, Deimantas Narkevičius, Juri Norstein, Artavasd Peleschjan, Kusma Petrow-Wodkin, Juri Pimenow, Natalja Pinus, Józef Robakowski, Alexander Samochwalow, Cornelia Schleime, Sergej Senkin, Willi Sitte, Wassili Swarog, Kurt Tetzlaff, Ulrich Weiss, Katarina Zdjelar
Zentrum Paul Klee: Josef Albers, Max Bill, Carl Buchheister, Erich Buchholz, Max Burchartz, Daniel Buren, Lygia Clark, Waldemar Cordeiro, Sandu Darie, Geraldo de Barros, Walter Dexel, Theo van Doesburg, César Domela, Dan Flavin, Naum Gabo, Gego, Imi Giese, Fritz Glarner, Jean Gorin, Camille Graeser, Marcia Hafif, Auguste Herbin, Karl Ioganson, Johannes Itten, Donald Judd, Wassily Kandinsky, Lajos Kassák, Peter Keler, Paul Klee, Iwan Kljun, Gustav Klucis, Imi Knoebel, Gyula Kosice, Vladimir Krinsky, Bart van der Leck, El Lissitzky, Verena Loewensberg, Richard Paul Lohse, Tomás Maldonado, Kasimir Malewitsch, Joseph Marioni, Juan Melé, László Moholy-Nagy, Piet Mondrian, Olivier Mosset, Hélio Oiticica, Blinky Palermo, Lygia Pape, Antoine Pevsner, Ljubow Popowa, Charlotte Posenenske, Alexander Rodtschenko, Karl Peter Röhl, Mira Schendel, Ivan Serpa, Frank Stella, Nikolai Suetin, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Wladimir Tatlin, Niele Toroni, Joaquín Torres-García, Ilja Tschaschnik, Jakob Tschernichow, Nadeschda Udalzowa, Georges Vantongerloo, Alexander Wesnin, Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, David Jakerson
Press contact: Maria-Teresa Cano, Director of the Communications and Public Relations of Kunstmuseum Bern – Zentrum Paul Klee, press [at] kmbzpk.ch / T +41 31 328 09 44
