Caricatures, cartoons, satirical articles in poetry and prose on Russian futurists: artists, writers and musicians.
“To shock the bourgeois” was in the entire world one of the main aims of the so-called new art in the end of the XX century. In Russia this expression was first applied to works of the symbolist poets and later inseparably associated with works of Russian futurists (cubo-futurism, ego-futurism, etc.). The word “epatage” almost turned into a term which contemplated scandalous escapades and provocations of futurists, writers, artists and musicians. These vagaries were revealed both in their works and in their artistic life. This was one of the reasons why works, appearance, manifestos and other statements of the Russian futurists were a source of caricatures, cartoons, satirical articles in poetry and prose that were published in the national press.
All this fragmented materials are brought together at the exhibition. Caricatures depicting Russian futurists which reflect the most important futuristic discussions, theatre performances, exhibitions and manifestos also show graphic chronicles of the avant-garde movement in Russia in the 1910s. They demonstrate everything that seemed strange, unusual or even ugly to contemporaries in the artistic movement that became the “symbol of the century”. At the same time the participants of these events used them as an effective means of propaganda of the new art, propaganda of the latest trends in culture, self-promotion, etc.
Admission by a single ticket of the St. Petersburg Museum of Avant-garde.
from 17 May 2012 to 26 August 2012
