March 12, 2015

Exhibit showcases artists who shaped theater of early 20th century

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Cover of the catalogue for the exhibit “Staging the Ukrainian Avant-Garde of the 1910s and 1920s.”

NEW YORK – The Ukrainian Museum is presenting the first comprehensive exhibit showcasing avant-garde artists who shaped early 20th century Ukrainian theater and, ultimately, influenced the theatrical world stage. “Staging the Ukrainian Avant-Garde of the 1910s and 1920s” was organized by The Ukrainian Museum with guest curators Myroslava Mudrak, professor emerita, Department of History of Art, The Ohio State University; and Tetiana Rudenko, chief curator of the Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema Arts of Ukraine in Kyiv.

The exhibit, which opened on February 15, will be open to the public through September 13.

The first of its kind outside Ukraine to feature important contributions to the theater arts in the 1910s and 1920s by modernist Ukrainian artists, the exhibition tells the story of an avant-garde that generated innovation, entrepreneurship and, to a large extent, social engagement with contemporary issues.

“Staging the Ukrainian Avant-Garde” showcases 125 original art works for the theater by 13 artists, many of them exiled or executed during Stalin’s purges of the 1930s for their perceived political beliefs. The exhibition comprises 142 objects on loan from the collection of the Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema Arts of Ukraine in Kyiv, including art works on paper of costume, set and make-up design, photographs and original posters.

Artist Borys Kosarev’s sketch (gouache on paper) for costumes for three witches in Ivan Kocherha’s “Marko v Pekli” (Marko in Hell), State Red Factory Theater, Kharkiv, 1928.

Artist Borys Kosarev’s sketch (gouache on paper) for costumes for three witches in Ivan Kocherha’s “Marko v Pekli” (Marko in Hell), State Red Factory Theater, Kharkiv, 1928.

A historical trajectory serves as the organizing principle for the exhibition, beginning with experimental designs for dance and culminating with theatrical spectacle at its most innovative period in the theaters of Kyiv, Odesa and Kharkiv. Three aspects of early 20th century Ukrainian stage design are specifically highlighted, each intermingling formalist and socio-cultural issues of the day.

The first examines the period of enterprising collaborative projects initiated by experimental theater and dance, wherein the cubo-futurist painter Alexandra Exter and dancer and ballet choreographer Bronislava Nijinska revolutionized the balletic stage. While these figures have become well-known in theater and dance history in the last few decades, the exhibition introduces Exter’s protégé, Vadym Meller, who would become the premier designer for the Berezil Artistic Association, led by visionary director Les Kurbas.

In adopting expressionist drama, which makes up the second aspect of the exhibition, constructivist aesthetics and contemporary social content, the productions of Berezil shaped the distinct modernist landscape of theater in Ukraine. Berezil represents the apogee of Ukrainian theatrical arts on par with the best contemporary productions of Erwin Piscator in Berlin and Vsevolod Meyerkhold in Moscow. In 1933 the Bolshevik government shut down the Berezil theater in Kharkiv and sent Kurbas into exile and the gulag, where he was later executed. Repression and execution were the weapons used by the Soviet regime against an entire generation of artists and writers of the early 20th century, abruptly halting the exuberant modernist expression of Ukrainian culture.

Ukrainian theater set itself apart by exploiting Ukraine’s own popular culture, its traditions and customs, including folk costume, puppet theater, and the Kozak lyrical burlesque and gritty local variety show. The avant-garde artists translated these into a modernist idiom, exercising formalist hyperbole, bright colors and vulgate forms to create a lively and provocative theater dynamic, a performative forum that was both cosmopolitan and distinctively local. This third, folk-inspired, aspect of the exhibition is illustrated by the singularly rich works of Anatol Petrytsky, the productions of Berezil, and similarly showcased in the works of Matvii Drak, Marko Epshtein, Borys Kosarev, Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov, Vasyl Krychevsky, Nisson Shyfrin, Valentyn Shkliaiev, Maia (Militsa) Symashkevych and Kost Yeleva, who designed for other theaters in Ukraine, including the Jewish theater of Odesa.

The bulk of the exhibit’s works focuses on the designs of Vadym Meller, who won a gold medal for his scenography at the International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in Paris in 1925. The following year, his designs were exhibited as part of the “foreign” and “radically modernistic” section of the International Theater Exposition in New York (The Little Review, Winter 1926). Special emphasis will be placed on Meller’s designs for Berezil’s productions of Upton Sinclair’s “Jimmie Higgins” (1923), Georg Kaiser’s “Gas” (1923), Fernand Crommelynck’s “Golden Tripe” (1926), and the revue, “Hello, from Radiowave 477!” (1929).

Historical background

As revolution brought an end to the Empire, and Ukraine declared independence for the first time in the 20th century, an intellectual avant-garde produced an energetic (though ill-destined) cultural renaissance. Theater was central to this phenomenon. After years of interdiction and censorship, the Ukrainian language was finally allowed to flourish on the stage, and translations of the world’s most momentous dramaturgy – from classics such as Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex” and Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” to contemporary German drama – brought a new and unprecedented theatrical experience to the public.

The Soviet government instituted a policy of “Ukrainianization” in the 1920s as a way of recognizing, on the surface of things, the USSR’s indigenously distinct peoples. This allowed the use of national languages and the cultivation of native traditions for the purposes of defining “Soviet” identity along national lines. The Ukrainian theater prospered under these conditions, marking the apogee of Ukrainian modernist art. It was not long, however, before triumph turned to tragedy. The policy that once promoted the arts ultimately proved to be a ruse, laying the groundwork for Stalin’s planned extermination of the Ukrainian elite that began in the 1930s and leading to what is now called the “executed renaissance.”

Almost a century has passed since the vibrancy of the avant-garde of the 1910s and 1920s afforded new hope for the future directions of Ukrainian art and culture. Ukraine’s current revolutionary struggle for independence makes the preservation of that legacy ever more precious. The collaboration between The Ukrainian Museum in New York and the Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema Arts of Ukraine in Kyiv in the presentation of this exhibition signals a strong belief in and commitment to a flourishing national culture in Ukraine.

Exhibit catalogue

A full-color illustrated, bilingual (English and Ukrainian), 276-page, softcover catalogue accompanies “Staging the Ukrainian Avant-Garde of the 1910s and 1920s.” The publication features critical essays by consultative curators Prof. Mudrak and Ms. Rudenko, and includes contributions by these acknowledged experts: Nicoletta Misler, professor of Russian and East European art at the Istituto Universitario Orientale, Naples (University of Naples); John E. Bowlt, professor, Department of Slavic Languages at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, director of the Institute of Modern Russian Culture, and specialist in the history of modern Russian art; Valentyna Chechyk, professor, Department of Art History and Theory at Kharkiv State Academy of Art and Design; Hanna Veselovska, professor, Department of Theater Theory and Criticism, Karpenko-Karyi National University of Theater, Cinema and Television in Kyiv; Mayhill Fowler, Department of History, Stetson University, specializing in the cultural history of Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe.

The catalogue, priced at $49, is available in the museum shop and online at ukrainianmuseum.org.

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“Staging the Ukrainian Avant-Garde of the 1910s and 1920s” is made possible by major support from Self Reliance New York Federal Credit Union and numerous private donors.

The Ukrainian Museum is located at 222 E. Sixth St. (between Second Avenue and the Bowery); telephone, 212-228-0110; e-mail, [email protected]; website,www.ukrainianmuseum.org.

Admission to the exhibit is $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and students, free for children age 12 and younger.

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