Riverside Art Museum, CA
Exhibition: January 7 – March 25, 2014
Guest Curator: Olga Severina
Forged in the molten crater of the vanishing Russian empire scorched by the revolution, the Russian avant-garde was driven by a burgeoning need for political endorsements and nourished by a previously unfamiliar and yet overwhelming sensation of living in a new, liberated society that encouraged ingenuity, enthused imaginations, and incited all forms of artistic expression. Together with the rise of social propaganda, it turned conventional artists like Alexander Rodchenko, El Lizzitsky, Vladimir Tatlin, Vasyl Yermylov, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and many others into forefathers of commercial advertising and forbearers of what we now recognize as modern graphic design, identity creation, and branding.
The exhibit will feature selected works from recent international poster projects, including the Rodchenko 120and Mayakovsky 120 poster campaigns curated by Sergey Serov (Russia) and the Design Sphere poster exhibit curated by Vladimir Lesnyak (Ukraine), which celebrates the greatest writers, scientists, and artists of the Russian avant-garde.