Round the galleries: must-see exhibitions in Moscow and London
Russian Avant-Garde Theatre: War, Revolution and Design, 1913 – 1933, V&A Museum, London
Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Rodchenko, Liubov Popova and El Lissitzky all feature in the V&A's exhibition of over 150 radical designs for theatrical productions from celebrated figures from the Russian avant-garde. Including sketches, lithographs and set designs — some of which comprise mechanical mills, wheels and conveyer belts — Russian Avant-Garde Theatre features a host of avant-garde works, many of which were forerunners for many of the artworks that later came to define the movement.
The exhibition will run at the V&A, London from 18 October — 25 January 2015
Olga Chernysheva, PACE Gallery, London
Presenting a vision of post-Soviet Russia, Olga Chernysheva's photographs at this London exhibition see the artist explore conflicting notions of capitalism and individualism, resonating with her earlier projects which sought to capture both the general and specific. The subjects of her photographs, always shot from behind, show a variety of winter hats sported by Russian women, aptly staging a dialogue about individuality and mass culture which is central to Chernysheva's photographic interests.
The exhibition will be at PACE Gallery from 26 November — 16 January 2015
Best of Elle, Multimedia Art Musuem, Moscow
This collection of glossy photographs from Elle Magazine, on show now at Moscow's Multimedia Art Museum, gathers together some of Russia's best-known actors, musicians, fashion directors and media personalities to have graced the front cover of Elle Magazine. Photos of musician Zemfira, media personality Kseniya Sobchak and actor Danila Kozlovsky are joined by famous British actors and models, including Jude Law and Georgia Jagger.
Best of Elle will run at Moscow's Multimedia Art Museum until 7 December
Post Pop: East meets West, Saatchi Gallery, London
Bringing together 250 works by 110 artists from China, the former Soviet Union, Taiwan, UK and USA, Post Pop: East meets West is the largest survey to date exploring the legacy of Pop Art. The two major art movements Pop Art inspired — the Soviet Union's Sots Art and China's Cynical Realism — also feature in the exhibition, linked together with six themes: habitat; advertising and consumerism; celebrity and mass media; art history; religion and ideology; sex and the body.
The exhibition will run at the Saatchi Gallery from 26 November until 23 February 2015.
Russian Performance: a Cartography of its History, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow
The first exhibition to explore a century of performance art in Russia, Russian Performance features art spanning from the early experiments of the Futurists to today's practices and traditions of art performance in the country. The exhibition takes on a chronological structure and features cutting-edge multimedia technologies which enables viewers to participate in a performance that is shaped by their own choices, navigating a number of alternative scenarios that are available alongside the main route of the exhibition. Among the works are State Shuripa's animated rendition of Victory Over the Sun (1913) and costumes from The Death of Tarelkin (1922) based on the designs by Varvara Stepanova.
