Erste russische Kunstausstellung, Berlin (1922) [German]

The First Russian Art Exhibition [Erste russische Kunstausstellung] opened at the Van Diemen Gallery on Unter den Linden 21, near the Russian embassy in Berlin, on 15 October 1922. More than 700 works by 167 artists where shown, including paintings, graphic works, sculptures, as well as designs for theater, architectural models, and porcelain. The exhibition’s official host was the Russian Ministry for Information, and it was put together by the artists Naum Gabo, David Shterenberg, and Nathan Altman. El Lissitzky designed the catalogue’s cover. Gabo was in charge of the three rooms where Russian avant-garde art was presented, including several of his own sculptures. Due to the positive response in the press and the large number of visitors (ca. 15,000), the exhibition was prolonged until the end of the year. On the initiative of the International Workers’ Assistance, the show was conceived as a commercial exhibition; the proceeds were to go to “Russia’s starving”. In the Spring of 1923, a version of the exhibition traveled to Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

Publisher Internationale Arbeiterhilfe, Berlin, 1922
31+[46] pages
via Bibliotheque Kandinsky

Commentary: Branko Ve Poljanski (Zenit 1923, trans. 2002), Eckhard Neumann (Art Journal 1967).

PDF (27 MB)

More about the exhibition

Vidosava Golubović, Irina Subotić: Zenit, 1921-1926 (2008) [Serbian, English]

A monograph about the Yugoslav magazine Zenit whose founder and editor Ljubomir Micić was the main progenitor of the avant-garde in Croatia and Serbia during the first half of the 1920s.

“Through the relentless publication of manifestos and statements in issue after issue of Zenit, Micić gave shape to a specifically Yugoslav avant-garde aesthetics: Zenitism, counterpointing the redemptive force of the Balkanic-Slavic ‘barbarogenius’ over against the decadence of Western Europe. Over the course of its five years of publication, Zenit accreted successive influences from international Expressionism, Futurism, Dada, and Constructivism to advance its cultural-political goals. Its political orientations were similarly idiosyncratic, eclectic, and fluctuating: a blend of Serbian nationalism, pan-Slavism, pacificism, Bolshevism (though often celebrating the anti-Western Russian character of Lenin and Trotsky rather than their Soviet politics), mystical new-age thought, internationalism, and anarchism. Zenit managed to garner a significant degree of international attention both for its solicitation of work for publication and for its subsidiary activities, such as the First Zenit International Exhibition of New Art held in Belgrade in April 1924. The example of Zenit and the aesthetic ideology of Zenitism inspired other important publications across the region, such as the Hungarian-language journal Út and the Slovenian journal Tank, as well as individual practitioners of avant-garde such as the Dadaist poet Dragan Aleksić and the Slovenian cubo-futurist Srečko Kosovel.” (Source)

The book includes two lead essays by Vidosava Golubović and Irina Subotić in English translation (pp 469-484).

Publisher Narodna biblioteka Srbije, Belgrade; Institut za književnost i umetnost, Belgrade; and SKD Prosvjeta, Zagreb, 2008
ISBN 867035182X, 9788670351820
516 pages
via Dubravka/MoW

Publisher (NBS)
Publisher (IKUM)
WorldCat

PDF, PDF (17 MB)

More on Zenit

Ramon Gómez de la Serna: Ismos (1921/1943) [Spanish]

A monograph by the Spanish writer, dramatist and avant-garde agitator (1888-1963) providing a survey of 27 art styles of the period.

Apollinerismo, Picassismo, Futurismo, Negrismo, Luminismo, Klaxismo, Estantifermismo, Toulouselautrecismo, Monstruosismo, Archipenkismo, Maquinismo, Lhoteísmo, Simultaneísmo, Jazzbandismo, Humorismo, Lipchitzmo, Tubularismo, Ninfismo, Dadaísmo, Charlotismo, Surrealismo, Botellismo, Riverismo, Novelismo, Serafismo, Ducassismo, Daliismo.

First edition as El cubismo y todos los ismos, Biblioteca nueva, Madrid, 1921; new ed. as Ismos, Biblioteca nueva, Madrid, 1931.

Publisher Poseidón, Buenos Aires, 1943
448 pages

Commentary: Andrés Soria Olmedo (in English, 1995).

WorldCat

PDF (38 MB, no OCR)

See also Reina Sofia catalogue on Ismos (Spanish, 20 MB, 2002), and Lissitzky and Arp’s Die Kunstismen / Les Ismes De L’Art / The Isms of Art (1925).