This Leads to Fire: Russian Art from Non-Conformism to Global Capitalism. Selections from the Kolodzei Art Foundation, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY September 14, 2014 to January 11, 2015

This Leads to Fire: Russian Art from Non-Conformism to Global Capitalism. Selections from the Kolodzei Art Foundation, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY 10577, September 14, 2014 to January 11, 2015. Opening Saturday, September 13.

As world attention is riveted by current events in Ukraine, an upcoming exhibition of works by contemporary Russian artists at the Neuberger Museum of Art takes on a new urgency. In This Leads to Fire: Russian Art From Nonconformism to Global Capitalism, Selections from the Kolodzei Art Foundation Collection, the challenges that Russian contemporary artists pose to both Russian culture and the globalized art world are vividly portrayed. The 100 works on view from the Kolodzei Art Foundation, one of the most extensive collections of Nonconformist and contemporary Russian art in the world, familiarize viewers with an important yet underappreciated body of work. The exhibition explores the origins of Nonconformist art, the developments of Moscow Conceptualism and Sots Art, the influence of the Russian avant-garde in geometric abstraction, and the coercive legacy of Socialist Realism, from the 1950s through the period of Glasnost to the present day. This Leads to Fire is organized by the Neuberger Museum of Art of Purchase College, SUNY.

“In the Soviet period, it was the pluralism of the international art world that sustained and inspired these artists, as well as their collective relationships of mutual support, both material and creative,” says guest curator Sarah Warren, assistant professor of art history at Purchase College, SUNY. “Today’s artists are still burdened by the legacy of Soviet Realism and face an increasingly repressive environment.” She adds that though many of the artists have exhibited extensively in the West, this exhibition will reveal the deeper context of the Kolodzeis’ collecting practices and considers the challenges the artists still face.  

List of artists in the exhibition:

Alena Anosova, Tatiana Antoshina, Valeryi Ayzenberg, Vagrich Bakhchanyan, Leonid Borisov, Erik Bulatov, Irene Caesar, Genia Chef, Mikhail Chernyshev and Star Group, Group Collective Action (Andrei Monastyrsky, Nikita Alexeev, Nikolai Panitkov, Georgii Kizevalter, Igor Makarevich, Elena Elagina, Sergei Romashko, Sabine Haensgen), Alexandra Dementieva, Alla Esipovich, Anna Frants, Rimma Gerlovina, Valeriy Gerlovin, Dimitry Gerrman, Gnezdo (Nest) Group (Mikhail Roshal, Gennadii Donskoi, and Viktor Skersis), Eduard Gorokhovsky, Francisco Arana Infante, Ilya Kabakov, Anton S. Kandinsky, Dimitri Kantorov, Konstantin Khudyakov, Marina Koldobskaya, Vyacheslav Koleichuk, Vitaly Komar, Dmitrii Krasnopevtsev, Valentina Kropivnitskaya, Yefim Ladyzhensky, Leonid Lamm, Rostislav Lebedev, Lydia Masterkova, Alexander Melamid, Artem Mirolevich, Mikhail Molochnikov, Ernst Neizvestny, Vladimir Nemukhin, Natalia Nesterova, Alexander Ney, Shimon Okshteyn, Oscar Rabin, Mikhail Roginsky, Samuil Rubashkin, San San (Alexander Karasev), Alexander Sigutin, Anatolii Slepyshev, Eduard Shteinberg, Leonid Sokov, Alexei Titarenko, Alexei Tyapushkin, Oleg Vassiliev, Sergei Volokhov, Julia Winter, Vladimir Yakovlev, Vladimir Yankilevsky, Valery Yershov, Valerii Yurlov, Anatolii Zverev

Public Programs

Open House, Sunday, September 14, 2014, 1 to 3 pm Free and open to the public

Neu First Wednesday Lecture, Wednesday, November 5, 6:30 pm

Masha Gessen: Russian Power, Russian Dissent Held at the Purchase College Music Conservatory Recital Hall. Refreshments following the lecture at the Neuberger Museum of Art. Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen, author of The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin and Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot, will discuss contemporary issues in Russia.

Conversation: Collecting Art in Russia, Tuesday, November 18, 11 am Join Natalia Kolodzei in a conversation about collecting art in Russia. Kolodzei’s family daringly amassed one of the most extensive collections of Nonconformist and contemporary Russian art in the world, that is now part of the Kolodzei Art Foundation Collection.

Neu First Wednesdays Media Lecture: Artists Speak–Vitaly Komar, Wednesday, December 3, 4:30 pm

Vitaly Komar has spent much of his career reacting to what he calls “the overproduction of ideology and its propaganda,” most notably Soviet Socialist Realism. From 1967 to 2003, Komar and Alexander Melamid organized various conceptual projects, ranging from painting and performance to installation, public sculpture, photography, music, and poetry, that form a powerful response to contemporary political and social climates. This New Media Lecture is presented by the Neuberger Museum of Art and the New Media Board of Study, School of Film and Media Studies, Purchase College. Free admission and refreshments will be served.

Neuberger Museum of Art 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, New York 10577 914-251-6100

 For more information visit https://www.neuberger.org/ or www.KolodzeiArt.org

 Natalia Kolodzei Kolodzei Art Foundation, Inc.

[email protected] www.KolodzeiArt.org

1991-2014: Supporting Russian and Eastern European Art for over 20 Years!

Like us on FaceBook http://www.facebook.com/KolodzeiArt