1,721,116 research outputs found
Un alfiere del (neo)realismo sociale dell’Occidente: Renato Guttuso nell’Europa socialista (1948-1962)
No full textThe article deals with the critical reception of Italian artist Renato Guttuso in Socialist Europe from the late Forties up to the early Sixties. A Communist activist and an outstanding personality of cultural diplomacy in post-war Europe, Guttuso enjoyed a wide exposure in Central and Eastern Europe, where his artwork circulated both within itinerant exhibitions and as reproductions in the press. A further reason for his popularity was provided by his activity as an art critic and author of pamphlets against the hegemony of abstract art in the West. In the Fifties, Guttuso’s paintings were presented as the work of a “Western realist”, thus playing a crucial role in the art debates of each host nations, but also ending up adapted to the State promoted cultural policies. In Central-eastern Europe, and more specifically in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the artist was greeted as an alternative to Soviet socialist realism, while in the German Democratic Republic as a master of anti-fascism, thus providing common ground for a shared critical discourse on interwar regimes, both in Italy and in Germany. Only starting from the late Fifties, Guttuso gained popularity in the Soviet Union as a neo-realist painter, thus echoing Italian popular cinema, which provided the critical framework for the reception and the popularization of his art. His first solo exhibition in the Soviet Union was planned and promoted in 1961 as a key event in the new cultural agenda between Italy and the USSR, paving the way for his popularity in the homeland of real existing socialis
Soviet “Severe Romanticism” at the 1962 Venice Biennale
No full textWith the Soviet Pavilion of the 1962 Venice Art Biennale, the Thaw era made its entrance onto the international art scene. Artists from different generations and Soviet republics were entrusted to illustrate “the deeply human dimension of Soviet art.”1 Among younger painters, one prominent figure was 30-year old artist Viktor Popkov. Along with the drawings and sketches produced during his travels in the virgin lands and building sites of Siberia, he presented the monumental painting The Builders of Bratsk (1960-61), an iconic artwork of the so-called “severe style.” The exhibition took place just a few months before the Moscow Manege Exhibition of December 1962, which prompted Khrushchev’s notoriously negative reaction and the first stop to Soviet cultural détente.The present article explores the genesis of the canvas as the expression of a new “severe romanticism,” against the backdrop of the ongoing debate about romanticism in Soviet culture. It also analyzes the reception of Popkov’s work both in Italy—the country with the largest communist party in the West—and in the international press. On the basis of archival materials and press reviews, the article sheds light onto an artistic encounter between East and West in a divided Europe and discusses missed connections and unmet expectations of Western, mostly Italian, art critic
Venice 1977: (counter)celebrations of the October Revolution
No full textIn Venice, the celebrations of the sixtieth anniversary of the October Revolution were anticipated almost a year earlier with the retrospective exhibition Soviet Graphics from 1920 to Today, which opened in mid-December 1976 in the so-called Napoleonic Wing overlooking St Mark’s square. The exhibition was promoted from the Italian side by the municipality of Venice, the Union of Venetian Engravers and the local Italy-USSR Association, and from Soviet side by the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. Although the show was not planned as an official contribution to the anniversary celebrations, it presented a wide selection of works on revolutionary subjects. The director of the Pushkin Museum, the legendary Irina Antonova, celebrated the tribute to the Great October in Soviet graphic works as an art medium ‘able to get in direct contact with revolutionary mass movements, and to address an audience of millions
- Luoghi russi in Italia / Russkie mesta v Italii: Venezia, Cimitero greco ortodosso di San Michele / Venecija, Kladbišče San Mikele; Venezia, Palazzo Volkoff' / Venecija, Palacco Volkov
No full textAi margini della pittura non ufficiale sovietica degli anni Settanta e Ottanta: Erik Bulatov
Full text linkL'articolo analizza l'opera pittorica di Eirk Bulatov (nato nel 1933), uno dei maggiori esponenti dell'arte sovietica non ufficiale
L’inaugurazione del padiglione russo all’Esposizione internazionale d’arte di Venezia del 1914
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