Amherst Center for Russian Culture Curator's Talk: "Fragments of Utopia: Photographs from the VKhUTEMAS Workshops"

Join Maria Timina, curator of Russian and European art, for a talk on the exhibition Fragments of Utopia: Photographs from the VKhUTEMAS Workshops.

The VKhUTEMAS was one of the world’s leading centers for innovation in arts education, based in Moscow in the 1920s. Its visionary pedagogy was rooted in the artistic theories and practices of the leaders of the avant-garde movement who taught there-- among them Alexandra Exter, Ivan Kliun, El Lissitzky, Lubov Popova, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Vladimir Tatlin and others. The lasting influence of the VKhUTEMAS on the development of modern art, design and architecture is often compared to that of the Bauhaus. The Soviet school was several times larger and yet is far less well-known.

The Amherst Center for Russian Culture’s exhibition features photographs of student exercises and projects alongside artwork by their professors. Taken together, these works offer glimpses into the historic VKhUTEMAS-- fragments of a lost utopia.