|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tony Shafrazi Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition, “Revolutionary Film
Posters: Aesthetic Experiments of Russian Constructivism, 1920-33,” a comprehensive
collection of rare and exquisite Russian film posters, on view through July 30, 2011.
Culled from the world’s largest collection of Russian Film Posters from the great era of
Constructivism, the 95 examples on view represent a unique opportunity to survey how
one of the most significant movements in the early 20th Century avant-garde, informed a
radical graphic style that has had a dramatic influence on the development of fine art and
design over many subsequent generations. Most of the work shown, though originally
produced in the hundreds, constitutes the only surviving examples, with few ever having
been publicly exhibited before.
Reacting to the chaos of the Russian Revolution, the Constructivists sought order and felt
it their civic duty to engineer a more stable and harmonious society. While their utopian
ideals and rigorously experimental aesthetics were applied across the entire social
spectrum of contemporary experience to every mode of creative endeavor including
architecture, art, dance, fashion, film, literature, poetry, publishing and theater, this
golden age of poster art has not yet received the scholarship afforded most of the cultural
production from that era.
Nearly a century after they were created, there is something so fresh and revelatory about
these posters, at once extraordinarily modern and utterly unlike the formulaic, mundane
and uninspired fare so typical of commercial movie posters and advertising today.
Outrageous color schemes, a frenetic depiction of line, vertiginous compositions,
abstracted iconography, stark silhouetting and dynamic geometric designs combined with
highly innovative use of collage and photomontage give these images an undeniable
gravity and outré wonder that will appeal to aficionados of film and the Russian avantgarde,
captivate those who are less familiar with this history, and inform contemporary
designers and artists alike.
Highlights of the exhibition include seminal works by such recognized masters as
Alexander Rodchenko, “The Stenberg Brothers” (Georgii & Vladimir), and Alexander
Naumov. Graphic interpretations of Vertov’s experimental opus “The Man With a Movie
Camera” (1929), and Eisenstein’s landmark films “Battleship Potemkin” (1925) and
“October” (1928) are shown alongside beautifully restored footage from the original
classic films. American movie stars from the period including Buster Keaton, Harold
Lloyd, Ben Turpin, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. are seen in the posters for imports of such
films as “Seventh Heaven” and “The General.” But for the delight offered by these
moments of uncanny familiarity, the real treat is in the extent of heretofore utterly
unknown gems unearthed here for films we may never see and by artists who remain as
yet widely unrecognized.
“Russia was a unique powerhouse of art, design, photography and film, from the teens
through to the Great Terror of 1933. Like no other show I've ever seen, your spectacular
exhibition brings to life this world of wonder and astonishes us with its brilliance and
beauty.”
-Anthony d’Offay
|
