Lecture: Avant-Garde and Power

In this lecture, we will explore the new trends in Russian art at the beginning of the 20th century. We’ll discuss the most unprecedented projects of the avant-garde artists and how successful they were in bringing their ideas to life. Additionally, we will learn:

Why did the two capitals of the avant-garde in the Russian Empire compete with each other?

How did the avant-gardists transition to abstraction and attempt to captivate the entire country with their utopias?

Is it possible to depict "nothing," and what makes the Black Square so revolutionary?

How did Vladimir Tatlin change the concept of sculpture?

How did Russian-speaking avant-garde figures create the visual image of the communist society, and later, of contemporary culture as a whole?

Were the illogic and the zaum (beyond reason) forms of conceptual art?