This Leads to Fire: Russian Art From Nonconformism to Global Capitalism, Selections from the Kolodzei Art Foundation Collection at the Neuberger Museum of Art, NY, Sep. 14 - Jan. 11

This Leads to Fire: Russian Art From Nonconformism to Global Capitalism,
Selections from the Kolodzei Art Foundation Collection at the Neuberger
Museum of Art, 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, New York, September 14 -
January 11. Opening September 13.

 

(Purchase, New York).... 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, on view at the Neuberger Museum of Art
of Purchase College  from September 14, 2014 to January 11, 2015, the
challenges that Russian contemporary artists pose to both Russian and
Western culture are vividly portrayed. 

 

This Leads to Fire: Russian Art From Nonconformism to Global Capitalism,
Selections from the Kolodzei Art Foundation Collection features work from
the 1950s through Glasnost until the present. Exhibition sheds light on
challenges artists pose to mainstream Russian culture.

 

"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 curator
of the exhibition Sarah Warren, assistant professor of art history at
Purchase College, the State University of New York. "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, consider the challenges the
artists still face, and familiarize viewers with an important yet
underappreciated body of work. 

 

This Leads to Fire: Russian Art From Nonconformism to Global Capitalism,
Selections from the Kolodzei Art Foundation Collection is organized into
five parts that explore 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. It features about 100 works of art-from the 1950s through the
period of Glasnost and into the present-from the Kolodzei Art Foundation,
one of the most extensive collections of Nonconformist and contemporary
Russian art in the world.  Among the artists represented are: conceptual
artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid; Oleg Vassiliev and Erik Bulatov,
painters whose works slyly challenged Soviet realities; Nonconformist
artists Ernst Neizvestny, Oscar Rabin, Vladimir Nemukhin, and Vladimir
Yakovlev; and contemporary artists Tatiana Antoshina, Irene Caesar, Alla
Esipovich, Anton S. Kandinsky, Alexandra Dementieva, and Valery Yershov.

 

Founded in 1991 with the support of American sponsors, the Foundation
comprises the joint collection of Tatiana Kolodzei, who organized
exhibitions of works by Nonconformist artists in the former Soviet Union,
and her daughter Natalia Kolodzei. Today, the collection contains
approximately 7,000 paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, photography and
video, by more than 300 artists, acquired during four decades of Russian and
Soviet Nonconformist art, from the post-Stalinist era to the present. 

***

The Neuberger Museum of Art is an integral part of Purchase College, State
University of New York. The Museum is supported in part by the State
University of New York. Support for the Museum's collection, exhibitions,
publications, and education programs is provided by grants from public and
private agencies, individual contributions, and the Friends of the Neuberger
Museum of Art's members and Board. 

The Museum is located at 735 Anderson Hill Road in Purchase, N.Y.
(Westchester)  www.neuberger.org

 

PROGRAMS & EVENTS

Neu First Wednesdays, Wednesday, December 3 4:30 pm, 
Artist Speak: Vitaly Komar

Vitaly Komar has spent much of his career reacting to what he has called
"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, which form a
powerful response to contemporary political and social climates. Komar and
Melamid's work is included in the exhibition This Leads to Fire.

 

Collecting Art in Russia, Tuesday, November 18, 11 am

Natalia Kolodzei has, with her mother, Tatiana, amassed one of the most
extensive collections of Nonconformist and contemporary Russian art in the
world. Join Natalia in a conversation about the history of collecting art in
Russia.

***

 

Natalia Kolodzei

Kolodzei Art Foundation, Inc.

tel 1-732-545-8425 fax 1-732-545-8428

 <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]

 <http://www.kolodzeiart.org/> www.KolodzeiArt.org

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

 

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

 

http://artsy.net/kolodzei/collection

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