An exhibition at The Cooper Union examining Vkhutemas has been postponed by the institution amidst criticisms relating to the ongoing war in Ukraine. Vkhutemas was a Soviet art and technical school that existed from 1920 to 1930. It was a pioneer in the field of art and design education in the Soviet Union, playing a significant role in shaping the aesthetic of early Soviet art and architecture.
In an op-ed published on Archinect last week, Peder Anker, a Professor in History at NYU, outlined his opposition to the show, which was to be staged in the Houghton Gallery, just steps away from the Ukrainian Village and several important cultural sites associated with the large Ukrainian diaspora group that resides in New York City.
The op-ed originally suggested that Anna Bokov, the show's curator, is engaging in Russian propaganda, with direct ties to Vladimir Putin through her father, Andrey Bokov, the National Architect of the Russian Federation and former President of the Russian Union of Architects. Bokov's family harshly criticized the accusation as false and defamatory, leading to a redaction of the op-ed, with a note from Archinect's editorial outlining the edits. Bokov's family also accused colleagues of Anker's at Terreform ONE, where Anker is an advisor, of further promoting the allegations through the comments, which have also since been deleted.
In a statement from Cooper Union yesterday, the school’s Acting Dean Hayley Eber and Exhibition Committee Chair Alexander Tochilovsky said jointly that “We have made the decision to postpone the opening of the exhibition to provide us with the time and space to fully consider these concerns and to make an informed decision on moving forward.”
“As this exhibition would be experienced amidst the present-day conditions, it has generated concerns and started instructive dialogue,” the statement continued. “We are grateful to our colleagues of Ukrainian descent who are helping us to work through this matter as we seek to balance, with accuracy and sensitivity, the scholarly study of architectural history amidst the current atrocities being exacted on the people of Ukraine by the Russian government. The complexities of the world’s geopolitical landscape have been compounded in the last year by the horror of Russia’s ruthless, oppressive campaign — a campaign that we and people and governments the world over rightly continue to denounce.”
11 Comments
Sad all around.
Good will come from this. We'll get to hear from Ukrainians and the show will get the attention it deserves when it appears.
I should qualify my last comment in the previous post. Andrey Bokov obviously has ties to the current state. I got curious. Go here:
https://archi.ru/en/7264/interview-with-andrey-vladimirovich-bokov-anatoly-belov
And you can hear him speak in this interview, 2008. He is a thoughtful man with long experience in architecture and broad education, who has had deep attachment to the USSR/Russia for well over half a century.
Unlike many people, I don’t see foreigners as aliens. I don’t have any complexes in this respect. They and I speak the same language.
These are not the words of a Russian chauvinist, and we don't see here any taint of Putin's "Russian World" ("Russkiy Mir").
Scroll down, and you can see his work. It is interesting and varied, and would fit in with 95% of what you see here and elsewhere. This is not Albert Speer.
He was in his late 50s, at the height of his career, this achieved during uncertain and tumultuous times, when Putin assumed full power, around 2000. He could not continue his work after that without involvement and, likely, compromises—and without Putin's approval. With oligarchs and dissidents and opposition journalists mysteriously—or not mysteriously—dying, at best he has had to walk a tightrope.
Did he support the Chechen takeover, does he support Kadyrov—or Putin for that matter—or the Ukraine war, does he accept without concern the atrocities, does he want a nuclear strike? Given his long history and attachment to Russia, I'm skeptical on all counts. But if he has reservations, he cannot speak up
Should he leave Russia—and abandon his career? He'd lose everything. Did he have a voice in the naming of the sports complex? Should he have not built it? This is a fine stadium. It isn't this:
Or maybe he has been corrupted in some way. We just don't know, but you don't see it in his work or his public statements. For myself, I have to leave this question in brackets.
Mies van der Rohe was thoroughly German and a committed modernist. In 1929, with his reputation and work like the Barcelona Pavilion, he had good reason to believe he might help shape the architecture and character of a new Germany. He wanted to stay, and did remain some ten years after, maybe waiting to see if the political environment would shift. It didn't.
It is tempting to imagine what might have happened to him and his work had he stayed. Would his work have been corrupted? Would he have been? Once thing that is certain is that his reputation would have been sullied, probably irreparably. It's an idle speculation however, because his work was rejected wholesale by the Nazi regime and he couldn't get commissions. Finally he left, with the other modernists.
Why do I persist with my comments? I'm trying to keep my sanity, my humanity, my sense of culture.
I should explain. Had Mies stayed and his work was accepted.
Another note. Many prominent Russians are quite vocal in their nationalist and Slavophile views, who support Putin. Filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov, a close friend, comes to mind. There's no reason for them not to be, not in Russia. This doesn't seem to be the case with Bokov at all (I'm not going to check all Russian sources).
...as if drawn from Vkhutemas:
https://drawingmatter.org/delirious-ny-the-story-of-the-pool/
There's a recent petition questioning the postponement, calling for open discussion and clarification and reconsideration, with many signatures. Go here:
https://networks.h-net.org/node/166842/discussions/12274658/letter-support-vkhutemas-laboratory-avant-garde-1920-1930-cooper
Then click the link for the letter:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdZEvNBxgZrEe5R7StvZKEekLRoMwgNx871QPKBB2SVbmOqeA/viewform
Excerpt:
Vkhutemas, a Soviet art and architecture school established in 1920, was a ground-breaking experiment in art education. Based in Moscow, the capital of the newly established USSR, it sought – as The Cooper Union’s own statement rightly noted – to democratize art pedagogy, with students from all over the Soviet Union attending for free. Its mission of making cutting-edge arts education accessible to all was akin to that of The Cooper Union itself. This is also the spirit of the school that is channeled in the exhibition Vkhutemas: Laboratory of the Avant-garde, 1920-1930, which also features models, drawings, and animations made by the Cooper Union students. Vkhutemas was also a multi-ethnic and multinational space, with its members and affiliates coming from all over the Soviet Union, and beyond. Among its many Ukrainian-born faculty and students were Natan Altman, Iosif Chaikov, Olga Deineko, Daniil Fridman, Kazimir Malevich, Anatol Petrytsky, Isaak Rabinovich, David Shterenberg, Aleksandr Shevchenko, Nikolai Sokolov, and Lydia Zholtkevich, to name just a few. Many of these figures are also prominently featured in Avant-Garde as Method: Vkhutemas and the Pedagogy of Space, 1920-1930 (Park Books, 2020), the landmark publication by Anna Bokov.
And the notice of postponement at the Cooper site has been withdrawn, last I checked.
Cowards.
There was also an uproar against the exhibition on Facebook, where Cooper Union made the announcement Jan. 17. You can see the comments here:
https://hyperallergic.com/797149/cooper-union-criticized-for-halting-soviet-architecture-show/
In a statement shared with Hyperallergic, the School of Architecture’s Acting Dean Hayley Eber acknowledged that the op-ed “spread misunderstanding” but added that “the decision to provisionally postpone the exhibition was not made because of one person’s opinion and was not made lightly.”
Uproar isn't the right word. There weren't that many comments.
Ross Wolfe wrote a full review of Anna Bokov's book Avant-Garde as Method: Vkhutemas and the Pedagogy of Space, 1920–1930:
https://www.archpaper.com/2021...
Excerpt:
Even leaving aside the beautiful illustrations and Bokov’s impressive scholarship, Avant-Garde as Method is valuable for the access it provides to primary sources. Interspersed throughout the text are translations of assorted dossiers, newspaper articles, exhibition catalogues, lesson plans, and other materials from Russian, none of which have appeared in any prior publications. Highlights include the pamphlet Art in Life (Iskusstvo v bytu) from 1925, the brochure for Konstantin Melnikov’s pavilion in Paris, and a 1929 overview of the various departments’ activities. Next to assignments for the graphics and space courses are digitally reproduced axonometric projections by Bokov herself, which serve to visualize the tasks students were being asked to perform. Sketches often accompanied the original manuscripts—plans, sections, elevations—but these renderings are a helpful addition. For nonspecialists, these documents grant a window into the rich discourse of Soviet modernism.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.