The Cooper Union’s controversial Vkhutemas: Laboratory of Modernism, 1920–1930 has set an opening date months after being postponed and then remounted following backlash over censorship claims and its appropriateness in light of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
April 25th is the new public opening for the exhibition, which will run through May 5th in the school’s Arthur J. Houghton Jr. Gallery.
The move was announced Monday by President Laura Sparks, who said: “The Cooper Union has always been a forum for courageous public discourse, a place where new ideas, as well as opposing viewpoints, are expressed and explored to advance a just and thriving world. Since the 19th century, the institution has served as a center of learning and civic engagement to address the critical challenges and opportunities of the day. There is value in examining the teachings of Vkhutemas, and it is critical that we expanded the study to probe and learn from the broader geopolitical circumstances surrounding the formation, operation, and closure of the school and those that confront us today.”
The announcement stated that the school and curators have been working closely with members of the local and academic community to determine how best to move forward using a supplementary framework developed to provide missing contextual material to the exhibition. The school said doing so “allows for the uncovering of a history once lost to political suppression, alongside an open exploration of what we can learn from it today.”
The exhibition will be broken down into five themes: Instruments, Constructions, Objects, Exercises, and Projects, and includes reconstructions of former Vkhutemas works by 27 School of Architecture students as guided by curator Anna Bokov’s scholarship and the courses she taught there beginning in 2019.
“As architects and teachers, we are always considering the relevance of design history and how it informs both contemporary practices and worldviews,” Acting Dean Hayley Eber said at the end of a press statement, “The exhibition, together with the courses from which the exhibition originated and the scholarly inquiry this semester, have given our students an opportunity to revisit this period of early modern architecture pedagogy and further extend it into new ways of thinking, which has been invaluable.”
Along with the Vkhutemas exhibition, Cooper has announced "War & Art: The Balance," which aims to explore the delicate balance between showcasing art from politically sensitive periods while respecting the current global context. Panelists, including artists, curators, and historians, will discuss the ethical considerations and challenges faced when presenting artwork created during or influenced by times of conflict. This conversation is intended to foster a broader understanding of the role of art in addressing complex social and political issues, as well as providing a platform for meaningful discourse in the artistic community.
More information can be found by visiting the school’s exhibition page.
4 Comments
“. . . allows for the uncovering of a history once lost to political suppression, alongside an open exploration of what we can learn from it today.”
This can only make the exhibition stronger. Let's hope it gets the attention it deserves.
The effort was short-lived as Vkhutemas was shut down after a decade by Stalinist authorities, effectively ending its significant contributions to modern art and design and persecuting many of its faculty and students.
From the exhibition announcement. It would be worthwhile to hear the Stalinist arguments against Vkhutemas as well. We're probably hearing similar elsewhere today.
One could argue that Constructivism was the aesthetic symbol of Lenin's Communist Revolution, which get's a pass because of Stalin's butchery... but truth be told, Lenin was not an alter boy. Nevertheless, the naivetee of Constructivism is endearing and its monuments very interesting. Can't say the same about Cooper Union's new building.
I'm not clear how much influence the party or the state had over the school, how much it was driven by official ideology. Lenin didn't care that much for its designs, Constructivist and the others. Stalin believed "avant-gardism was a symptom of Western bourgeois decadence."
Take a look at what the constructivists said. They are not unique for modernist but their outlook was certainly revolutionary, and if the history is correct, Lenin was not friendly to those who didn't support la revolucion. Ironically, Le Corb used the fear of revolution (aka class warfare) to get folks to sign up for his bullshit.
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