VITEBSK, 11 February (BelTA) - The influence of UNOVIS group of artists on the world artistic culture of the 20th century will be discussed at an international conference in Vitebsk, the organizers told BelTA.
The event, which is one of the main events of the large-scale program of the #UNOVIS100 project, will be held at the Museum of History of the Vitebsk People's Art School on 12-13 February. For the first time, Vitebsk will welcome Kazimir Malevich's grandnephews – Ivona Malevich, Stanislav and Alexander Bogdanov, El Lissitzky's great-granddaughter Valeria Lissitzky. The conference will also be attended by leading researchers of the history of the Russian avant-garde from the State Tretyakov Gallery, curator of Russian art at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven Willem Jan Renders, representatives of the Amsterdam City Museum, Belarusian universities and museums.
The conference will examine in detail the phenomenon of UNOVIS, analyze the history and activities of the creative association, the processes of mutual influence of UNOVIS and world art schools of the early 20th century, will conduct a comparative analysis of the art trends of the 20th - 21st centuries. The discussion of contemporary artistic practices and the panel discussion "Publishing projects: History and theory of the avant-garde, innovative art schools of the 20th century, creative portraits" promises to be an interesting event as well.
On 15 February the National Art Museum of Belarus in Minsk will host the country's first solo exhibition by Lazar Khidekel - a native of Vitebsk, a student of Mark Chagall and Kazimir Malevich, one of the youngest founders of UNOVIS. His son, world-famous architect and designer Mark Khidekel and his wife, Doctor of Art History Regina Khidekel will also come to Belarus to participate in the conference and to open the exhibition. The exposition will feature about a hundred original works and documents of UNOVIS.
Another major event of the #UNOVIS100 project will be the night performance SupremStorm due at the Vitebsk Concert Hall at 19:00 on 13 February. The five-hour event will feature artists, designers, musicians, DJs, poets, actors, film directors, and fire performers. On the day of the centenary, in the morning of 14 February, the Museum of History of the Vitebsk People's Art School will host a first-day-of-issue dedication ceremony for a stamped envelope issued by the Belarusian postal service Belpochta to celebrate the occasion.
An exhibition of works by David Yakerson, the head of a sculpture workshop at the school and one of the UNOVIS prominent figures, opened at the Museum of History of the Vitebsk People's Art School ahead of the anniversary celebrations. The exhibition “David Yakerson. #UNOVIS100” demonstrates sketches of Vitebsk decorations for the 1918 celebrations of the October Revolution, suprematist compositions, plaster models of Vitebsk monuments to Karl Marx and Karl Liebknecht (1920), and pencil sketches of the city landscapes. The exhibition will be on view till the end of March.
“UNOVIS is our national legacy that integrates our culture into the European and world culture. Recognition and glorification of these names in their native land will help make the name UNOVIS as popular as the Bauhaus. After a hundred years, people in Belarus will get an opportunity to see unique works created in Vitebsk in the 1920s with their own eyes,” Director of the Belarusian-Jewish Cultural Heritage Center Zakhar Dudinsky said.
The centennial anniversary of the famous UNOVIS group of artists, founded in Vitebsk on the initiative of Kazimir Malevich, will be marked on 14 February. The Belarusian-Jewish Cultural Heritage Center, the Museum of History of the Vitebsk People's Art School, and A1 company have launched the #UNOVIS100 project dedicated to the history of the first school of suprematism in the world to celebrate the anniversary.
