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Im Russland der 1910er Jahre revolutioniert eine Gruppe visionärer Maler die ästhetischen Normen ihrer Zeit und wählt die radikale Abstraktion. In den Jahren zwischen der Machtergreifung der russischen Bolschewisten und dem Stalinismus der 30er Jahre entwickeln die Avantgardisten eine neue Form der Kunst, welche die Moderne einläutet und zugleich vom Bestreben der Künstler zeugt, sich mit den Zwängen des Regimes zu arrangieren, ohne dabei ihre eigene politische und künstlerische Botschaft aufzugeben.
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00:08A century ago, Russia was the scene of upheavals that reverberated throughout the world.
00:17Parallel to the Bolshevik Revolution and the subsequent unprecedented political experiment, unique forms of expression emerged across the country that still fascinate today.
00:31How were artists of this era able to create works of such compelling modernity?
00:38Soviet painters made a tabula rasa and shaped an artistic ideal that became deeply ingrained in the collective consciousness.
00:47And all of them, however tragic their fate, remained loyal to their homeland.
00:53An insight into the other Russian revolution, the revolution in art.
01:13Russia around the year 1900.
01:15Tsar Nicholas II rules his empire without restriction, which is confined within a corset of paralyzing Freudian structures.
01:23All development seems to be blocked.
01:27However, the first protests began to be heard from 1905 onwards.
01:33In art, visionary painters appear on the scene and dream of new forms.
01:39They gave rise to a Russian avant-garde inspired by Cezanne or Picasso.
01:47The artists are rebelling against the continuation of traditional genres such as portraiture, genre painting, or history painting.
01:56While Russian naturalism of the late 19th century approached reality,
02:02By depicting these as realistically as possible, the avant-garde constructs its own reality.
02:07The painters are creating a new reality.
02:11As pioneers of this avant-garde, Kasimir Maljevich and Wladimir Tatlin laid the foundation for a new chapter in art history.
02:27Maljevich was born into a small farming family in Ukraine.
02:31His father was a foreman in various sugar factories.
02:34And he himself received virtually no schooling until he was 17.
02:40His mother bought paints for him in Kyiv.
02:42And he taught himself everything.
02:44What does it look like?
03:11Yes.
03:13Yes, Maljevich.
03:20In his painting of the lumberjack, the figure is greatly simplified.
03:25Secondly, it is no longer represented as a whole body, but as a sequence of composite volumes.
03:34And when you look for the logs, they are barely visible.
03:38He does not treat them in a replicating, natural way, but rather like cylindrical shape elements.
03:43This creates a certain rhythm.
03:48Above all, the true meaning of what one sees is lost.
03:52It is a constant back and forth between formal work and the subject matter.
03:57The subject, or rather, the object, is still there.
04:00But Kasimir Maljevic strives to leave everything tangible behind.
04:05What he himself calls suprematism.
04:31There's a jump.
04:33For me, the transition to abstraction is tantamount to an enlightenment.
04:39Maljevic undoubtedly has a mystical component.
04:42He is a secular mystic, if you will.
04:54How does Maljevic manage to achieve such a transformation in just a few months?
04:58How did he suddenly go from his cubist paintings to the black square?
05:07He probably didn't immediately grasp what he had created.
05:12There are witness statements.
05:14According to reports from his students, he neither slept nor ate for a week.
05:20He didn't really know what the shape that had sprung from his brush meant.
05:27The black square on a white background confronts us with nothingness.
05:35Reduced to the bare minimum, free from any association, the painting should evoke a pure sensation, an intuition.
06:03Icons held a special position in Russia.
06:07The idea of an icon or an icon painting, such as the depiction of the Virgin Mary with the Child, is more than a
06:15mere illustration.
06:15She is the Virgin Mary, materially embodied in the image.
06:21Therefore, icons were venerated as cult objects from which real powers emanated.
06:30During religious festivals, farmers would walk around with the images, imploring a good harvest or assistance.
06:41If the harvest was poor, the icon could be held responsible and punished.
06:48They either beat them with buckets or threw them into the river.
06:54These personified objects, to which real powers were attributed,
06:59moved the artists of the Russian avant-garde to grapple with the materiality of painting itself.
07:08They led them to abstraction, because for them painting on wood or canvas held an inner power, regardless of its
07:16Depiction.
07:18This contradicted all reason and logic and stood in stark contrast to the rational world.
07:24They freed themselves from all ballast in order to venture into another dimension.
07:31Maljevic first presented his work in 1915 at the famous exhibition 010.
07:39The enigmatic title is deliberately intended to attract attention and provoke a scandal.
07:46Maljevic kept his work secret.
07:49To make the sensation perfect, he hung his monochrome painting in the upper right corner of the room.
07:54A place in Russia reserved for icons.
08:00The hanging of the painting was immediately perceived by contemporaries as a drastic intervention.
08:06As blasphemy, as a harbinger of a serious crisis.
08:13The radical nature of the gesture even irritates his avant-garde colleague Vladimir Tatlin.
08:19Tatlin was outraged. Not me. I'm not participating in this show.
08:24If Maljevic is shown there, with what? Four corners? That's hardly art.
08:29I cannot participate in such an exhibition.
08:32But then the others changed his mind with the words,
08:35You'll get your own room, please, we need you.
08:39There's a funny anecdote about Tatlin insisting that
08:43that it was written at the entrance to his room,
08:46Works by a professional artist, as a distinction from Maljevic.
08:55Tatlin is considered just such a pioneer of painting and art in general.
09:01It is strongly influenced by Ukrainian folk art.
09:05He plays the bandura, a large lute-like zither, which he even makes himself.
09:11He had seen reliefs by Picasso, but these constructions represented something concrete.
09:18Tatlin departs from this and ventures into something completely new.
09:23He combines different materials and creates based on metal, wood and leather,
09:30Sometimes also some painting, a new form of art.
09:45Tatlin is especially famous for his sculptural counter-reliefs,
09:50which he began to produce around 1913-14.
09:53To do this, he assembles everyday objects and attaches them to a solid surface.
09:59Mounting it on a wooden board makes the whole thing look like a painting.
10:03But it is not meant to represent or mean anything.
10:09All of this is incredibly creative.
10:13At the same time, Tatlin and Maljevic invented forms that had never been seen before.
10:19By abandoning everything objective and real, Maljevic and Tatlin brought about the greatest artistic revolution since the Italian Renaissance.
10:29Nevertheless, the movement remained a marginal phenomenon until 1917.
10:33The avant-garde works are only shown in select galleries and even among the intelligentsia here, they elicit a mixed response.
10:41The February and October revolutions of 1917 were celebrated exuberantly by the artists as a continuation of their work.
10:50Now you finally understand the truly revolutionary meaning of my experimental forms, Tatlin explains.
10:58Art was at rock bottom, and now in 1917, suddenly society and politics were also at rock bottom.
11:07I learned a very radical point.
11:09The poet Mayakovsky proclaims that shots should be fired in museums.
11:16After the revolution, when the Bolsheviks wanted to create a new socialist art to replace the old scene, only
11:24Few were willing to help them.
11:26Most people hated the Bolsheviks. They saw them as Marxist thugs who were only out for destruction, which they...
11:34yes, they did too.
11:34All private properties and possessions were confiscated. This was a severe blow, especially for patrons of the arts.
11:45The old art establishment fervently hoped for the downfall of the Bolsheviks. But many emigrated, others stayed put.
11:58In any case, they stayed away from the new art scene.
12:02When the Bolsheviks were looking for directors for their museums and art academies, the avant-garde artists immediately stepped forward.
12:09Position.
12:10Partly because they were politically left-leaning, but also because they saw this as an opportunity to step into the limelight.
12:17Welcoming to the new system, the left-wing artists seek to translate their revolutionary worldview into everyday life.
12:26The avant-garde artists also want to influence lifestyles, participate in the transformation of society, and contribute to the birth of a new socialist state.
12:34People work towards this.
12:38Vitebsk in Belarus is developing into an experimental field.
12:43Avant-garde artists are flocking to the new art school, which is open to everyone.
12:51In Vitebsk, attempts are being made to transfer Suprematism to everyday life.
12:56It's not just about painting, but also about building facades, revolutionary street festivals, and theatre backdrops.
13:05Maliewicz was deeply convinced that this art was revolutionary and that nothing was better suited to bringing the revolution closer to the masses.
13:13bring to.
13:15But it was a moment when a utopia found a place, which is of course a contradiction in itself.
13:21Because a utopia is an idea that has no place.
13:24But during this time, that is, in the year 1920, this utopia suddenly became concrete.
13:31So, one could see in the city of Vitebsk that there was not only a political revolution, but also a
13:37artistic revolution.
13:38And that the world has simply changed for the entire population.
13:43Suddenly, the residents of Vitebsk saw orange squares or green rectangles on the facades.
13:53And suddenly, yes, we live, we live in a new era.
14:00The Suprematists wanted to appeal to the masses.
14:03They had a clear vision of the aesthetic that would allow the inhabitants of Vitebsk, the peasants and soldiers, to
14:10to draw inspiration from art and take something away with you.
14:16Lissitzki created a propaganda poster that is often cited in this context.
14:21Beat the whites with the red wedge.
14:23An abstract poster featuring a red triangle piercing a white circle.
14:34For Lissitzki, that made sense.
14:37And the best part is, he was absolutely convinced that it made sense.
14:42He was certain that the viewer would feel the same way.
14:49Eliezer, also known as L. Lissitzky, is of Jewish origin and belongs to those Russians for whom the revolution first offers the chance to
14:58to move freely and to be politically active as a full-fledged citizen.
15:04Having initially tried his hand at figurative painting, the trained architect is increasingly drawn to abstraction.
15:12Soon he leaves pure painting behind and seeks out the public sphere.
15:19He developed a series of images which he later called POU, meaning Project for the New in Art.
15:27And what you see there in these pictures, although "pictures" is almost not the right word, because it
15:34are simple constructions.
15:35One is no longer in a classic central perspective, but rather in a construction that can be viewed from all sides.
15:44can.
15:44You have to go around them. And these paintings also represented a transitional phase for Lissitzki, from painting to architecture.
15:57As early as 1919 he wrote that our lives must from now on rest on new communist foundations, as solid as reinforced concrete.
16:06And this applies to all peoples of this earth. Thanks to the Pro-Unen, we are building monolithic communist cities in which the
16:14World inhabitants will live.
16:17With Tatlin, the pioneer of three-dimensional art, the artists act as builders and dream of the USSR of tomorrow.
16:49In 1919, Tatlin designed the symbol of the revolution: a tower for the Third International.
16:57The monument, made of iron, glass and steel, is planned to be 400 meters high, thus even surpassing the Eiffel Tower.
17:06Behind the spiral-shaped cladding are four geometric bodies that provide space for administrative or propaganda bodies.
17:15A cube, a pyramid, a cylinder, and a hemisphere.
17:19Every body rotates around its own axis at a specific speed.
17:25Once a year, monthly or daily, depending on the distance to the summit.
17:31With its double helix shape, the utopian structure fuels the imagination.
17:40The presentation of the project in Petrograd in the autumn of 1920 became a spectacle that had a lasting impact on the art world and also
17:48can be understood as a manifesto.
17:50The model is adorned with sentences written by Tatlin himself, slogans that promote the fusion of art and everyday life.
17:57A work of art must be committed not only to aesthetics but also to society and to utility.
18:06However, given the phenomenal scale, it's easy to imagine that the chances of realization were virtually zero.
18:13The Soviet Union was short of money, the civil war had just ended, and the country didn't have the
18:18Resources from other advanced states.
18:21Such a project simply cannot be implemented.
18:27Nevertheless, it subsequently succeeds in making art tangible for citizens, impacting their everyday lives in an unprecedented way.
18:35to shape.
18:58Constructivist graphics proclaim something unique in their formal language.
19:03The fusion of art and industry. Modern design is born.
19:21In the course of the revolution, young people of humble origins, both men and women, gained access to artistic circles.
19:28This also applies to Vavara Stepanova and Alexander Rotschenko.
19:34Rotschenko and Stepanova moved to Moscow in 1915. Both came from the provincial city of Kazan, where she had studied art and married in 1913.
19:43met.
19:46They started out completely broke. Redchenko had little to show for it.
19:52Stepanova initially worked as an accountant in a factory to make ends meet.
19:57But over time, the two made a name for themselves in the art scene.
20:02Rotschenko moved closer to the Futurists and rejected the representational painting he had practiced in his youth in Kazan.
20:10Instead, he turns to the experimental, to abstraction.
20:17In 1923, Rotschenko decided to dedicate his work to public service.
20:22He produces posters and logos for an aviation company, whose designs become classics of constructivist aesthetics overnight.
20:46This was followed by an extremely fruitful collaboration with the revolutionary poet Mayakovsky.
20:54The two of them founded an advertising agency.
21:11Civil war and World War I bled the country dry.
21:15Against this background, Lenin and Trotsky announced the NEP, a new economic policy with market economy concessions.
21:31Varvara Stepanova, Redchenko's partner, designs print patterns for fabrics on behalf of a textile company.
21:42Soon their geometric figures will be mass-produced.
22:07The constructivists celebrate this as a victory, as proof that they can contribute to industrial mass production.
22:16In their own way, they seal the end of traditional painting.
22:20The exhibition 5x5 equals 25 in September 1921 marked a turning point.
22:26It unites five Constructivist artists, including Rotschenko and Stepanova.
22:33Rotschenko presents an elemental triptych. Pure colors: red, yellow, and blue.
22:38The three monochrome canvases mark the end of an investigative process conducted by the avant-garde artists and symbolize that painting is
22:47exhausted.
22:49While the new art of film is reaching the people thanks to pioneers like Giga Vertov, Rotschenko is also striving for construction.
22:58a modern, visual universe.
23:18Redchenko
23:20In photography, Rotschenko works with completely new perspectives.
23:27Frog's-eye view, top view.
23:33This is how he sees, or rather, how he shows, the new socialist reality.
23:44In contrast, he criticizes what he calls the "navel view," the conventional perspective in which the photographer positions his camera in front of his navel.
23:52holds.
23:53That bears far too much resemblance to painting.
23:55The new society deserves to be portrayed in a radically new way.
24:15Rotschenko is experimenting with another revolutionary design element.
24:22Together with Stepanova and the young Latvian Gustav Kluzis, they sort, cut out, and recombine.
24:31The three of them celebrate the art of photomontage.
24:51There is no doubt that the revolution turned the world upside down.
25:23Music
25:30Photomontage is considered so groundbreaking because fragments of reality are recombined to create a pseudo-reality.
25:41It is a modernist form of expression because it questions how we perceive these images. It is not merely a faithful reproduction.
25:52Kluzis is primarily distinguished by his graphic design. A medium he masters with virtuosity. His posters still set standards today.
26:21By using the printing press, Kluzis transcends the limitations of painting and recognizes the possibility of reaching a broad public.
26:31To touch masses.
26:47The Soviet government is not stupid.
26:49She quickly realizes that constructivist aesthetics, and the Russian avant-garde in general, is a global flagship, representing the future-oriented, innovative, and revolutionary
27:01The character of the Soviet Union is embodied.
27:06Some artists are repeatedly sent abroad as representatives of the USSR.
27:15In 1925, Rotschenko travelled to the Arts and Crafts Exhibition in Paris, where the Constructivists occupied a prominent position.
27:27He reacts to Paris with utter horror. After all, it's his first contact with capitalist modernity.
27:36Why did I ever go to the West, Stepanova writes. I preferred it there as long as I didn't know him.
27:42The exhibition of independent artists isn't worth a penny. There's no talent to be found anywhere. The French are washed up.
27:49Thousands of paintings of no consequence whatsoever. Provincial. After Picasso, Braque, and Léger, there really is nothing. A wasteland.
27:56Everyone is staring at us with wide eyes. They probably want to get an idea of what the Bolsheviks are like.
28:06While the government exploits constructivist aesthetics and left-wing art abroad for its propaganda purposes,
28:12Domestically, the state has long since abandoned constructivism. And that's putting it mildly.
28:19Many Bolshevik leaders, such as Trotsky, ostentatiously favored a populist realism.
28:26Towards the end of 1922, the atmosphere changed. Civil war had been raging in Russia since 1918.
28:37Towards the end, it became weaker, which could basically be a positive news.
28:43But this was synonymous with a greater interest on the part of the Bolsheviks, the government, in culture and social issues.
28:53Because up until then they were simply very busy with the civil war and allowed the artists freedom.
28:59But in 1921 and 1922, there was suddenly a need to see what had actually happened.
29:07And there was simply too much freedom. This art, this abstract art, was simply considered too
29:12formalistic
29:13and not at all in line with Marxist, socialist or communist values.
29:19Or, above all, it was not art for the proletariat.
29:22They were simply good, they had interesting shapes, it all looked quite nice, but ultimately it wasn't
29:29edifying.
29:34Perhaps the chameleon's colors are running out. One last twitch, then she collapses, breathless and rigid.
29:44Perhaps the earth, shrouded in battles and clouds of smoke, will never lift its head.
29:54On April 14, 1930, Mayakovsky, the poet of the revolution, chose to take his own life.
30:01A bullet straight to the heart.
30:04With him, it seems, the entire Russian avant-garde dies.
30:11Two years later, the Central Committee of the CPSU, under Stalin's leadership, orders
30:16the dissolution of all artists' organizations and the imposition of socialist realism on the country.
30:33When the press introduced the term socialist realism, nobody knew what to make of it.
30:40Even in the 1920s, realism, with its diverse tendencies, left several questions unanswered.
30:46Now it is further described with the not really definable adjective "socialist".
30:51This is precisely the essence of the Soviet system.
30:54Slogans are issued without clearly defining them.
30:58This is quite perverse, as guidelines are given, but they are extremely vague.
31:06The regime expects something, but doesn't say exactly what.
31:10So, based on their own artistic considerations, the artists simply try things out.
31:15and classify their work as socialist realism.
31:21The regime, in turn, benefits from this ambiguity.
31:24It could be said that the artist did not understand what was being asked of him.
31:29Only afterwards is it decided what is compliant.
31:33This is where the painter Alexander Gerasimov sees his opportunity.
31:37Trained under the Tsar, he maintained the tradition of an idealizing realism until the very end.
31:42and enjoys the favor of Marshal Voroshilov, whom he portrayed in 1927.
31:51With Alexander Gerasimov, a rather romantic perspective enters the picture.
31:56The figure of the leader is presented in a glorified manner using a low-angle view.
31:59Just think of his Lenin portraits from the early 1930s and the way he used his brushstrokes.
32:06which is intended to evoke emotions in the viewer.
32:22In July 1933, at the instigation of his mentor, Gerasimov attended a private meeting in Stalin's Dacia.
32:30Accompanied by two other realist painters, Yevgeny Katzmann and Isaac Brodsky.
32:39Opposite them is the master of the Kremlin.
32:43The artists are trying to win Stalin over so that they can set the course, for example through certain positions in the art world.
32:53They do not shy away from denouncing comrades who were with them in the Artists' Union of revolutionary Russia.
33:02For example, the president of the Moscow Artists' Union, whose actions they vehemently criticize.
33:08Here too, they try to influence politics in their favor.
33:14The meeting also underlines the preferences of Voroshilov and Stalin.
33:18Both sizes have extremely conservative tastes.
33:22which leads directly back to Russian naturalism of the late 19th century.
33:28We need a living person, living color, living water, movement.
33:34Everything must be alive, Stalin explained.
33:37We need images like these, art like this.
33:39Before he adds, a portrait must be similar.
33:44If it isn't, then it means it's bad and not a portrait.
33:49The players present are jubilant. They have won.
33:54Gerasimov immortalizes the moment for posterity.
34:09Radically new and decisive for the definition of socialist realism
34:13is the increasing emphasis on a visual language that pushes optimism to the forefront.
34:21The image depicts joyful people looking confidently towards the future,
34:25becomes a central theme of this painting style.
34:29It's teeming with laughing people, laughing, exuberant workers.
34:38In my opinion, realistic socialism was more about setting a model.
34:44and in order to achieve a certain degree of uniformity in art as well.
34:51This means that no free thoughts are generated.
34:55but rather that one is simply steered in certain directions.
35:00Standardized themes, a formal return to the 19th century.
35:03Abstract art is branded as a worthless genre, a bourgeois aberration.
35:09Artists who have lived abroad are now considered suspect.
35:14We like to imagine the Soviet art scene as being divided into two parts.
35:18Here, socialist realism; there, the artists excluded from the system.
35:23especially the avant-garde artists.
35:26In fact, there was a wide spectrum of artists between these two poles,
35:30who somehow adapted and tried to
35:34to deal with the new organization of the art scene and with commandments
35:38how to arrange it according to socialist realism.
35:45The young Alexander Denjeka is a prime example of this,
35:49deeply committed to socialist realism,
35:54He rose to become an outstanding artist of the 1930s.
35:59It is influenced by the avant-garde,
36:02But he takes a different path.
36:10The hunter comes from the humblest of backgrounds.
36:14His father works for the railway, so he has a keen sense of the working world.
36:22He is one of those up-and-coming artists who have committed themselves to the revolution from the very beginning.
36:28The hunter wants to involve the viewer.
36:31He aims to evoke feelings and trigger reactions with maximum expressiveness.
36:36The viewer should be motivated to participate themselves,
36:39in the construction of socialism and industry.
36:49This picture shows a woman from behind.
36:52who pushes or pulls a car.
36:54She is turned away three-quarters of the way and the viewer identifies with her,
36:58because it takes his own perspective.
37:03The woman dressed in white in the left half of the picture seems somewhat more enigmatic.
37:07She is young and beautiful, the wind is blowing through her hair.
37:10Numerous visual elements suggest that she embodies the future reconstruction.
37:17The construction of new workshops, as the picture is titled, is unfinished.
37:21in limbo, if one looks at the industrial drawing on the right.
37:26The hunter represents the passage of time.
37:29Through the creation process of the painting, captured in the image
37:32He illustrates the structure of the USSR and invites the viewer to actively participate in it.
37:39In other works, he even subtly transgresses certain taboos.
37:53The ideology condemns all homosexuality,
37:57However, celebrating athletic bodies is allowed.
38:03Here, the hunter finds a way to portray men and bodies homoerotically.
38:09and this was done quite openly.
38:18At the beginning of 1936, Den Jäger went to St. Petersburg.
38:23At the zenith of Soviet art, it seems, widely recognized
38:26and an important figure in the art scene.
38:30In the spring of 1936, the tide turned.
38:34The party organ Pravda is waging an open campaign against formalism.
38:39Opera, theatre, ballet and the visual arts are being vilified.
38:45The hunter is described as an artist with a formalist past.
38:49One of his most famous paintings, The Defense of Petrograd,
38:53The label is formalistically applied.
38:55Nobody wanted to be associated with formalism back then.
39:01It is the prelude to the great terror.
39:06That time of uncertainty and slander,
39:09which led to the first arrests in 1937.
39:16The regime is cleaning house.
39:19In 1936, Stalin and his confidants launched a massive purge.
39:24Officially, to dismantle an alleged anti-Soviet conspiracy.
39:28The first Bolsheviks are tried and executed in show trials.
39:38Since the late 1920s and Trotsky's forced exile
39:43They had already gradually disappeared from the illustrations.
39:47Retouched photos, revisionist paintings,
39:51Faces erased from photomontages.
39:54More than just a symbol.
39:56A political program.
40:03The ensuing terrorist campaign claims nearly 700,000 lives.
40:09Deportations to the Gulag are a daily occurrence.
40:13Everyone is under general suspicion.
40:15And the artists must constantly prove their loyalty.
40:21The artists were not arrested because of their art.
40:26but because they had belonged to a Trotkin group
40:29and they could be accused of Trotskyism.
40:32Or simply because they had a patron,
40:35who himself had fallen out of favor.
40:40Denneka, like all other artists, lived in constant uncertainty.
40:45The terror was a complete tragedy.
40:47It had many dimensions.
40:49And the worst part was the murder.
40:52But it was also tragic that, for inexplicable reasons,
40:55was arrested and executed.
41:16Denneka was to represent the USSR at the 1937 World's Fair.
41:22Then his visa is suddenly cancelled.
41:27There's a problem at the last minute.
41:30Apparently, he can no longer go to Paris.
41:32He finds this completely inexplicable, as no reasons are given to him.
41:36He meets the artist Valentina Kulagina in the courtyard of her apartment building.
41:40In her diary she notes,
41:43Today I met Denneka.
41:45Why isn't he allowed to come? I don't understand it.
41:49Especially since her own husband, fellow artist Gustav Kluzis,
41:53is sent to Paris,
41:54to build the Soviet pavilion at the World's Fair.
42:01He creates a huge photomontage of Stalin at a rally,
42:06where the masses cheer him on.
42:09Kluzis thinks to himself, wonderful, nothing can happen to me now.
42:14He is returning from Paris
42:17and he was arrested in early 1938.
42:22Kulagina's diary states this painfully.
42:26They arrived in Apolen last night.
42:28I have no idea why.
42:30On his easel in the studio lay, at that moment,
42:33when the secret police took him away,
42:35a large Stalin poster.
42:43Kluzis will be joined by 60 other Latvian artists.
42:46and intellectuals were summarily executed.
42:49The charge is membership
42:52in a terrorist organization,
42:54who conspired against the Soviet state.
42:58Many production artists suffer the same cruel fate,
43:02Others are not doing quite so badly.
43:05Some are sent to camps for a while,
43:08Others can stay in Moscow.
43:10but they must severely restrict their activities.
43:15Rodchenko, for example, complains that he is sidelined.
43:18because his art and aesthetics no longer hold much interest.
43:23And Tatlin is also pushed aside.
43:28In contrast, Gerasimov experiences a meteoric rise.
43:32The symbolic figure of socialist realism
43:35is now at the head of the Moscow Artists' Union,
43:39later even the Union of Soviet Artists.
43:42And is one of the few,
43:44who earn substantial sums with their paintings.
43:46As with Stalin and Voroshilov in the Kremlin in 1938,
43:51that receives the Stalin Prize
43:52and is copied multiple times for various government agencies.
44:08Paradoxically, only war allows for a respite.
44:12a united front between the state and artists,
44:15a space of near freedom.
44:19World War II swept over everything like a storm.
44:23This event was so immense that everything was destroyed.
44:27even the greatest terror.
44:29They all stood together.
44:32When the Red Army initially suffered heavy defeats
44:35suffered against the Wehrmacht,
44:37partly explainable by the purges under the command
44:40Voroshilovs,
44:41which practically led to annihilation
44:42this culminated in the entire officer level.
44:45The artists praise this.
44:46the unprecedented Soviet fighting spirit.
44:58Rodchenko and Stepanova
45:00They create photomontages to glorify the Red Army.
45:04And Lissitzki's poster calls for...
45:07creates more tanks.
45:15The hunter resisted evacuation from Moscow.
45:20No, I'm staying.
45:22He goes to the front.
45:23and paints harrowing pictures of the defense of Moscow.
45:28Terrible drawings,
45:30which bring to mind the deaths of Russian soldiers.
45:33His painting
45:34Shot-down flying ace
45:36shows a soldier in a Nazi uniform.
45:40His parachute did not open.
45:42and he races unchecked towards his death.
45:46That's a very powerful image of an airplane.
45:49The viewer can see the tumbling.
45:50and literally feel the force of the fall.
45:56far from the horrors of battle on November 6, 1942,
46:01the day the Wehrmacht stood at Stalingrad on the Volga,
46:05Gerasimov paints the little father.
46:07Like Stalin with great pomp at the Bolshoi Theatre
46:10celebrates the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution,
46:14in front of hundreds of invited guests.
46:18The painter carefully calculated his approach,
46:20who receives the Stalin Prize again for this work,
46:23even joined the audience as an eager listener.
46:27The gigantic dimensions, 4 by 7 meters in times of need,
46:31testify to the magnitude of the event.
46:34It wasn't until 60 years later that they found out,
46:36It never happened.
46:38Out of fear of a coup d'état
46:41Stalin had only gathered a few loyal followers in the Kremlin.
46:44and leave the creation of the legend to Gerasimov.
46:52After the war, an ice age began in art.
46:56The dogmatic course is becoming so intensified,
46:59that it is no longer possible,
47:01to display any works in public spaces
47:03those who do not follow the clearly defined rules
47:05correspond to socialist realism.
47:11Gerasimov is kowtowing to the regime more than ever.
47:14His diatribes against so-called cosmopolitan influences
47:18from abroad and against Impressionism
47:20This led to the closure of the museum in 1948.
47:24for new western art in Moscow.
47:28Nowadays it is hard to imagine,
47:30That one can have such a fear of abstract works.
47:33But in a totalitarian system like the USSR,
47:37Any deviation must be suppressed.
47:39in whatever form.
47:41Even a mere abstraction is unacceptable.
47:45Briefly head of the Moscow Art Institute
47:48The hunter is once again accused of formalism.
47:51and loses his position two years later.
47:54He continues to teach here, but in a subordinate position.
47:59Until 1956 he kept a low profile and received extremely few commissions.
48:06A fall from grace without any apparent reason, from fame to disgrace.
48:10But other avant-garde colleagues are hit even harder.
48:13Maljevic, marked by his imprisonment,
48:16In the early 1930s, he painted colorful figures, but without arms.
48:19The faces were blank.
48:22Tatlin, living in misery, leaves his last painting
48:25Flesh dripping with brutality.
48:28In contrast, the hunter realizes this in the following year.
48:31a picture full of subtle self-irony.
48:36Den Jäger's self-portrait from 1948 is one of those portraits,
48:41about whom one might almost say,
48:43If it hadn't been painted, it would have had to be created.
48:47Because it so brilliantly illustrates the dilemma we face.
48:49the artist is trapped in this system.
48:57There he stands, painted by his own hand.
48:59Of course, this is not a commission; he painted the picture for himself.
49:08The motif was typical of him.
49:10He was a boxer and liked to present himself as a winner.
49:16I see this self-portrait as a personal protest.
49:21A clear rejection of everything that had happened to him.
49:34Where else it is taboo, where all avant-garde has seemingly been eradicated
49:40and painting has now been reduced to interchangeable, realistic works,
49:45It looks as if the hunter wanted to tell the viewer,
49:48that art never dies.
49:50The fight continues.
49:53The oppressive, oppressive atmosphere lasted until Stalin's death.
49:58Announced on March 5, 1953.
50:02Shortly thereafter, Nikita Khrushchev appears
50:04to adopt a more liberal approach.
50:07The climate is changing.
50:09Stalin's crimes and the personality cult are condemned.
50:14Hundreds of thousands of camp inmates were released into freedom.
50:18A new generation of non-conformist painters
50:21cautiously ventures out of hiding.
50:24In December 1962, her paintings were even exhibited in Moscow.
50:28But then Khrushchev makes a brutal about-face.
50:32That's an education, but I don't understand,
50:37that you are the innovators.
50:41That's a thread-based exercise, but not an art.
50:45Why is the Fäderastik 10 years old?
50:49and this order must be maintained,
50:50What if communism is built?
51:02Non-conformist artists will continue to be ostracized for a long time.
51:06Driven underground,
51:07They mock the prescribed official visual language,
51:10to question the regime and its sham harmony.
51:14Her pictures depict a stagnant society.
51:17with a blocked horizon.
51:20The star of the Soviet regime is waning.
51:23But in the upheaval of the Eastern Bloc, art proves its resilience.
51:28She predicts the collapse of the system.
51:31and nurtures the hope for a new world.
51:41SUBTITLES
52:12Subtitles. BR 2018
52:25Subtitles. BR 2018
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