Exhibition Revisits Russian Revolution's Legacy Through Contemporary and Soviet Prints

Russian Revolution: A Contested Legacy, 1917-2017 was an exhibition at the International Print Center in New York from October 12 to December 16, 2017, curated by Russian art historian Masha Chlenova. It featured works by living Russian artists Yevgeniy Fiks and Anton Ginzburg alongside early Soviet print media, focusing on themes like women's emancipation, internationalism, racial equality, Jewish rights, and sexual liberation. The show opened with Fiks's 2008 painting Leniniana no.1, which removes Lenin from a Socialist Realist icon, reflecting on Stalin-era cultural eradication. Ginzburg's Meta-Constructivism poster series addressed free love, while his 2016 sculpture Stargaze: Orion, originally commissioned for the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, commented on shifting East-West relations post-2016 election interference. Soviet prints by artists like El Lissitzky, Natan Al'tman, Elizaveta Ignatovich, Boris Klinch, and Gustav Klucis were displayed thematically rather than chronologically, emphasizing contemporary relevance over historical survey. The exhibition highlighted obscured revolutionary goals, critiquing modern-day issues like racism and homophobia in Russia, but was noted for its selective focus on late 1920s to early 1930s avant-garde, omitting earlier figures such as Aleksei Kruchenykh and Marc Chagall. It coincided with other New York centennial events, including MoMA's A Revolutionary Impulse: The Rise of the Russian Avant-Garde and Columbia University conferences.