Russian Icons and Avant-Garde Meet in Vicenza Exhibition

The exhibition 'Kandinskij, Gončarova, Chagall. Sacro e bellezza nell’arte russa' at Gallerie d’Italia in Palazzo Leoni Montanari, Vicenza, juxtaposes 19 ancient Russian icons with 45 avant-garde works, many from the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and never before seen in Italy. Curated by Silvia Burini, Giuseppe Barbieri, and Alessia Cavallaro, the show highlights continuities between sacred iconography and 20th-century avant-garde movements, including Suprematism and abstraction. Artists featured include Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, Natalia Goncharova, Marc Chagall, Konstantin Juon, Aleksandr Ivanov, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Viktor Vasnetsov, and Pavel Filonov. The exhibition is organized by Intesa Sanpaolo to mark 20 years of its Vicenza venue, in collaboration with the Centro Studi sulle Arti della Russia (CSAR) of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, which has partnered with the bank since 2011. A three-year program includes educational activities, courses, guided visits, film screenings, and the planned reopening of the bank's permanent collection of ancient Russian icons with new museographic criteria.