The State Museum of Modern Art in Thessaloniki, posessing the legendary collection of George Costakis (1913-1990) which was received in 2000, is opening a new page in its history, with the exhibition “Thessaloniki. Costakis collection. Restart”.
The exhibition will be inaugurated in SMCA on 29 June and will last until 16 September 2018. The Museum holds one of the most complete collections of Russian avant-garde art outside Russia itself. The aim of the new exhibition is to show this outstanding collection through the prism of the personality of George Costakis, one of the greatest collectors of our time, who acquired these works in the highly challenging environment of the pre-perestroika USSR, often saving them from otherwise inevitable destruction.
The breath-taking collection which Costakis assembled in the Soviet Union in the second half of the last century embraces Russian and Soviet art of the 1900s-1940s, including all stages of the formation and development of the Russian avant-garde with all its diverse styles, genres and techniques. In 1977, a part of the collection was donated to the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, while the remaining works left the USSR together with their owner, who settled in Greece. Each of the two parts of the divided collection offers a vivid picture of the evolution of the Russian avant-garde.
The works now held by the State Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki include: a small but representative collection of the paintings and graphics of the founder of Suprematism, Kazimir Malevich; creations by the pioneers of Constructivism, Vladimir Tatlin, Alexander Rodchenko and Gustav Klutsis; more than 200 works by the outstanding cubo-futurist and constructivist, Lyubov Popova; a broad selection of works by Ivan Klyun; artistic productions by artists of the School of Organic Culture (led by Mikhail Matyushin and the Ender family) and by the founder and theoretician of analytical art, Pavel Filonov; and programme works and archival materials of Solomon Nikritin, Alexander Drevin, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Olga Rozanova, El Lissitzky and Pavel Mansurov; as well as a collection of “agit porcelain” and industrial design work. In addition to this unique collection of fine art, the Museum holds the document archive of George Costakis. Such a broad range of art works under one roof with relevant archive documents enable in-depth study of the phenomenon of the Russian avant-garde as a whole and its various manifestations. The new exhibition presents the Museum’s collection as a complete whole for the first time.
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