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Russian collection chicago4/20/2023 Whatever the Art Institute’s reasons are, their revisions look like half-assed stopgap measures. And Malevych’s identity is still unclear. However, she remained a “Russian” artist. They also replaced the term “Russian avant-garde” with “international” in Ekster’s bio. First, they corrected the spelling of Kyiv. The Art Institute responded and promised to make some changes. With all that in mind, I wrote a letter to the AIC curators to request a revision for both artists’ representation and attached a research paper to support my arguments. Malevych, who lived in Ukraine for 28 years- at least half of his life - and retained close ties to the Ukrainian avant-garde scene throughout his career, must be considered an important figure in both Ukrainian and Russian avant-garde and an artist of both Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian identities. Returning to the biographical note at AIC’s website, it would be much more accurate to identify her as a pioneering figure in the Ukrainian and Russian avant-garde and an artist of Jewish-Belarusian-Greek origin who was active in Kyiv and Moscow before settling in Paris. Oleksandra Ekster, “Costume design for Romeo and Juliette” (1921) (via Wikimedia Commons)Įkster spent more than half of her life - 35 out of her 67 years - in Ukraine (mostly in Kyiv) and only four years in Moscow. He spoke and wrote Ukrainian and stated his nationality as “Ukrainian” in many formal documents during the 1920s. Malevych, too, was acquainted with Pymonenko and derived some ideas works of his he’d seen in Kyiv. It was here that he started learning art. He was born in Kyiv in 1879 to a Polish family and lived in Ukraine until he was 25. The same is true for Malevych, for whom Ukraine was much more than a place of birth. Her teachers at the school included Mykola Pymonenko, a famous Ukrainian painter. She spent her childhood and youth in Kyiv and studied art at the Kyiv Art School alongside Ukrainian avant-garde icons Oleksandr Bohomazov and Oleksandr Arkhypenko. Her father was a Belarusian Jew and her mother was Greek, which makes the “Polish-born” nomenclature problematic. Why are some artists nationally identified while others are not? But my main concern was the uncritical representation of both artists as Russian, with little attention paid to their complex and diverse ethnic and national backgrounds even though it informed their art.Įkster was born in Bialystok, a largely Jewish-populated city in what was at the time the Russian Empire. Many things were problematic here - from the outdated spelling of Kyiv (“Kiev” is a spelling Latinized from the Russian language and referencing the times when the city was under Soviet rule) to the usage of the imperialistic umbrella term “Russian avant-garde” to the lack of a unified and concise style of captions. (screenshot by the author for Hyperallergic) On display at the AIC, Ekster was identified as “Russian, born Poland,” and her biography on the museum website read: “A pioneering figure in the Russian avant-garde, Polish-born Alexandra Exter was a painter and designer active in Moscow and Kiev before settling in Paris ….” Kazymyr Malevych was “ Russian, born Kiev (now Ukraine)” and on the museum’s website “Russian, born Ukraine” (italics are mine.) The Art Institute of Chicago’s website before the correction of Oleksandra Ekster’s biography page.
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