Ilya and Kirill Zdanevich: From Futurism to 41 Degrees

Submitted by the Event Organizer

May 18 – July 1, 2023; Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00am – 5:30pm

When Kirill Zdanevich [1892-1969] came of age as a painter, artistic movements were proliferating more rapidly than most artists could assimilate. From Impressionism to Fauvism to Cubism, every “ism” appealed to Zdanevich more than the formal training that he was receiving at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. By the time he competed his studies in 1913, traveled to Paris, and started to exhibit in Moscow, the young Georgian artist was fully committed to the avant-garde.

But Zdanevich, unlike other radicals of his generation, was not convinced that any movement had all the answers. As Russian avant-garde contemporaries such as Kazimir Malevich [1879-1935] made their case for the absolute truth of movements such as Suprematism, Zdanevich resisted by combining multiple movements, such as Cubism, Cubo-Futurism, Rayism and Suprematism, in the same composition. He provocatively called it “Everythingism.”

Kirill was not the only Zdanevich with maverick ideas. While he was advancing Everythingism, his brother Ilya [1894-1975] was developing a new approach to theater, comprising an orchestra of voices each performing in a different poetic style. In order to score these complex vocal arrangements – as aesthetically pluralistic as Kirill’s canvases – Ilya invented a dynamic new approach to typography.

Exhibiting eighteen works on paper by Kirill and three typographic works by Ilya, Modernism presents pieces that display the impressive array of artistic advances the Zdanevich brothers made to their native Tiflis, and the influence they provided the artistic avant-garde throughout the region.

The brothers were close collaborators until the Russian Revolution overtook Georgia, Ilya emigrated to Paris, and the siblings were unwillingly separated by the Iron Curtain.
Presently, as Russia invades Ukraine and recklessly revives Cold War divisions, Kirill and Ilya’s artistic pluralism is vital as an against-all-odds affirmation of cosmopolitanism.

Presented by MODERNISM INC.

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