Building a New World:
Americanizm in Russian Architecture
November 13, 2019 - April 5, 2020
Building a new New World
examines the history
of Russian architecture and urban design in light of an
enduring Amerikanizm. It
focuses on an expanded
definition of architecture and culture, as
well as industrial and
graphic design, music, photography, film, and literature. It
also provides examples of
various
buildings, factories, industrial infrastructures,
urban planning
and product design.
The exhibition
presents a wide-ranging succession of images and objects in which
architecture serves as the unifying thread, including photographs,
books, maps, drawings, magazines, portraits, models, postcards, and
film excerpts. It
examines numerous
themes:
imagined
forms and buildings inspired by American sources, recurring
investigative journeys undertaken by Russian explorers, political
leaders, and architects; the multitude of Russian publications
devoted to the United States, ranging
from technical reports
to poetry and novels.
Jean-Louis Cohen, the
exhibition’s curator,
stated:
“The bilateral relationship between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America was paradoxical. Americans never aspired to turn their nation into a ‘new Russia,’ neither from a political nor a cultural standpoint, while generations of Russian politicians, intellectuals, and engineers envisioned modelling their country after the United States, hoping to cast it as a new America.”
CCA Director Mirko
Zardini explained:
“Through the CCA’s critical curatorial framework and calculated exhibition design, Cohen interprets Amerikanizm as a multifaceted phantasmagoria—borrowing Walter Benjamin’s term for the stimulating and ominous spectacle of the commodity—that helped shape not only the built form but also the consciousness of one of the greatest global powers.”
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Building
a new New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture is the result of
extensive research by curator Jean-Louis Cohen and features drawings,
photographs, posters, books, publications, models, historical
documents, and films from both Russia and the USA. The decades-long
dialogue between Russia and the USA is reflected in the materials on
display, which include rarely seen Russian holdings from the CCA’s
own collection—including rare books and magazines, evocative
drawings, and important photographs—shown alongside loans from
important international institutions and lenders including, among
others, the Alex Lachmann collection, with 33 objects on view in the
exhibition; an emblematic and rare illustration from the MOMus -
Museum of Modern Art - Costakis Collection in Thessaloniki, Greece;
the Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation in Vienna; the
Library of Congress; posters and key visuals from the Collection
Merrill C. Berman; and works on loan from the Albert Kahn records at
the Bentley Historical Library of University of Michigan and Albert
Kahn Associates, Inc. The
exhibition content is structured along specific themes including
America and the Modernization of Czarist Russia; American Industries
for Russia: Taylor, Ford, and Kahn; Amerikanizms of the Avant-Gardes;
Amerikanizm in Stalinist Architecture and Culture; From War to
Triumph; and The Post-Stalinist USSR: Reaching and Surpassing
America. Throughout the succession of images and projects on display,
architecture embodies the phenomenon of Amerikanizm that was also
apparent in literature and film. Indeed, throughout the exhibition,
film remains an important leitmotif, with excerpts from works by
Sergey Eisenstein and Grigory Alexandrov, Mikhail Chiaureli, Esfir
Shub, Frank & Lillian Gilbreth, Lev Kuleshov, Sergey Komarov,
Alexander Medvedkin, Mikhail Kalatozov, and Charles & Ray Eames
on display in key locations within and between galleries.
THE PUBLICATION
Building
a new New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture is accompanied
by a book of the same title by Jean-Louis Cohen, available in English
and French editions in February 2020. Co-published by Yale and the
CCA in English and Hazan and the CCA in French, the book follows the
themes of the exhibition within a broader interpretive narrative and
is illustrated by 450 colour and black and white images of drawings,
photographs, maps, charts, and posters. The book will be available
online and in-store through the CCA Bookstore, and distributed to
select bookstores internationally.
RELATED PROGRAMS
Public
programs related to Building a new New World will include a series of
talks titled Search for a new New World by invited guests whose work
relates to the themes explored through the exhibition. Adding
examples beyond the terrestrial focus of the exhibition, this series
looks to Russian science fiction as a site of social and
technological fantasy: reflection and experimentation beyond what was
possible in Russian reality. In parallel to the exhibition
chronology, Russian society is read through four case studies from
science fiction texts, images, and films.
Click on images to enlarge them.
All photos © Nadia Slejskova.
,+2013,+CCA+Montreal+2013,+Photo+N.+Slejskova.jpg "Geoffrey Smedley, Spine: The central nervous system-the organ of extension (Head-Brain), 2013, CCA Montreal 2013, Photo N. Slejskova")
,+2013,+CCA+Montreal+2013,+Photo+N.+Slejskova.jpg "Geoffrey Smedley, Spine: The central nervous system-the organ of extension (3 spine sections), 2013, CCA Montreal 2013, Photo N. Slejskova")
