State Art and Industry Academy named after S. G. Stroganova has long and fruitfully cooperated with the Ca 'Foscari University, in particular, Russian and Italian universities "exchanged" permanent representations in Venice and Moscow. The organizers of the two exhibitions referred to here were the Department of Art History and the Department for International Activities of the Stroganovka, led by Kirill Gavrilin, and the Center for the Study of Russian Culture and Art (CSAR) Ca 'Foscari, led by Silvia Burini. Two versions of the Russian avant-garde were presented to the public - photographs by Alexander Rodchenko from the 1920s to 1930s and the works of the "living classics" Francisco Infante and Nonna Goryunova.
The exposition “Professor Rodchenko. Photos from VKHUTEMAS”in the former salt warehouses on the Zattere embankment was prepared by curators Alexander Lavrentiev (MGHPA), the grandson of the exhibition hero, Silvia Burini (CSAR) and Guido Cerere (Venice Academy of Arts). It combines an overview of Rodchenko's photographic heritage with an original perspective on his teaching role. Instead of the works of his students from VKHUTEMAS, photographs taken by current students of the Moscow State Art Academy and the Italian Academy of Arts are shown. At the same time, they were inspired by the work of the master, who thus became their "professor" almost a hundred years later.
It should be noted the educational aspect of the exhibition itself: most of the photographs of Rodchenko selected by the curators (a significant part of the more than 100 prints were made by him) are among his most famous works, that is, they are intended primarily for the viewer, little or not at all familiar with the legacy of the Russian master avant-garde.
Such a broad approach fully justified itself: during the month of the exhibition's work, 12,000 people visited it, which became an undoubted success in the conditions of competition for visitors both with the magnificent monuments and museums of Venice, and with the architectural biennale. Also, the event aroused considerable interest in the central Italian newspapers and television.
The elegant design of the exposition deserves a special mention, smoothing out a certain inconvenience of a long and narrow exhibition hall.
On the other hand, the "artifacts" of Francisco Infante and Nonna Goryunova are housed in an ideal room: this is the San Sebastiano monastery, which has now become one of the campuses of the Ca 'Foscari University. The cloister gallery, turned into a hall, has retained the metaphysical component characteristic of traditional religious architecture, which echoes the works of Infante and Goryunova.
Curators Kirill Gavrilin (MGHPA) and Matteo Bertele (CSAR) prepared a catalog for the exhibition, where, along with other authors, they described the path of artists from their student days in Stroganovka through the development of domestic and world cultural heritage to the crystallization of their own creative line. And this line, inextricably linked with interaction with nature as a reflection of the Absolute in the material world, has retained its relevance for many decades.
The exhibition also fits into the program of master classes, lectures and exhibitions started three years ago by Stroganovka, dedicated to the latest trends in Russian art. The university was helped by the fact that many gurus of contemporary Russian art are its graduates: along with Infante and Goryunova, these are Dmitry Prigov, Komar and Melamid, Leonid Sokov, Boris Orlov and many others. After overcoming the conservatism characteristic of national education, reaching the international level of cooperation was already a logical stage of development.
Apart from the common organizers and the avant-garde component, the two exhibitions are united by the "medium" - photography as a means of innovative development of space, which makes the exposition a worthy addition to the architectural biennale, which this year devoted a lot of space to photography as an intrinsic art form.
