Archi.ru:
How do you assess the composition of the collection of Sergei Tchoban shown at the exhibition in relation to the material of the avant-garde graphics, which, I think, is known to you better than most?
Jean-Louis Cohen, curator of the exhibition:
- Sergei Tchoban's collection has been collected over the past twenty years. And this is a very important starting point. Significant collections of Russian avant-garde graphics are in the A. V. Shchusev in Moscow; for artists and a number of architects, this is the Kostaki collection, part of which is located in the Tretyakov Gallery, and part in Thessaloniki.
And from this point of view, the collection of Sergei Tchoban is not the ideal collection with which one can tell the history of Soviet architecture in the 1920s and 1930s. I had to make sense of the graphic material that I found on the shelves of the Tchoban collection in Berlin. At the same time, this collection contains absolutely unique works, such as drawings by Chernikhov, graphics by Burov, or Shchusev's sketches for the Lenin Mausoleum.
In general, the graphics shown at the exhibition are rather graphic documents. This is how I built the exhibition. This is an exhibition of graphic documents about the architecture of the 1920s – 1930s in Russia.
Are there any unique or interesting things in the collection, both from the point of view of collecting and from your position as an avant-garde historian? What kind?
- Yes, in the collection, in the form in which it is shown in Paris, we find wonderful drawings in gouache by Chernikhov. Burov's drawings for the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition of 1923, these are absolutely unique works, which I did not know before. Album of student works of VKHUTEMAS, with all pages and exercises. This is a very rare and unique document.
I would also name some projects of the post-avant-garde: projects of the thirties, the beginning of socialist realism, these are also very significant works. A large-scale perspective of Boris Iofan's Palace of Soviets, even though this is one of the many well-known perspectives. An extremely interesting prospect for Iofan's second project for the Palace of Soviets. And also those things that complete the exposition: the work of Moisei Ginzburg "Park of Culture" in Tbilisi - I have not seen anything like it before.
There are real discoveries in Tchoban's collection.
To what extent do you think the French audience is familiar with the architecture of the Russian avant-garde, or is it a new material and only specialists know it?
- The French audience, for the most part, knows little about the architecture of the Russian avant-garde. There was a large exhibition "Moscow - Paris", at which he was shown a significant number of works of the Russian avant-garde. But it took place 38 years ago, more than one generation. Since then, there have been several small thematic exhibitions, but there have been no important and significant displays to the general public. The exhibition of works from the Tchoban collection is something new for the public.
You included the project of Boris Iofan's Palace of Soviets in the exhibition entitled "Architecture of the Russian Avant-garde", even if you designated this material as a transitional "to socialist realism", but included it. Do you think this is correct?
- The name of the exhibition - "Architecture of the Russian Avant-garde" - does not quite correspond to all the works presented at it, but I think that the name should not be deductive, but inductive, in order to set a general line.
The exhibition vividly tells about the transition to socialist realism and the elimination of the avant-garde. I think it was important to show, on the one hand, the beginning, the first monumental experiments of the avant-garde artists, give some very brief data about VKHUTEMAS, show the Agricultural Exhibition of 1923, but also tell about the "epilogue": "Palace of Soviets" by Iofan. Ginzburg's project for Tbilisi is also an epilogue, to some extent it is "late constructivism", which is very interesting in itself.
If I had more graphics from the 1920s and early 1930s at my disposal, then I could make an exhibition about the period from 1917 to 1932 with just these materials. But that was not the case. Wonderful graphics of Zhivskulptarh and Sinsculptarh, the early works of the Constructivists are in the collection of the Museum of Architecture. A. V. Shchusev and in the Kostaki collection. Ginzburg's archives have been lost. Burov's archive is kept in the Museum of Architecture, Vesnin's archive is in the same place. The materials collected by Khan-Magomedov are mainly in the Lakhman collection. There are not so many graphics that can be shown to the viewer. I made an exhibition with the materials that I had at my disposal and many of which turned out to be a discovery for me.
And in general - how much, in your opinion, are the architecture of the avant-garde and, say, the palace of Iofan - antagonists?
- If we compare Iofan's Palace of the Soviets and Leonidov's Lenin Institute, we will see a radical antagonism between these two projects. This is undeniable. But if we compare Iofan's project with the projects that avant-garde architects submit to the competition of the Palace of Soviets, things become less obvious. I mean the projects of Ginzburg, Ladovsky and projects of other, more radical architects than Iofan.
Iofan - was very moderate in his views, he was a muralist, educated in a Roman school. He was never a radical architect, practically in none of his projects, with the possible exception of a sanatorium in Barvikha.
During the work on the project of the "Palace of Soviets", all the participants of the competition had to take into account the concept of "monument" and therefore there are more significant similarities between the projects than we might think.
Are you satisfied with the resulting exposure?
- I think the exhibition was a success. I receive feedback from my colleagues, who have extensive curatorial experience, from architectural historians, everyone is unanimous in the opinion that this is the exhibition that managed to tell the complex history of the Soviet avant-garde, through the material that is architectural graphics. This was also possible thanks to Natalia Solopova's laconic scenography. And thanks to the graphic design system - comments were written for each section, and detailed explications were written for each work.
I believe that the exposition of the exhibition gave the works an opportunity to conduct a dialogue with each other. What is extremely important for the exhibition, when each work is not "in itself", but is in dialogue with other works. An example of such a dialogue between two projects is the projects for the Palace of Soviets. Golosov's sketch and Iofan's second project. These two projects are essentially two Colosseums, which are very similar to each other.
We see how some ideas pass from one architect to another, develop during this period, which was very short in time. We see how typological innovations develop. As the buildings of the new regime appear, the most "loaded" symbolically - the Lenin Mausoleum and the "Palace of Soviets".
A question to Natalia Solopova, the author of the exposition:
What goals did you set while working with the design of the exhibition, what is the main idea? What did you emphasize? How satisfied are you with the result?
Natalia Solopova:
- An exhibition is, first of all, a curatorial idea. And the task of the set designer is to express this idea in space and convey it to the viewer. The venue of the exhibition - Bon's Office - is a very difficult space: small and "littered", in which many functions coexist at the same time: a repository of drawings, an exhibition space and workplaces for the Cabinet employees.
The scenographic solution is the gray color of the billboards on which the graphics are hung, as a kind of unifying element of the entire exposition. The red headings of the sections and the large-scale poster title of the exhibition in Rodchenko's script refer us to revolutionary propaganda graphics.
I am happy with the result. But, most importantly, judging by the entries in the guestbook, the French public is satisfied with the exhibition.
