Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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Progenitor of the Soviet avant garde
The activities of Vkhutemas — the pioneering art and technical studios in the Moscow of the 1920s — are brought thrillingly to life in a new book, says MICHAL BONCZA
CUTTING EDGE: (L to R) Georgy Krutikov, New City (Flying City) 1927-28; (top right) Nadezhda Kolpakova, Colour Solution for Architectural Volume, 1928–29 and Natalya Ganina, project for ‘agit-textile,’ 1920s
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
Avant-Garde as Method: Vkhutemas and the Pedagogy of Space 1920-1930
Edited by Anna Bokov
(Verlag Park Books, £35.45)
THIS magnificent book demonstrates how Vkhutemas’s dynamics, mission, personalities — and particularly its achievements in design, art and architecture — have stood the test of time, unlike any other educational project in modern history.
With an unprecedented wealth of detail, the book is an extraordinary work of scholarship from editor Ana Bokov.
In 1923 Lenin, in Our Revolution, posed the question: “What if the complete hopelessness of the situation, by stimulating the efforts of the workers and peasants tenfold, offered us the opportunity to create the fundamental requisites of civilisation in a different way from that of the west European countries?”
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