MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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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
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ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
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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