Monumental Propaganda at the Museum of Evolution

The State Darwin Museum is opening an exhibition under the title “Monumental Propaganda at the Museum of Evolution” within the framework of the special project “100th anniversary of the Monumental Propaganda Plan” of the 3rd city festival “Avant-Garde Days”. For the first time on display visitors will find unique surviving artifacts - sculptural portraits of prominent figures of science and art, made according to Lenin's Plan of Monumental Propaganda in 1918.

Shortly after the Great October Socialist Revolution (November 7, 1917), the Special Commission of People’s Commissars compiled a list of prominent politicians, philosophers, scientists and artists whose portraits were to be monumentalized in sculpture. The Department of Fine Arts at the People's Commissariat for Education commissioned a monument in the memory of Andrei Rublev to the co-founder of Darwin Museum - artist Vasily Vatagin (1884 - 1969). Like most monuments made according to the Plan of temporary materials, it was considered to be completely lost. Fortunately, a plaster bas-relief was discovered at the funds of the Darwin Museum - the head of Andrei Rublev by Vatagin.

The exhibition will also show sculptural portraits of Charles Darwin (the first in Russia), Ernst Haeckel, Alfred Wallace, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe also by Vasily Vatagin. It was the founder of the Darwin Museum, Alexander Kohts who in 1918 commissioned these portraits. Visitors will also see a portrait of René Descartes by Vladimir Domogatsky (1876–1939), made some time later by the order of the Physics Office of the Moscow Polytechnic Museum, as well as copies of archival photographs and sketches documenting the creation and existence of sculptures.

“Avant-Garde Days” festival: “Art and Power" April 19 - 26, 2019.

Curators: Alexandra Selivanova, Ayrat Bagautdinov, Marina Krasnova.

Organizers: Gallery On Shabolovka, “The Exhibition Halls of Moscow” Association, Avant-Garde Center, State Museum of Russian Literature History n.a. Vladimir Dahl, “Moscow through the eyes of an engineer” Project, ZIL Cultural Center.

Partners: State Museum of the Gulag History, the Center n.a. Vsevolod Meyerhold, the State Darwin Museum, Moscow Lights Museum, Russian State Library for Young Adults, Central Universal Scientific Library n. a. Nikolay Nekrasov.

Актуальные мероприятия