The State Tretyakov Gallery and the Manege Central Exhibition Hall in St Petersburg present “Laboratory of the Future: Kinetic Art in Russia”. The project examines one of the most significant yet least studied movements in Russian art of the second half of the twentieth century.
The exhibition surveys kinetic art in the 1960s and 1970s, tracing its roots in the early twentieth-century avant-garde and its links with contemporary practice.
First shown at the Manege in St Petersburg in February and March 2020, the exhibition has been expanded for Moscow. The West Wing of the New Tretyakov Gallery provides space for larger objects, installations and dedicated video rooms.
“Laboratory of the Future: Kinetic Art in Russia” is both the largest contemporary-art exhibition held in this space and a continuation of its tradition of presenting current ideas and forms.
The building’s architecture made a broader selection possible and allowed the curators to add large-scale works and video rooms. The New Tretyakov building and kinetic art emerged at almost the same historical moment, creating a strong aesthetic connection between them.
Kinetic art is founded on transformation: both the artwork and the viewer’s perception can change over time. Movement, variation and instability define the form. Artists use mechanical forces or optical effects to produce these changes. Kinetic art emerged in several parts of the world after the Second World War, alongside renewed faith in technological progress and the rise of the information society.
Kinetic artists developed visual systems for transmitting information, studied visual thought and experimented with new technologies and materials. Their work addressed multisensory perception, algorithms in creative practice, process, interactivity and virtuality — questions that remain current today.
Artists applied these ideas not only to artworks but also to design, architecture, urban planning and the built environment. Kinetic art became a laboratory for imagining alternative realities and futures. Many features once treated as experiments are now part of everyday life.
The New Tretyakov Gallery presents mobiles, tensegrity structures, transforming sculptures, optical paintings, graphics, collage, photography, video projections, sound-and-light installations and interactive objects. Works by the kinetic artists of the 1960s and 1970s appear alongside their avant-garde predecessors and contemporary artists.
Four overlapping sections identify the main features of kinetic art and trace the development of its central ideas. The curators deliberately avoided a rigid division between them.
Shared methods, ideas and artists connect the sections. Experiments that began in painting and graphics continue as spatial structures; abstract geometry becomes design and architecture. Many works seek to engage several of the viewer’s senses at once.
Vision Laboratory explores visual perception and attempts to extend it. Art Metrics Laboratory presents work grounded in calculation and the rational organisation of the creative process.
Environmental Laboratory brings together proposals for architecture, design and theatre. Synaesthesia Laboratory presents multisensory projects that pursue the idea of a total or integrated artwork.
Artists whose works are presented at the exhibition: Pyotr Aidu, Vladimir Akulinin, Kirill Alexandrov, Anna Andreeva, Tatyana Andreeva, Vladimir Baranov-Rossine, Galina Bitt, Leonid Borisov, Alexander Vesnin, German Vinogradov, Nikolai Voinov, Anatoly Volgin, Naum Gabo, Bulat Galeev and the Prometheus Research Institute, Vladimir Galkin, Ilya Golosov, Alexander Grigoriev, Mikhail Grishin, group “Movement”, Mikhail Dorokhov, Rimma Zanevskaya-Sapgir, Yuri Zlotnikov, Sergey Zorin, Platon Infante, Francisco Infante-Arana, Karl Johanson, David Kakabadze, Gustav Klutsis, Ivan Klyun, Anna Koleichuk, Vyacheslav Koleichuk, Anna Komarova, Alisa Koroleva, Asya Koroleva, Anatoly Krivchikov, Vladimir Krinsky, Georgy Krutikov, Max Ksuta, art group “Where the Dogs Run,” Ivan Kudryashov, Valentina Kulagina-Klutsis, Alexander Labas, Alexander Lavrentyev, Nikolay Ladovsky, August Lanin, Ivan Leonidov, El Lisitsky, Vyacheslav Loktev, Sergey Luchishkin, Tatyana Makarova, Kazimir Malevich, Pavel Mansurov, Vladimir Martirosov, Mikhail Matyushin, Konstantin Melnikov, Pyotr Miturich, Maria Molokova, Lev Nusberg, Nathan Pevzner, Lyubov Popova, Yuri Pravdyuk, Natalia Prokuratova, Nikolai Prusakov, Alexander Pushkarev, Yuri Reshetnikov, Alexander Rodchenko, Vladimir Ryndin, Roman Sakin, Vladimir Slepyan, Andrey Smirnov, Yuri Sobolev, the Stenberg brothers, Varvara Stepanova, Boris Stuchebryukov, Vladimir Tatlin, Sergei Tretyakov, Ekaterina Trubina, Boris Turetsky, Sergei Filatov, Pavel Filonov, Velimir Khlebnikov, Ilya Chashnik, Yakov Chernikhov, Leonid Chupyatov, Evgeny Sholpo, Alexey Shulgin, Stas Shuripa, Vasily Shchetinin, Ivan Shchetinin, Sergey Eisenstein, Alexandra Ekster, Maria Ender, Boris Ender, Sergey Yakunin, Stain group and::vtol:: (Dmitry Morozov), Recycle Group.
Curator: Yulia Aksenova
Co-curators: Anna Koleichuk, Andrey Smirnov, Natalya Sidorova (State Tretyakov Gallery)
Exhibition architect: Ksenia Lukyanova
