Figures and speech: what is interesting about the exhibition of supremacist Ivan Klyun

The collection of the Russian avant-garde, unknown to the public, was shown at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA). About 100 works by the supremacist artist Ivan Klyun come from the collection of his granddaughter Svetlana Soloveitchik. They now belong to the Clune Foundation, and the new exhibition has become the premiere of this newly formed institution. Izvestia evaluated the exhibition and found out how many more works await the attention of researchers and viewers.

What's in the fund

A series of vibrant exhibitions of the Russian avant-garde does not stop, and even in the midst of the off-season, notable projects appear. "Ivan Klyun. Color forms. The Artist's Laboratory is one of them. Despite the chamber format (the exhibition occupies, in fact, one spacious hall in the MMOMA building in Ermolaevsky Lane) and the complete absence of large-format works, art connoisseurs of the first half of the 20th century cannot ignore this event.

It's not even that the museum is doing the first solo Russian retrospective of Klune in many years, reflecting the evolution of his style from the first creative steps to later things. More importantly, the vast majority of the exhibits have never been seen by the public. Yes, we are convinced time and time again that the thesis of the study of the Russian avant-garde (they say, everything has already been explored and shown a hundred times) is not very sound, there are still plenty of surprises here. And yet, it is rare when the percentage of new, unfamiliar people is so high.

The Klune Foundation told Izvestia that the total number of works in the collection is about 600. Some of them are very tiny, and mostly graphics. Let's assume that we saw the cream of the crop at the exhibition. But even so, this is still a very serious and weighty collection, which certainly deserves careful study (as experts from the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts Natalia Avtonomova and Alla Lukanova are already doing) and proper, curatorially accurate display. Such as in MMOMA.

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A circle instead of a square

Curator Oksana Voronina emphasizes that she wanted not only to show Klune in his most famous "suprematist" role, but also to compare the non-objective compositions with later realistic works. The advantage of this approach is that it helps to distance Klune from Malevich, whose importance to the history of art for many years prevented him from perceiving his colleagues as independent figures.

Ivan Klyun suffered from this, perhaps most of all, both during his lifetime and after his death. Many researchers, starting with Nikolai Khardjieff, considered him almost an epigon, an imitator of the author of the Black Square. And although Klune did indeed do a number of exemplary supremacist things in the 1910s and 1920s, in parallel he could well create works completely unlike Malevich. For example, in the early 1920s he painted realistic Crimean landscapes, and they are widely represented at the exhibition. And in the 1930s, he took a completely different path from his comrade (with whom, however, he remained friendly until his death).

By the way, contrary to stereotypes, Klune not only did not study with Malevich, but was even several years older than him. And in the early works of Ivan Vasilyevich, it is clear that he did not come to the avant-garde immediately. Clune's largest painting at the exhibition belongs precisely to the first, pre-futurist period: "Still Life with lemons in a vase" is designed in the spirit of post-impressionism, reminiscent of Cezanne, Falk and demonstrates mastery of color. But in the context of the future stylistic turn, it is interesting that almost all the objects here are round.: these are fruits, and a decanter filled with wine or mors... Years later, when Malevich makes a square in his signature way, Klune will choose a circle.

Objects and pointlessness

But so far, he has been getting drawings in the spirit of miriskusnikov, gentle lyrical watercolors a la Borisov-Musatov (a good example at the exhibition is "The Lady at the Fountain"). It was only by the mid-1910s that the shape became completely conventional and acquired a futuristic angularity. Two watercolors "Big Slides" are very interesting in this regard. The House with the Red Roof" and "The House with the Red Roof", dated 1914: they seem to be balancing between two eras.

One more step and we see purely cubist portraits: a man's head, which takes on the ideal shape of a ball, splits into many triangles. It is these figures, along with the circle, that will become key elements of Clune's mature manner.

And finally, suprematism. The central exhibit at the exhibition is a "Suprematist composition with a red circle" made by purely design means — a very small watercolor, where the only object is shifted to the right side of the sheet. The exhibit in a large black baguette (several times larger than the drawing itself) hangs almost alone, and a multi-meter red circle is sprayed on the wall behind it. The solution is controversial, but it allows, in the absence of large canvases, to create a visual dominant in the space.

Another find of a similar plan is three display cases in the center of the hall: in the form of a square, circle and triangle, respectively. They contain miniature sketches of Clune, his sketchbooks and texts (even poems). Well, even speaking about the significance of the artist's realistic works, there is no getting away from his main style. Hence the exposition techniques and the choice of things: the largest wall is allocated for non-objective works.

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Malevich's Shadow

There are gems among them: in the "Suprematist Composition" dated presumably 1917, a huge black rectangle pierces a small circle and a diagonal plane, from which it seems to roll down. I can't help but think of the textbook poster "Beat the whites with a red wedge" by El Lissitsky, but in this case the meaning is almost the opposite.

Another excellent work is the "Spherical Composition" of the first half of the 1920s. During this period, Clune prefers to endow geometric shapes with shimmering, dissolving contours. And it seems as if these are planets and comets in the universe.

Cosmic associations are generally very suitable for Klune's works, no less than for another supremacist from Malevich's circle, Ivan Kudryashov. But the Clune is interesting because it achieves this effect with minimal means. The exhibition shows four miniature (literally a few centimeters in height) watercolors from 1917, but when you look at them, you see not circles and thin stripes, but grandiose galactic events, the birth and collision of celestial bodies.

Well, what happened then, when the avant-garde finally went out of fashion and was banned, and optimistic straightforward paintings of Soviet life were expected from the painters? Klune paints nature, still lifes, and quite traditional portraits of his loved ones, but no, no, and suddenly mysterious suprematist rectangles will appear among peasants with braids, and black gloomy clouds in the landscape of the terrible 1937 will gather in almost abstract planes.

The ending of this story is predictably sad. Klyun died during the Great Patriotic War, forgotten by everyone, and his son, architect Georgy Klyunkov, was repressed (the exhibition is complemented by several of his drawings, the few that have survived). For a long time, there was no one to promote Klune's legacy. Human tragedy has merged with creative tragedy. And there is probably something symbolic that even in this exhibition, the dominant thing is not Kluin's thing at all, but Malevich's self-portrait from MMOMA's own collection. Despite the efforts of experts, Klune is just beginning to step out of the shadow of his great friend.