Art and Graphic Design of the European Avant-Gardes, the inaugural exhibition at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center’s new Irene and Richard Frary Gallery, is now open through Feb. 21. The exhibition brings together more than 75 rare Eastern European Modernist objects—several never before on view in North America—including artwork, books, photo collages, prints, photography and ephemera. Exhibition highlights include works from lesser-known avant-garde publishing cultures in Armenia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and the former Yugoslavia, including a large group of extremely rare avant-garde and Modernist books in Yiddish and Hebrew. Artists on view include El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, Karel Teige and Lajos Kassák.
Philipp Penka, a rare books dealer and researcher based in Berlin, is an expert in Russian and Eastern European avant-garde art and literature and maintains a longstanding relationship with the gallery’s namesake, Richard Frary, an enthusiastic collector in this area. Penka curated the exhibition, and below he discusses how it offers a glimpse at one of the defining periods in European Modernism and “enables a better understanding of a time marked by major political, social and cultural transformations.”
Štyrský, Jindřich (Czech, 1899–1942). Untitled, 1932, photo collage. Image credit: Bruce Schwarz, 2023.
Collection of Irene and Richard Frary.
What were your curatorial goals?
The exhibition offers a fresh and innovative perspective on the art of the European avant-gardes, including some of the most influential artistic movements of the 20th century, including Futurism, Dadaism, Suprematism, Constructivism and Surrealism. It pairs abstract works across geographic boundaries, linguistic differences, urban centers and the periphery to reveal an international exchange of ideas that gave rise to new visual vocabularies in a Postwar world transformed by industrial mass warfare, revolutionary violence and economic crises, as well as extraordinary scientific progress and technological change. The exhibition illuminates the role artists played in advancing sociopolitical change by actively participating in creating a new, more just, and more authentically modern way of life.
The works on view from the historical avant-garde also help contextualize our understanding of today’s technology-driven changes in the arts. The Constructivists’ efforts to substitute quantitative reasoning for a traditional concept of the creative human, versus the Surrealists’ embrace of art that lent form to complex human experiences, including the realm of dreams, the unconscious and the absurd, parallel contemporary debates in art around how to respond to the all-encompassing mechanization of life and the inexorable growth of artificial intelligence.
Finally, another goal of this exhibition is to showcase a number of highlights from the Frarys’ own collection that has been built over the past two decades—items that are both historically significant and of great personal significance to Richard Frary. The works on view from the uniquely broad international holdings of the Frary Collection enable new conversations around the central “-isms” of modern art and advance a deeper appreciation of European Modernism.
Karel Teige (Czech, 1900–1951). Untitled, 1941. Photo collage. Image credit: Bruce Schwarz, 202.
Collection of Irene and Richard Frary.
Why is the avant-garde of the teens and ’20s the first exhibition?
Art and Graphic Design of the European Avant-Gardes is the perfect exhibition to open the Hopkins Bloomberg Center’s Irene and Richard Frary gallery because it speaks directly to Johns Hopkins’ mission in Washington, D.C. The Hopkins Bloomberg Center strives to foster dialogue and a global exchange of ideas across a wide range of viewpoints. Similarly, the exhibition shows how artists across the European continent engaged in an international exchange of ideas to develop new visual vocabularies in response to a world transformed by the modern Postwar age and give shape to a more just and truthful society.
The inaugural exhibition excellently illustrates the purpose of the Hopkins Bloomberg Center and the Irene and Richard Frary Gallery to convene a diversity of artistic and ideological perspectives to foster discovery, democracy and global dialogue.
Berlewi, Henryk, designer (Polish, 1894–1967). Prospekt Biura Reklama Mechano [Promotional leaflet for the Mechano advertising agency], 1924. Image credit: Bruce Schwarz. Collection of Irene and Richard Frary.
What is planned for subsequent shows?
Upcoming exhibitions and programming for the Irene and Richard Frary Gallery will be announced in the coming months. The gallery will present rotating exhibitions at the intersection of art and democracy drawn from the university’s collections and special exhibitions in partnership with leading museums and collections. With its new gallery, the Hopkins Bloomberg Center will bring a bring a fresh infusion of artistic expression and cultural dialogue to Pennsylvania Avenue.
Kassák, Lajos (Hungarian, 1887–1967). Bildarchitektur (Picture Architecture), 1925. Multi-color gouache on paper. Image credit: Bruce Schwarz. Collection of Irene and Richard Frary.
Kassák, Lajos (Hungarian, 1887–1967). Untitled, 1921. Woodcut. Image credit: Bruce Schwarz.
Collection of Irene and Richard Frary.
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