PRESS RELEASE
RUSSIA. BREAD. SALT.
Dates: 1 May- 31 October
Address:Russian Pavilion, EXPO-2015, Milan, Italy
Organized by: Russia EXPO 2014, Moscow Design Museum
The exhibition “Russia. Bread. Salt”, organized by the Moscow Design Museum, introduces visitors of EXPO 2015 to Russia’s rich cultural heritage in design, showcasing works by important 20th century masters that worked with themes of labor and agriculture.
The exhibition is dedicated to one of the most important movement in Russian art – the Russian avant-garde. The rapid development of industry and agriculture in the first decades of the 20th century together with the romanticized view of free labor inspired Russian artists to create objects of design, such as ceramics and fabrics that featured images of ears and sheaves of grain, sickles and tractors. Today, ceramic plates and fabric patterns celebrating agricultural labor have become rare museum pieces.
In the beginning of the 20th century artists of the avant-garde movement outlined the foundations of the design profession. The motto created by Alexander Rodchenko for VKHUTEMAS (Higher Art and Technical Studios) proclaimed: “Our job today: a mug, a broom, boots, a catalogue... We were artists yesterday – today we are constructors”. He formulated the following guideline for designers: to be a creator that can rationally and practically organize work, home and everyday life. Following these principles artists of the 1920’s became constructors of the “new life”. Constructivism became one of the most utilitarian schools of the Russian avant-garde. It was closely linked with architecture and industry and followed the principle of turning art into production and production into art. The artists-constructors were molding the environment around them, creating the new material world of fabrics, dishware, furniture, clothing, posters, and books. They were guided by principles of a rational search for form and function. To this day works by constructivists continue to inspire designers and architects around the world.
The exhibition presents designs based on the 1920-30’s textile and ceramic dreawings created by Lubov Silich, Raisha Vasilieva, Kira Schuko, Darya Preobrazhenskaja, Sergei Chehonin, Alexandra Schektihin-Pototskaja and their famous contemporary Kazimir Malevich. The prevailing motif in their works is the theme of plenty, a romanticized representation of collective labor, machinery, planes and industrial production.
Works by Elena Kitaeva present a contemporary take on the avant-garde. The artist explores the theme of gender equality in the professional sphere. The exhibition features five ceramic figures that are, on the one hand, ‘portraits’ of women-designers like Varvara Stepanova, Lubov Popova, Vera Muhina, and, on the other hand, a model image of a female kolkhoz worker. These works are an ode to labour and creativity, to the contribution made by female designers to Russia’s industrialization and cultural development. Bright geometric compositions on the dresses of the figures transport the viewers to a time, when designers wore clothing out of fabrics that they themselves created. These fabrics were not just utilitarian but acted as vehicles for new ideas of the time. For example, decorative sateen titled “Industrialization of the village” with images of tractors collecting the harvest or “Harvester/ Peasant woman” holding ears of wheat. Now they are called propaganda textiles.
The Russian avant-garde is not just an artistic movement - it is a philosophy. Avant-garde artists were ahead of their time and have received international acclaim. Still today, the world continues to be inspired by the ideas and enthusiasm of the pioneers of the Russian avant-garde.
Project Manager: Natalia Goldchteine
Curator: Alexandra Sankova
Exhibition design: Stepan Lukyanov
Sculptor, co-author of concept:Elena Kitaeva
Coordinator: Ekaterina Shapkina
MOSCOW DESIGN MUSEUM
The Moscow Design Museum is a partner of Russia Expo 2015
The Museum was founded in 2012 and is the first cultural institution in Russiaspecifically dedicated to design. The museum’s founders see their main objectives to be the popularizationof national design at home and abroad, the collection and preservation of Russia’s design heritage and the introduction of Russian viewers to the best examples and main schools of international design.
So far, the museum has successfully organized exhibition projects in some of the most prominent space in Russia, including the Central Exhibition Hall “Manege” and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. The museum’s team has also organized international projects such an exhibitionduring Design Week in Beijing and the exhibition “Soviet Design, 1950-1980’s” that will open in Kunsthal Rotterdam (the Netherlands) autumn 2015.
To further the goal of education and promotion of design the Museum is creating a series of documentary films for TV Channel “Culture”, including “Holland – territory of design”, “Design for everyone. Sweden”, “British Design. Traditions and innovations”, “Great Danish Designers”, “Russia’s national design, 1920-2020”.
Museum’s main exhibition projects:
“Soviet Design, 1950-1980’s” (CEH “Manege”, 2012-2013).
“Packaging Design. Made in Russia” (CEH “Manege”, 2013).
“Common Objects: Soviet and Chinese Design 1950-80’s” (Design Week, Beijing, 2013).
“New Luxuries: Less+More in an Age of Austerity” (CEH “Manege”, 2013-2014).
“Sportcult” (“Proun” gallery, 2014).
“British Design: from William Morris to the Digital Revolution” (Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, 2014).
Elena Kitaeva– sculptor, artist, media-artist, designer. Winner of international design competitions. Regular participant in international design biennales in Toyama, Paris, Colorado, London, Helsinki, Lahti, Mexico City, Warsaw, Brno. Participated in personal and group exhibitions in Ogaki (Japan), Münster, Frankfurt, Berlin (Germany), Yale University, IMA Gallery (USA), DDD-Gallery (Japan), Tretyakov Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art PERMM, Russian Museum, the Hermitage, Gelman’s Gallery, Art-Strelka (Russia), Vitebsk national museum (Belarus), Stedelijk Museum (Netherlands).
Russian Pavilion at “EXPO-2015”
The history ofRussian participation inWorld Expo spans more than one and ahalf centuries, beginning with the very first Great Exhibition inLondon in 1851. The theme of “EXPO-2015” in Milan is “Feeding the Planet. Energy for life”. 145 countries will be participating and 20 million people are expected to visit the Expo.
The motto of the Russian Pavilion is “Growing for the World. Cultivating for the future.”
The Russian Federation is an initiator and prominent participant in the global discussion on the quality of and accessibility to food for its own population and for the world. As one of the most influential players in the global agricultural produce market, our country has a unique opportunity to guarantee food supply to every person on the planet.
The concept for the Russian Pavilion was developed by leading architectural bureau Speech, led by Sergei Choban, Alexei Ilin and Marina Kuznetskaya. The 2015 Pavilion continues the architectural tradition of the prize-winning Russian and Soviet pavilions of previous years, and sets itself apart with the striking lightning motif of its design, surging skywards.
At the Milan Expo, the Russian pavilion will demonstrate the scale of the country as reflected by its food resources. Russia’s vast reserves of water and arable land, its great scientists and their contributions to agriculture, its diversity of national cuisines and tradition — all this will be presented in an accessible and entertaining format, engaging visitors not only through interactive displays but also through live tastings of food and drink.
Expo 2015 Milano takes place from 1 May to 31 October 2015 and includes a full program of events dedicated to the overall theme: food safety, development, sustainable food production and culinary traditions.
For more information about the exhibition “Russia. Bread. Salt” please contact:
Zarema Zautdinova/ Moscow Design Museum
+7 925 330 96 39/
For more information please visit Moscow Design Museum’s website at