The parade of the Amazons

Feminism: From the avant -garde to the present day

In the Moscow Museum and Exhibition Center "Worker and Collective Farm", an exhibition with a straightforward name-"International Women's Day. Feminism: from the avant -garde to the present day "

Valentina Kulagina. International Day of Workers. 1930	Vladimir Serov. Builder. 1964

It seems that the era and such exhibitions and such names have long been a thing of the past. However, the exposition curators believe that nothing of the kind - feminism is stronger than ever. It is precisely this relevance that the current exposition is designed to prove. To this end, exhibits from many museums of the country, including the Tretyakov Gallery, have been involved in the exhibition.

The Amazons of the Russian Avangard Poet and memoirist Benedict Livshits called the domestic artists of the beginning of the century. The definition was remembered and became everyday. Livshits had in mind very specific artists who actively participated in exhibitions of groups "Diamond Valet", "Union of Youth" and others, in particular Olga Rozanov and Alexander Esther. But in this case, we have a different project, and its interpretation is much more arbitrary. The Amazons are all those who lived in the early 1920s. The exhibition presents drawings for textiles and the design of Lyubov Popova dresses, barbarians Stepanova, Zinaida Rytzer, Elena Danko's porcelain and Varvara Sheronova. Their works are designed to note the beginning of feminism in Russian art. And then the evolution of the female theme in art can be traced after the 60–70s and subsequent years.

In order to show the image of the emancipated Zheshchina, the expositions of Deineki, Samokhvalov, Pimenov, Sterenberg - the singers of the Amazons of the victorious socialism were involved in the exposition. Indeed, the muscular, strong -legged physical cultures on the canvases of Deineki have little in common with the female sex. A woman in his image ceases to carry her gender function, she is primarily not a woman, but a “comrade”. With all the variety of works presented in the exhibition hall, the feeling of some kind of inferiority does not leave when the struggle for the emancipation of women and its rights is replaced by the selection of paintings on a sexual basis. It is this narrow choice - the most vulnerable part of such expositions.

Guerrilla Girls. Should a woman be naked to get into the metro-museum? 1989

The first women's protest action took place in New York on March 8, 1857 and was called "march of empty pots." In Russia, a similar action took place exactly 100 years ago, namely on March 2, 1913, it was called “scientific morning on the female issue”, and about one and a half thousand women took part in it. They advocated the right to vote for women and the state support of motherhood. All these are the stages of the feminist movement, which has achieved a lot for the century, and so much that now men need protection - achieve equal rights to raise a child during a divorce or receipt of leave to raise a newborn, etc. In the 1970s, a “male liberation movement” arose in the United States, aiming to overcome the stereotypes of the gender perception of men, when the demand for muscles and male dominance as a whole made significant restrictions in male life and caused injuries to men. They wanted to be “housewives”, but society did not allow them to. Well, as a result - the emergence of the International Association of Lesbians and Gays (ILGA), which defends the right of sexual minorities.

At the exhibition in Moscow, all these latest directions are represented from the point of view of contemporary art, the creators of which are exclusively women at the whim of curators. Here are the performances of the group "Factory of found clothes"; Dreams of Sufrazhista Vera Pavlovna from Chernyshevsky’s novel “What to do?”, Reflected by Anna Broch; Olga Tobreluts demonstrates her “bronze models”. The authors of the exposition show the rollings of artists in time and through generations. There were no place for men at this exhibition. But, probably, the next project here should be exclusively masculine - the world without women is also quite curious and

Seductive. Although this will be more from the field of gender fantasies.

Photo: Press Service "Manege"