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The Crystallography of Malevich and Leonidov
Avant-garde Center on Shabolovka
2019
2019
This exhibition project explored the influence of late 19th and early 20th-century scientific discoveries on Soviet avant-garde art. The curators focused on key breakthroughs, such as Max von Laue’s 1912 X-ray diffraction photograph of a crystal lattice, the Bragg’s father-and-son research on the structure of matter, and Wilson Bentley’s pioneering photographs of snowflakes. These discoveries, published in scientific monographs and popular science books and presented at lectures in Moscow and Petrograd, inevitably captured the attention of artists and architects.
The impact of these discoveries is particularly evident in the theoretical explorations of Kazimir Malevich, Mikhail Matyushin, El Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko, sculptors Karl Ioganson and Naum Gabo, and architects Yakov Chernikhov and Ivan Leonidov, among many others.
The exhibition brings together artworks, archival documents, theoretical texts, and letters, demonstrating the deep connection between art and scientific publications of the 1910s–1920s. Malevich, Matyushin, and Leonidov, for instance, were deeply fascinated by crystallography, microbiology, and the structure of matter. Their interest in X-rays, molecular structures, and microscopic organisms is reflected in their own investigations of spatial perception, material structures, and color and form theory.
These intersections between science and avant-garde art were illustrated in the exhibition through a diverse selection of materials: books, photographs, original manuscripts, graphic and painting works, sculptures, and even the objects that served as inspiration—minerals and pre-revolutionary lithographs of crystals and microorganisms, sourced from state museums and private collections.
The impact of these discoveries is particularly evident in the theoretical explorations of Kazimir Malevich, Mikhail Matyushin, El Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko, sculptors Karl Ioganson and Naum Gabo, and architects Yakov Chernikhov and Ivan Leonidov, among many others.
The exhibition brings together artworks, archival documents, theoretical texts, and letters, demonstrating the deep connection between art and scientific publications of the 1910s–1920s. Malevich, Matyushin, and Leonidov, for instance, were deeply fascinated by crystallography, microbiology, and the structure of matter. Their interest in X-rays, molecular structures, and microscopic organisms is reflected in their own investigations of spatial perception, material structures, and color and form theory.
These intersections between science and avant-garde art were illustrated in the exhibition through a diverse selection of materials: books, photographs, original manuscripts, graphic and painting works, sculptures, and even the objects that served as inspiration—minerals and pre-revolutionary lithographs of crystals and microorganisms, sourced from state museums and private collections.
Curator and Exhibition Architecture
Aleksandra Selivanova
Curatorial Assistant
Sofia Michel
Graphic Designer
Nadezhda Andrianova
Text Authors
Pyotr Zavadovsky
Irina Kochergina
Aleksandra Shatskikh
Vitaly Staroverov
Reconstruction of Malevich’s Architectons
Mark Yesin
Reconstruction of Ioganson’s Objects
Anton Ketov
Aleksandra Selivanova
Curatorial Assistant
Sofia Michel
Graphic Designer
Nadezhda Andrianova
Text Authors
Pyotr Zavadovsky
Irina Kochergina
Aleksandra Shatskikh
Vitaly Staroverov
Reconstruction of Malevich’s Architectons
Mark Yesin
Reconstruction of Ioganson’s Objects
Anton Ketov
