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Exhibition Team ↓
VHUTEMAS 100.
School of Avant-garde
Museum of Moscow
2020
2020
In 2020, VHUTEMAS celebrated its centenary, marking 100 years since the founding of the most groundbreaking and influential art and design school in Russia. For a decade, from 1920 to 1930, the workshops on Myasnitskaya and Rozhdestvenka Streets were home to the most dynamic artistic forces in Moscow—painters, graphic artists, architects, sculptors, and designers, all shaping the future of Soviet art and industry.
The sheer intensity of ideas, manifestos, and creative energy within this small space was so powerful that its echo is still felt today. Yet, unlike its well-documented counterpart, BAUHAUS, the full impact of VHUTEMAS remains underexplored. A long period of suppression of the avant-garde legacy, combined with the loss and destruction of student archives, has left many gaps. In recent years, books and exhibitions have gradually reconstructed individual faculties, educators, and students, but this exhibition was the first to bring them all together, with a special focus on student work and the teaching methodology itself.
The exhibition aimed to show this educational "explosion" in motion, tracing the transition from the pre-revolutionary art school to the Free State Studios (1918−1920), then to VHUTEMAS (1920−1927), VHUTEIN (1927−1930), and ultimately to contemporary design education.
We call VHUTEMAS a "School of the Avant-garde", not simply for its formal connections to Futurism, Constructivism, or Suprematism, but because of its radically innovative approach to teaching. At its core was the formal-analytical method, which was equally integral to the diametrically opposed workshops of Alexander Rodchenko and Vladimir Favorsky, Ilya Mashkov and David Shterenberg.
The pedagogy of VHUTEMAS focused on breaking down complex artistic problems into fundamental elements, teaching students analysis, independent thinking, and experimentation rather than imitation. The propaedeutic (foundation) courses introduced students to the "alphabet" of art—composition, rhythm, color, form, space, volume, and graphics—creating a true revolution in artistic education. The radical merging of artistic, industrial, and scientific disciplines, along with material and technical research, produced a new type of artist-designer, capable of solving both artistic and applied challenges.
Reflecting the spirit of collectivism that defined VHUTEMAS, this exhibition was created by a large team of curators and contributors. Each faculty and discipline was curated by a specialist who defined the key ideas and principles of their section. A unified visual system for identifying faculty heads and workshop leaders allowed visitors to trace connections between different methodologies and the fluid boundaries between disciplines.
The sheer intensity of ideas, manifestos, and creative energy within this small space was so powerful that its echo is still felt today. Yet, unlike its well-documented counterpart, BAUHAUS, the full impact of VHUTEMAS remains underexplored. A long period of suppression of the avant-garde legacy, combined with the loss and destruction of student archives, has left many gaps. In recent years, books and exhibitions have gradually reconstructed individual faculties, educators, and students, but this exhibition was the first to bring them all together, with a special focus on student work and the teaching methodology itself.
The exhibition aimed to show this educational "explosion" in motion, tracing the transition from the pre-revolutionary art school to the Free State Studios (1918−1920), then to VHUTEMAS (1920−1927), VHUTEIN (1927−1930), and ultimately to contemporary design education.
We call VHUTEMAS a "School of the Avant-garde", not simply for its formal connections to Futurism, Constructivism, or Suprematism, but because of its radically innovative approach to teaching. At its core was the formal-analytical method, which was equally integral to the diametrically opposed workshops of Alexander Rodchenko and Vladimir Favorsky, Ilya Mashkov and David Shterenberg.
The pedagogy of VHUTEMAS focused on breaking down complex artistic problems into fundamental elements, teaching students analysis, independent thinking, and experimentation rather than imitation. The propaedeutic (foundation) courses introduced students to the "alphabet" of art—composition, rhythm, color, form, space, volume, and graphics—creating a true revolution in artistic education. The radical merging of artistic, industrial, and scientific disciplines, along with material and technical research, produced a new type of artist-designer, capable of solving both artistic and applied challenges.
Reflecting the spirit of collectivism that defined VHUTEMAS, this exhibition was created by a large team of curators and contributors. Each faculty and discipline was curated by a specialist who defined the key ideas and principles of their section. A unified visual system for identifying faculty heads and workshop leaders allowed visitors to trace connections between different methodologies and the fluid boundaries between disciplines.
Chief Curator
Aleksandra Selivanova
Photography
Alexey Narodizkiy
Aleksandra Selivanova
Photography
Alexey Narodizkiy
Published to mark the centenary of VHUTEMAS — the Higher Art and Technical Studios (1920−1930), one of the most influential design schools of the 20th century, this comprehensive volume brings together academic essays on all of the school’s departments, memoirs by graduates, texts on the daily life of VHUTEMAS students — their communal living, participation in urban design projects, self-organized clubs and student publications, and the experience of women in the institute. For the first time in one publication, the book presents the full history of VHUTEMAS: from its founding and the radical reform of teaching methods across departments, to the unique pedagogical approaches of individual instructors, and ultimately, the institutional destruction of this avant-garde educational model.
Illustrated with student works from various years, archival documents and photographs, and reconstructions of furniture and architectural models made for the exhibition VHUTEMAS 100. The School of the Avant-garde at the Museum of Moscow.
Illustrated with student works from various years, archival documents and photographs, and reconstructions of furniture and architectural models made for the exhibition VHUTEMAS 100. The School of the Avant-garde at the Museum of Moscow.
Moscow
336 pp
2020
336 pp
2020
VHUTEMAS 100. The School of the Avant-garde
Aleksandra Selivanova, Ksenia Guseva (eds.)
