Grand project dedicated to the 100th Anniversary of UNOVIS
When: 2019-2020
When: 2019-2020
#UNOVIS100
[ about the project ]
UNOVIS ("The Affirmers of the New Art") was a legendary creative association established by Kazimir Malevich together with the tutors and students of the Vitebsk People's Art School. UNOVIS became the center of the world avant-garde and the starting point for the innovative art forms of the XX and the XXI centuries.
The project was initiated and organized by the Belarusian-Jewish Cultural Heritage Center in partnership with the Vitebsk People's Art School History Museum, with the support from A1 Company and the Lazar Khidekel Society (USA). The project events were also supported by state and international organizations, embassies, commercial companies, and private initiatives. #UNOVIS100 was taken under the patronage of the Belarus National Commission for UNESCO. The project became a crucial step in the understanding and asserting the phenomenon of UNOVIS as a national treasure.
UNOVIS
«We are striving to create projects that celebrate Belarus all over the world. Our cultural heritage as a national brand can be integrated into any area of activity. We wanted to show how much we are proud of our history, how amazing our cultural code is. The core idea of the project was to unfold the phenomenon of UNOVIS as the inspiration that may serve as a creative impulse for the contemporaries: the ideas of UNOVIS still remain the most progressive and innovative, whilst they were born in Vitebsk long before anything of that kind was created in the world».
Maya Katznelson, project curator, founder of the Belarusian-Jewish Cultural Heritage Center
At the core of the project's concept was the prophetic phrase of one of the union's creators, Lazar Khidekel, a student of Marc Chagall, El Lissitzky, and Kazimir Malevich, an artist and the world's first suprematic and ecological architect: "They will understands us in 100 years".
The project included a number of significant events and was implemented from autumn 2019 to autumn 2020.
«100 years of UNOVIS, an art group founded in Vitebsk by the students and tutors of the local art school, is one of the most outstanding events in the country's cultural life in 2020. In Belarus, this date will be celebrated by multiple dedicated events, but the largest one will be #UNOVIS100. Due to this initiative we are starting the anniversary year with the exhibition of Lazar Khidekel that will be the first ever in the history of our country, and we will witness a truly unique happening - greeting the families of the legendary founders of UNOVIS in their historical homeland».
Yuri Bondar, Minister of Culture of the Republic of Belarus
[ #UNOVIS100 ]
PROJECTS
As part of the #UNOVIS100 project
Where: Minsk
When: 12/10/2019
Where: Minsk
When: 12/10/2019
As part of the #UNOVIS100 project
Where: Vitebsk People's Art School History Museum,
National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus
When: 12/02/2020 – 14/02/2020
Where: Vitebsk People's Art School History Museum,
National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus
When: 12/02/2020 – 14/02/2020
As part of the #UNOVIS100 project
Where: National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus
When: 14/02/2020 – 15/04/2020
Where: National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus
When: 14/02/2020 – 15/04/2020
As part of the #UNOVIS100 project
As part of the #UNOVIS100 project
[ additionally ]
MERCH WITH ZEN WEAR
To support the project, Belarusian-Jewish Cultural Heritage Center collaborated with a Belarusian designer clothing brand Zen Wear to create and release a limited edition of hoodies and T-shirts #UNOVIS100 featuring artwork and quotes by the founders and members of UNOVIS - Malevich, Lissitzky and Khidekel.
«UNOVIS is a new brand of the country, which, along with Marc Chagall and Chaim Soutin, introduces Belarus into the global context».
CityDog.by
read
read
SPECIAL ISSUE
[ additionally ]
A special themed edition of the Belarusian-language "Art" magazine was fully dedicated to the history, activities, and influence of the UNOVIS association. The edition was prepared in partnership with A1 Company, the Belarusian-Jewish Cultural Heritage Center and the Vitebsk People's Art School History Museum.
«The overthrow of the old world of art be drawn on your palms!»
FILM SCREENING
Special screening of the UNOVIS film directed by Evgeni Setko, produced by Belarusfilm.
Story by TV-channel ТV3
Watch
Story by TV-channel ТV3
Watch
[ additionally ]
[ to read ]
INTERESTING
«My father was already saying 100 years ago that the confrontation of the civilization and the nature would become the key issue of our existence».
«When Chagall was asked: "Do you remember Khidekel?", he replied: "Of course, he was one of my favorite students. He would always protect me from that bandit Malevich».
«It was a real celebration: they'd read Mayakovsky's poetry in the houses' windows, while inside the building the "Victory over the Sun" was being performed».
[ thanks for the support ]
MASS MEDIA
«Lissitzky and his art was a love at first sight. It happened back in my childhood - when my grandmother told me about him. I would take the books and stare at the paintings for hours… Grandma would wonder what I was seeing and finding in all that. Maybe I was magnetized by that pervasive magic of Lissitzky. As I was growing up that inner response grew stronger: I was really loving that style. The minimalism, the geometry - in jewelry, in clothes, in interior designs».
«UNOVIS is a national treasure that integrates our culture into that of Europe and the world. Recognition and celebration of these names in their Homeland will promote UNOVIS to ring in the whole world on level with BAUHAUS. Exactly 100 year later, Belarus for the first time gets an opportunity to see live the unique artwork created in Vitebsk back in the 1920s».
«If until this day you have not heard anything about it, there's nothing to be ashamed of. 100 years ago also few would know about UNOVIS, and even fewer would understand. Practically up until the 1980s it was prohibited to talk aloud about the artists from this group, and some of them - those who were not repressed and survived the Siege of Leningrad - would hide their works for the rest of their lives».
«At the core of the UNOVIS ideology was the idea of collective art: along with absolutely individual searches and projects of each student, all their paths would join into one whole and be exhibited without any last names - just"UNOVIS"».
Belavia OnAir magazine
read
read
[ to watch ]
VIDEO
TV-channel Belarus 24
UNOVIS – 100! The centennial anniversary of the Vitebsk art revolution in the ARTiSHOCK project.
Watch
UNOVIS – 100! The centennial anniversary of the Vitebsk art revolution in the ARTiSHOCK project.
Watch
TV-channel Belarus 1
«Now it is once again important to draw attention to what was born in Belarus 100 years ago. And how it influenced the global context in the evolution of arts and architecture».
Watch
«Now it is once again important to draw attention to what was born in Belarus 100 years ago. And how it influenced the global context in the evolution of arts and architecture».
Watch
Special film by TV-channel Belarus 24
From New York to Belarus: the Khidekel family at the opening of the exhibition dedicated to 100 years of UNOVIS.
Watch
From New York to Belarus: the Khidekel family at the opening of the exhibition dedicated to 100 years of UNOVIS.
Watch
TV-channel Belarus 1
Large story about the UNOVIS 100th anniversary celebration, International conference and exhibition "They Will Understand Us in 100 Years. Lazar Khidekel"
Watch
Large story about the UNOVIS 100th anniversary celebration, International conference and exhibition "They Will Understand Us in 100 Years. Lazar Khidekel"
Watch
Belarusian-Jewish Cultural Heritage Center
Vitebsk People's Art School History Museum
А1 Belarus
Lazar Khidekel Society (USA)
Belarus National Commission for UNESCO
National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus
Belarusian Union of Architects
International Union of Architects
US Embassy in Belarus
The Netherlands Embassy in Belarus
Embassy of Poland in Belarus
Embassy of Latvia in Belarus
Goethe-Institute in Belarus
Administration of Culture of the Vitebsk Oblast Executive Committee
Culture Department of the Vitebsk City Executive Committee
Belarusian Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM)
Level 80 Architecture Firm
Architectural Thinking Children's School
Feeling Digital Company
Zalkind Home Hotel
Willing Hotel
Svet Goroda Advertising Agency
PR-agency IPR Belarus
Creative Football "Nothing Ordinary"
FC "Vitebsk"
Zen Wear designer clothes
Vitebsk People's Art School History Museum
А1 Belarus
Lazar Khidekel Society (USA)
Belarus National Commission for UNESCO
National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus
Belarusian Union of Architects
International Union of Architects
US Embassy in Belarus
The Netherlands Embassy in Belarus
Embassy of Poland in Belarus
Embassy of Latvia in Belarus
Goethe-Institute in Belarus
Administration of Culture of the Vitebsk Oblast Executive Committee
Culture Department of the Vitebsk City Executive Committee
Belarusian Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM)
Level 80 Architecture Firm
Architectural Thinking Children's School
Feeling Digital Company
Zalkind Home Hotel
Willing Hotel
Svet Goroda Advertising Agency
PR-agency IPR Belarus
Creative Football "Nothing Ordinary"
FC "Vitebsk"
Zen Wear designer clothes
PROJECT ORGANIZERS AND PARTNERS