Nikolai Suetin: Designing the Future
Exhibition dates: March 4 – April 30, 2015
Galerie Gmurzynska is pleased to present a series of drawings and unique furniture pieces by Russian avant-garde artist and designer Nikolai Suetin, a student and close associate of Kazimir Malevich, the founder of Suprematism.
The exhibition provides a rare opportunity to view the forward-thinking aesthetic Suetin developed, exemplifying the leading Russian avant-garde movements of his day, notably Suprematism and later Constructivism.
In 1927 Suetin participated together with fellow artists Ilya Chashnik and Boris Ender in a design competition in Leningrad for which he titled his 23 designs for chairs, beds, cupboards, sideboards, tables and desks “Dynamic Suprematism”.
In their entirety, these sleek modernist visualizations simultaneously represent Suetin’s skill and talent as a designer to translate his sculptural concerns into a progressive utilitarian art that fully retained its stylistic economy and elegance in the service of a new society envisioned in 1920s post-revolutionary Russia.
Over the next decade, Suetin would emerge as one of the most influential product designers of Soviet Russia, conceiving the interiors for the Soviet pavilions at the World Fair in Paris and New York in the late 1930s and heading the State porcelain manufacture in Leningrad.
Galerie Gmurzynska has rediscovered and recontextualized important positions of the Russian avant-garde since its founding in 1965, fully dedicated to the continuous research of this groundbreaking period in early twentieth century modern art and culture and in the high-end presentation of visionaries such as Suetin. The gallery is therefore especially delighted to present select furniture pieces that were produced by the artist’s daughters, realizing their father’s designs in great detail for a contemporary audience.
Suetin’s designs have been internationally exhibited, from the Guggenheim Museum New York to the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Exemplars of his work today are held at the Ludwig Collection, Cologne. His work can currently be seen in the critically acclaimed showcase “Adventures of the Black Square” on view at London’s Whitechapel Gallery through April 6, 2015.