The National Gallery-Alexandros Soutsos Museum, in collaboration with MOMUS-Museum of Modern Art-Costakis Collection, presents the commemorative exhibition “The Avant – Garde World. City, Nature, Universe, Human” marking three decades since the first major public display of the Costakis Collection in Greece.

This exhibition proposes a renewed reading of the Costakis Collection through the lens of the relationship between humans and their environment – a theme that emerged as a crucial field of artistic, philosophical, and scientific inquiry in early 20th-century Russia. Unfolding across three thematic sections, the exhibition traces the transition from academic norms to experimental practices, and from established conventions to radical utopian visions, as artists engaged with and responded to the profound ideological, social, and aesthetic transformations of their time.

The tripartite structure – City, Nature, Universe – offers a conceptual mapping of human experience across the constructed (City), organic (Nature) and unexplored (Universe) realms. Each section highlights the distinct trajectories within the Russian avant-garde as it navigated the fertile intersections of artistic experimentation, technological innovation, and utopia.

The “City” section brings together works concerned with the reconfiguration of space, material culture, and everyday life through the articulation of pure form and the disciplined, functional use of materials. Rapid modernization redefined aesthetic values, while technological advances transformed daily life. Within the aesthetics of Constructivism, new approaches to architecture and design emerged, extending their influence from clothing to industrial design and redefining social roles and gender relations.

The “Nature” section focuses on works that engage with the perpetual movement, vital rhythms, and mutable conditions of the organic world enveloping human life. Artists associated with the Organic School sought to restore nature to the center of artistic practice, envisioning it alternately as a primordial, overpowering force and as an integral part of lived experience. Through sustained observation and experimentation, they explored how shifts in light, temperature, and atmosphere continuously transform perceptions of the natural world, incorporating organic movement and sound into their work.

The “Universe” section examines artistic responses to utopian imaginaries, cosmic exploration, and the desire to encounter “other territories.” Representations of celestial and cosmic objects combine speculative and scientific elements, giving rise to new cosmologies and philosophical frameworks. A philosophical drive to comprehend the unseen dimensions of existence – most notably the boundless expanse of the cosmos – found expression in movements such as Suprematism and Cosmism. Coexisting with scientific thought, these impulses produced dynamic, often explosive artistic forms.

The “Human” section serves as a connective thread linking City, Nature, and Universe. The human figure occupies a central position in the revolutionary and utopian visions of the Russian avant-garde. Artistic experimentation extended beyond testing the limits of human capability, seeking instead to expand these limits in order to improve everyday life and articulate new models for the future. The works on display foreground the relationship between art and consciousness, collectivity, science, and spiritual and philosophical inquiry, portraying humans as active agentsin shaping the world around them.

Lyubov Popova [Ivanovskoye (Russian Empire, now Russia) 1889 – Moscow (USSR, now Russia) 1924] Maquette for the cover of the magazine “Artists of Cinema”, No. 2, c. 1922–1923 Ink, gouache, and paper collage on paper, 23.4 × 15.8 cm MOMus – Museum of Modern Art – Costakis Collection Work no.: C58-308
Ivan Klyun Moscow (Russian Empire, now Russia) 1873 – Moscow (USSR, now Russia) 1943 Untitled (Interior Space), 1925 Oil on canvas, 69 × 51 cm MOMus – Museum of Modern Art – Costakis Collection Work no.: C538-96
Lyubov Popova Ivanovskoye (Russian Empire, now Russia) 1889 – Moscow (USSR, now Russia) 1924 Study for a Portrait (Frontal View), 1915 Oil on cardboard, 59.5 × 41.6 cm MOMus – Museum of Modern Art – Costakis Collection Work no.: 183.78-279R
Solomon Nikritin Chernihiv (Russian Empire, now Ukraine) 1898 – Moscow (USSR, now Russia) 1965 Red Figure, 1927 Gouache on paper, 44.9 × 31.5 cm MOMus – Museum of Modern Art – Costakis Collection Work no.: C147-1195
Ivan Klyun Moscow (Russian Empire, now Russia) 1873 – Moscow (USSR, now Russia) 1943 Untitled, 1918 Pencil, watercolour, and gouache on paper, 23.3 × 19 cm MOMus – Museum of Modern Art – Costakis Collection Work no.: 805.79 recto - 451
Lyubov Popova Ivanovskoye (Russian Empire, now Russia) 1889 – Moscow (USSR, now Russia) 1924 Spatial-Force Construction, 1921 Oil on plywood, 71.1 × 64.3 cm MOMus – Museum of Modern Art – Costakis Collection Work no.: 179.78-86
El Lissitzky Smolensk region (Russian Empire, now Russia) 1890 – Moscow (USSR, now Russia) 1941 Study for the Monument to Rosa Luxemburg, 1919–1920 Ink, pencil, and gouache on paper, 10 × 10.1 cm MOMus – Museum of Modern Art – Costakis Collection Work no.: 440.80
Mikhail Matyushin Nizhny Novgorod (Russian Empire, now Russia) 1861 – Leningrad (USSR, now Russia) 1934 Musico-Pictorial Construction, 1918 Oil on cardboard, 51 × 63 cm MOMus – Museum of Modern Art – Costakis Collection Work no.: 155.78-93

About the “Russian Avant-Garde”

Artists working in the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union during the early 20th century and throughout the 1920s did not use the term “Russian avant-garde” to describe their experimental approaches and innovations. Originally a military term denoting the advance guard, “avant-garde” entered artistic discourse in early 19th-century France, a usage commonly attributed to Henri de Saint-Simon. Although Russian art critic Alexander Benois had used the term – though ironically – as early as 1910, it gained broader currency in the 1960s, when Western art historians sought a unifying label for the diverse groundbreaking movements, groups, and individual artists who shared the broader revolutionary ethos of the time and radically transformed the established notions of aesthetics, artistic form, and the relationship between art and life.

The term “Russian avant-garde” is a geographical rather than a national designation. It reflects the fact that artists working primarily in Moscow and St. Petersburg / Petrograd / Leningrad – hailing mostly from Russia, the Baltics, Ukraine, and the Caucasus – had found there a fertile and receptive environment for imaginative and inspired dialogue on art. This movement was abruptly curtailed in the early 1930s with the imposition of Socialist Realism and the persecution of artists. During the late 1910s and the 1920s, avant-garde ideas also took root in other Soviet cities, including Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkiv, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Baku, and Tashkent. Today, it is therefore possible to speak more precisely of regional avant-gardes where the movement thrived – Ukrainian, Georgian, or Central Asian – while recognizing that the avant-garde project of the first three decades of the 20th century was fundamentally multinational in character across the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.

The collector George Costakis

George Costakis was born in Moscow in 1913 to Greek parents; his father, a merchant from the island of Zakynthos, had settled in the Russian capital with his family. Costakis spent most of his life in Moscow, working as a driver at the Greek Embassy until 1940. After the embassy closed due to the war, he continued his employment at the Canadian Embassy. As part of his professional duties, he accompanied foreign diplomats on visits to antique shops and art dealers. Without formal artistic training or prior engagement with modern art, but guided by a rare instinct, Costakis was struck in 1946 by his encounter with a painting by Olga Rozanova. From that moment, he developed a deep interest in early 20th-century Russian experimental art. He formed close relationships with artists’ families and circles, as well as with living artists, and over the course of more than three decades systematically assembled what would become his celebrated Russian avant-garde collection. In doing so, Costakis rescued a vital chapter of 20th-century European art from destruction and oblivion, often under extremely difficult circumstances, given the Stalinist regime’s ban on avant-garde art and the imposition of Socialist Realism. He firmly believed that the disregard for this art was a tragic error, insisting that “people would need it and appreciate it one day.”

During the 1960s and 1970s, Costakis’s Moscow apartment became closely associated with banned avant-garde art, effectively functioning as an unofficial Museum of Modern Art. In 1977, he left Moscow with his collection, donating 834 works to the Tretyakov Gallery. Following its first presentation at the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf in 1977, and especially after the landmark exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1981, the collection toured major museums across Europe, the United States, and Canada. George Costakis died in Athens in 1990. In December 1995, the first exhibition of the Costakis Collection in Greece was presented at the National Gallery – Alexandros Soutsos Museum, curated by Anna Kafetsi. This seminal event proved a catalyst for the development of museum institutions in the country.

The Costakis Collection and Archive at MOMUS

The acquisition of 1,277 works from the Costakis Collection – the most important collection of Russian avant-garde art outside Russia – was completed by the Greek state in March 2000 and assigned by decision of the Ministry of Culture to the newly founded State Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki. In November 2018, the institution evolved into the Metropolitan Organisation of Museums of Visual Arts of Thessaloniki (MOMUS). Following the acquisition, the Costakis family donated the collector’s archive to the museum, comprising more than 2,000 valuable items – including manuscripts, publications, photographs, posters, artists’ notebooks, and drawings. The Costakis Collection and Archive, renowned for their scope, mobility and historical value, contribute decisively to the understanding of this pivotal chapter in the history of modernism.

Artists Featured in the Exhibition:

Babichev Aleksei, Bobrov Vassilii, Bubnova Varvara, Chashnik Ilya, Chekrygin Vassilii, Drevin Aleksandr, Ender Boris, Ender Ksenia, Ender Maria, Ender Yuri, Filonov Pavel, Grinberg Nikolai, Guro Yelena, Ioganson Karel, Kandinsky Wassily, Klucis Gustav, Kliun Ivan, Kruchenykh Aleksei, Kudriashev Ivan, Ladovsky Nikolai, Lissitzky El, Malevich Kazimir, Mayakovsky Vladimir, Matyushin Mikhail, Miller Grigori, Miturich Petr, Morgunov Aleksei, Nikritin Solomon, Puni Ivan, Plaksin Mikhail, Popova Liubov, Redko Kliment, Rodchenko Aleksandr, Rozanova Olga, Semashkevich Roman, Sofronova Antonina, Stepanova Varvara, Suetin Nikolai, Sulimo–Samuilo Vsevolod, Tatlin Vladimir, Udaltsova Nadezhda, Vialov Konstantin, Volkov Aleksandr.

Director: Syrago Tsiara, National Gallery-Alexandros Soutsos Museum

Exhibition Curators: Syrago Tsiara, Director, National Gallery-Alexandros Soutsos Museum, Maria Tsantsanoglou, Artistic director of MOMUS

Architectural Design: Nadja Korbut – Kiril Ass

Exhibition Production: Eirini–Dafni Sapka (National Gallery-Alexandros Soutsos Museum), Angeliki Charistou (MOMUS)

Visual Identity: DpS Athens: Dimitris Papazoglou, Aristomenis Tzanos

The apartment of George Costakis on Vernadsky Avenue, Moscow, mid-1970s.
View of the exhibition THE WORLD OF THE AVANT-GARDE. CITY, NATURE, UNIVERSE, HUMAN | Works from the Costakis Collection of MOMus – Museum of Modern Art – Costakis Collection.
View of the exhibition THE WORLD OF THE AVANT-GARDE. CITY, NATURE, UNIVERSE, HUMAN | Works from the Costakis Collection of MOMus – Museum of Modern Art – Costakis Collection.

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