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Written by Kenn Sava. Video by Lana Hattan.

2018 marks the 100th Anniversary of the founding of one of the most important Art Schools in Modern Art, in one of the most remarkable small buildings in modern Art History- the People’s Art School, 10 Bukharin Street in Vitebsk, Belarus. In September, 1918, Marc Chagall was appointed Commissar of Arts for the Vitebsk Region by the new Communist government of the USSR. He then brought Kazamir Malevich, El Lissitzky, Yehuda Pen and others, in to be teachers in the school. Malevich, who had developed Suprematism around 1915, founded UNOVIS, or Followers of the New Art, in the building on February 14, 1920, to spread Suprematism throughout society and the world, which it proceeded to do well into the 1920s. Today, Suprematism’s influence is global and can be seen in the work of William Kentridge, Nasreen Mohamedi and the late Zaha Hadid, among others.

Somehow, the School building survived the biggest battle in history when the Nazis invaded Belarus in World War II, though virtually the entire city of Vitebsk around it was destroyed. Now, it has been beautifully restored and rededicated as the Museum Dedicated to the People’s Art School. 

To honor this, International Art Researcher Lana Hattan spent the summer in Vitebsk producing an introductory video tour of the beautiful building and some of the special exhibitions going on under its director Andrey Duhovnikov. Nastya Kunashko worked with Ms. Hattan on the video, and I was brought in to create the English captions. 

100 years later, Suprematism remains a highly influential movement, and the 100th Anniversary of the School has been marked by exhibitions all around the world including one at MoMA I wrote about earlier this year (which included a number of historic and contemporary Photos), a show at the Royal Academy of Art, London, another at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. Currently, there is an exhibition honoring all that went on 100 years ago in Vitebsk by Chagall, Malevich and the others is at the Jewish Museum, NYC. 

A most remarkable story from one remarkable small building.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is Vitebsk by Aaron Copland.

My thanks to Lana Hattan.

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