Exhibit explores Russian revolutionary art

The Soviet Union is gone, but the imagery it inspired lives on.

The visual vocabulary of red stars, scarlet banners, Cyrillic exclamations and cut-and-paste imagery is still very much with us. In a historic irony, it now forms part of the capitalist advertising toolkit, used to sell everything from vodka and fast food to rock music.

Matthew Gale, co-curator of an exhibition of Soviet revolutionary art that opened Wednesday at London’s Tate Modern gallery, says it’s evidence that ideals pass on with the people who hold them, but “imagery is surprisingly tenacious.’’

Tate Modern is marking the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, which erupted a century ago this week, with an exhibition of posters, paintings, photos and publications created to inspire Russians with revolutionary fervour.

The show begins with a blast of excitement, in rooms lined with works by artists including El Lissitzky, Aleksandr Rodchenko, his wife Varvara Stepanova and another married couple, Gustav Klutsis and Valentina Kulagina.

Inspired by the revolutionary upheaval, they used avantgarde techniques including brightly coloured geometric shapes, striking typefaces and photo montages to create instantly memorable images for advertisements, information campaigns and mass rallies.