Exhibition “Ivan Kliun. Transcendental landscapes. Flying sculptures. Light spheres.”

July 2 – September 19, 2021 | 2nd EXTENTION until 29 April 2022

MOMus-Museum of Modern Art-Costakis Collection

(Thessaloniki, Greece)

View the virtual tour (work in progress)

MOMus-Museum of Modern Art-Costakis Collection in Thessaloniki, Greece launches the first international exhibition of works by Russian avant-garde artist Ivan Kliun (Ivan Vasilievich Kliun, born Kliunkov, Bolshie Gorki, 1873 - Moscow, 1943), under the title “Ivan Kliun. Transcendental landscapes. Flying sculptures. Light spheres.”, from July 2 until September 19, 2021 (2nd extention until 29 April 2022).

The exhibition, which is based on works and archival material from MOMus-Museum of Modern Art-Costakis collection, captures the artistic life of this important painter, sculptor, writer and teacher who passed through the whole spectrum of movements and techniques from neo-Impressionism and Symbolism to Cubofuturism and non-objective art. Ivan Kliun was also involved in creating non-objective constructions as early as 1914. He was a member of Supremus artistic group run by Kazimir Malevich but gave his own version of Suprematism. In the early 1920s he thoroughly studied the elements of form, light and color and created his own method by proposing non-objective works that present spherical forms, following his personal concept and theory about light and motion in space. His short-term teaching career at the VKhUTEMAS studios was followed by a long personal scientific research in the field of art experimentations. In 1934, when Socialist Realism was consolidated as the only official artistic directive, Kliun announced his return to realistic painting, but it would be very difficult for him to adapt and had very few artistic assignments, until he was deleted from the All-Russian Cooperative Union of Artists.