Exhibition "Love in the vanguard: Mikhail Matyushin and Elena Guro" opened in Moscow

The Zotov Center opens the exhibition "Love in the Avant-Garde." Mikhail Matyushin and Elena Guro. It is dedicated to an amazing creative and family union. He is an artist and composer, she is an artist and poet. The exposition, which represents all facets of their talent, was visited by Julia Kundryukova. Not many people know this couple today. But they were the origins of the avant-garde. And the main driving force of their creativity has always been love. Mikhail Matyushin and Elena Guro worked in the field of painting, literature, music and sculpture, moving from realism to non-objectivity. “There are many works that have not been exhibited before. Moreover, there has never been an exhibition about Matyushin and Guro in Moscow. Outside St. Petersburg, this topic did not go. And therefore there are a lot of micro-premiers here, says Daria Filippova, director of the Zotov Center. They met in a drawing studio. Matyushin has long been a violinist in the Court Orchestra, and Guro was just beginning her career. They painted portraits of each other in different styles. Sometimes they even divided one canvas into two: on one side a portrait painted by Guro, and on the reverse – a painting by Matyushin – a painting “Vyuga”, which is similar to the artist’s later works, although it was painted at the very beginning of their relationship. Matyushin continued to study music in parallel with painting. This unusual violin was made by Mikhail Matyushin. He wanted to come up with a simple and accessible tool for his students from the People’s Conservatory in Petrograd. Not everyone had the opportunity to buy a good violin. And for this exhibition, it was specially restored and even tried to play on it. Such violins were never produced, but the very form of this author's copy looks like a sculpture. Moreover, they also mastered this art form and became the founders of the organic branch of the Russian avant-garde. “Helena Gouraud had a special attitude towards nature. She perceived nature not as a forest, a river, but as a kind of metaphysical essence. They wanted to see in nature what we cannot see in reality. Like sap in a tree, like its roots grow. Matyushin said that depicting a tree, you need to try to convey this feature – its movement, dynamics, explains the curator of the exhibition Sergey Uvarov. They co-authored the book Autumn Sleep. It's based on Gouro's play. Matyushin wrote music, together they came up with illustrations. Elena Gouraud fantasized that the main character of this book is her non-existent son, and lovingly painted his portraits. "Autumn Dream" is Guro's last work. She soon died of leukemia. “We have given much to each other, to the world. We will create and give, Mikhail Matyushin wrote in his diary. So it turned out: he continued their common cause and eventually came to non-objective art. The iconic canvas is "Movement in Space." Matyushin depicted a stream of light that bursts into the metaphysical fourth dimension.

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