Natalia Murray

The Courtauld Institute of Art, Modern and Contemporary, Adjunct

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Before being awarded PhD at the Courtauld Institute of Art, Natalia read History of Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg and completed the PhD course at the Hermitage Museum.
In 2012 she wrote a book The Unsung Hero of the Russian Avant-Garde. The Life and Times of Nikolay Punin (Leiden-Boston: Brill Academic, 2012).
At present she is teaching courses in 19-20 century Russian art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, working as head of education and public programmes at GRAD (Gallery for Russian Art and Design) and curating exhibitions of Russian art in England. She has recently curated a major exhibition ‘Revolution. Russian Art. 1917-1932’ which took place at the Royal Academy of Arts in February - April 2017 and she is currently editing her next book on post-revolutionary festivals in Petrograd.
Address: United Kingdom

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biography5.doc

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No Future for the Futurists? Art of the Commune and the Quest for a New Art in Post-Revolutionary Russia

This article will examine the place of Futurists artists in Bolshevik Russia in the first years a... more This article will examine the place of Futurists artists in Bolshevik Russia in the first years after the October 1917 Revolution, using the Futurist newspaper Art of the Commune as a case study. It will also raise the question of how effective could Futurism be in the political education of the illiterate people. The author will focus on 1918-1919the first two years after the October Revolution when both Proletkult and Narkompros gained a national following and became major players in cultural debates. Following 1922, as a result of funding cutbacks at the end of the Civil War and changed status of both organisations in Soviet society, they rapidly declined to a small and restricted core of members, and soon lost their influential position in the new State of Workers and Peasants. In this article the author concentrates on the formation and blossoming of Proletarian Culture in Russia (the term 'proletariat', which in Russia represented the class of wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, were reduced to selling their labour power in order to live). The establishment of the new values of the new society became the main aim of art after the revolution and Art of the Commune was a major player in it.

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Street Theatre as Propaganda: Mass Performances and Spectacles in Petrograd in 1920

The spectacles and mass performances of 1919-1920 constituted the new mythology of the Bolshevik ... more The spectacles and mass performances of 1919-1920 constituted the new mythology of the Bolshevik Revolution. Instead of presenting a vision of the future, they provided trusting viewers and participants with an improved version of the Bolshevik past and present - they carried them into Utopia, and showed them the mythical path to it. At the time of economic shortages and starvation they gave people hope and faith in a bright, Bolshevik, future.

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Art of the Commune

This essay draws on research conducted in the course of writing the first biography of Nikolay Pu... more This essay draws on research conducted in the course of writing the first biography of Nikolay Punin , a central figure in the turbulent but exciting post-revolutionary art scene in Russia. After the October Revolution of 1917, Nikolay Punin emerged as the most prominent art-critic and promoter of Russia's unique avant-garde art. He was also the Commissar of the Hermitage and the Russian Museums, sponsoring and promoting many of the artists who, like him, would eventually find themselves in conflict with the State's new definition of the rôle and style of art. In 1918-19, Punin was editing a new weekly newspaper, Iskusstvo Kommuny (Art of the Commune), which became the voice of the left artists. It was a weekly journal aimed at reducing the gap between the Futurists and the average Soviet citizen. This essay examines the rôle of Art of the Commune in the creation of new artistic values in post-revolutionary Russia, as well as Punin's influence on the establishment of the new proletarian art. I also examine the fate of Futurism in Bolshevik Russia in the first years after the October 1917 Revolution, using the newspaper Iskusstvo kommuny as a case study. It raises the question of how effective Futurist artists could be in the political education of a largely illiterate people. The main focus will be on the years 1918-19, the first two years after the October Revolution, when both Proletkult and Narkompros (The People's Commissariat of Enlightenment) gained a national following and became major players in cultural debates. Following 1922, as a result of funding cutbacks and a cultural re-organization of Soviet society, the Futurists rapidly declined and soon lost their influential position in the new State of Workers and Peasants.

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Baltic Worlds article

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biography5.doc

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No Future for the Futurists? Art of the Commune and the Quest for a New Art in Post-Revolutionary Russia

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Street Theatre as Propaganda: Mass Performances and Spectacles in Petrograd in 1920

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Art of the Commune

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Baltic Worlds article

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Natalia Murray

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