METEOR TRAIL. Art of the Peoples of the North 1920-1930

For the first time the exhibition fully presents the unique phenomenon of art that is the creative oeuvre of students of the Institute of People of the Russian North. It was founded in Leningrad in 1930 on the base of the North Institute of Leningrad State University. The exposition includes painting, sculpture, graphic and applied art works and photographs of the 1920-1930s as well as the articles of Far North folk art from the collections of the State Russian Museum, Russian State Museum of Arctic and Antarctic and Russian Ethnographic Museum.

The art works by the representatives of the small native nations of the Far North, Siberia and the Far East are the outstanding manifestation of the phenomenon of culture, based on the system of art mentality different from the European ones. The aesthetics of the works by the artists from the North appeals to the many-aged traditions of their national culture, but these works are also in keeping with the philosophy of art of K. Petrov-Vodkin, M. Matushin, P. Filonov and the other masters of the Leningrad Avant-Garde of the 1920 - beginning of the 1930s. Nowadays interrelationship of archaic, traditional and contemporary treatments in art of students of the Institute of People of the Russian North attracts an intent attention of specialists that is the evidence of the actuality and significance of this phenomenon. 

The exhibition is organized with the support of OJSC Severstal.