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Is it Russian or not?

This exhibit shows examples of the influence of the Russian avant-garde on contemporary American popular culture. Around a century ago, in the early part of the twentieth century, there was a supernova of creativity and experimentation known as the Russian avant garde. These artists worked in all media, including prose, poetry, painting, sculpture, music, theater, and film. This burst of experimentation was short-lived, however, as the policy of socialist realism put an end to all this playfulness by 1934. Yet the influence of these artists, including Rodchenko, Malevich, Tatlin, El Lissitzky, Mayakovsky, Meyerhold, Shostakovich, and Eisenstein continues to the present day.