Avant-Garde Posters Reveal Lesser-Known Side of Soviet Art

Over the next few weeks, Russian art is bound to make a splash, as Sotheby’s in London and Christie’s in New York mount million-dollar auctions of Russian material against a trendy glasnost backdrop. Meanwhile, with scholarly dignity, the Turner/Dailey Gallery continues its show of rare Soviet avant-garde posters here in Los Angeles. “The Russian Avant-Garde: 1920-1935” is an eye-opener for anyone who reflexively associates modern Soviet art with grimly purposeful Socialist Realism.

Here are vibrantly colored posters for movie thrillers (complete with revolvers and swooning women), innovative all-typographic theater posters and somewhat more sinister advertisements for a proposed autonomous Jewish state near the Sino-Soviet border. “What makes this material so exciting is that it was born out of the total collapse of one system and the birth of another,” said Steve Turner, co-owner of the 2-year-old gallery, which specializes in fine and applied arts from 1900 to 1940.

Lending a heady whiff of the forbidden to the show is that many of the posters, books, and broadsides were suppressed in the Soviet Union until recently. And adding an extra wallop to their visual impact is the fact that most American viewers aren’t able to read them as text. “People come in always expecting to understand,” Turner said. “But here they can’t--so here the posters become very strong abstractions. If the material were from France, people want to try out their French--and end up not looking at the image.”

“ The Russian Avant-Garde: 1920-1935 “ through April 21 at the Turner/Dailey Gallery, 7220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles. (213) 931-1185. Open Tuesday through Friday , 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. , and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

MURAL OVERVIEW: How often does one have a chance to view two dozen of the facade-sized outdoor artworks that make Los Angeles “the mural capital of the world” all in one room--make that all in one cell block, no less? In a show that runs through April 8, the Social and Public Art Resource Center in Venice has lined the walls of its distinctive converted-jailhouse quarters with renderings and photographs of new mural designs funded in 1989 and 1990, primarily by the Los Angeles Endowment of the Arts.

Last year, the center received $250,000 from the city to realize nine murals through its Great Walls Unlimited program, which pairs professional artists with neighborhood youths citywide; this year, the grant was increased to more than $400,000, with 15 murals getting under way in locations as disparate as Venice, Boyle Heights and Canoga Park.

Needless to say, seeing these works as modestly sized paintings or renderings is not the same as coming upon them larger-than-life, looming across a vacant lot or brightening the crook of a freeway underpass. But there’s something to be said for this intimate scale: It allows the cross-cultural themes that are a major point of the project to ricochet through the room with a telling resonance.