Stefan Söll - Atlantic Sirens - 2018
N. 83649121
Varvara Stepanova / Varvara Rodchenko - Foreign Visitors at the USSR Agricultural Exhibition - 1957
N. 83649121
Varvara Stepanova / Varvara Rodchenko - Foreign Visitors at the USSR Agricultural Exhibition - 1957
The subject of this fascinating propaganda photobook is foreigners and fellow travelers making a pilgrimage to the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (VDNkh) in order to bask in the supposed success of Soviet collectivised agriculture. A frequent subject of avant-garde Stalinist photobooks of the 1930s, the VDNkh was supposed to demonstrate the superiority of Soviet agricultural policies. In part, this book was designed to cover-up the brutality and incompentence of collectivised agriculture and the horrific Ukrainian famine of 1930-33 was never mentioned.
This book is a collection of images and (often unintentionally ridiculous!) comments from foreign visitors that all testify to the superiority of the Soviet system and the supposed genius of Khrushchev who was creating utopia.
Varvara Fyodorovna Stepanova (В. Ф. Степанова) was a Russian artist. With her husband Alexander Rodchenko, she was associated with the Constructivist branch of the Russian avant-garde, which rejected aesthetic values in favour of revolutionary ones. She was an influential figure in Soviet photobook design during the 1930s, and was responsible for the books produced for the 1939 World's Fair amongst others. The other designer who made this book is Varvara Rodchenko (В. А. Родченко), their daughter, who was the subject of a number of her father Alexander Rodchenko's images made during the 1930s. This book was one of the last designed by Stepanova who died in 1958, soon after its publication.
This very rare book by a leading figure in 20th Century art is included in the collection on the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Condition:
Very good first edition copy. Very rare dust jacket present with small tears and damage to edges. Small bumps to top and bottom of spine. "Printed in USSR" stamp on front page showing it was originally sold in the USA because sellers had to legally add this to communist bloc publications during the Cold War. Binding slightly splitting on one page but still firmly attached. Please examine listing photographs carefully.
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