“The Cooper Union has always been a forum for courageous public discourse, a place where new ideas as well as opposing viewpoints are expressed and explored to advance a just and thriving world. Since the 19th century, the institution has served as a center of learning and civic engagement to address the critical challenges and opportunities of the day,” said Cooper Union president Laura Sparks in a statement announcing the new opening date. “There is value in examining the teachings of Vkhutemas, and it is critical that we expanded the study to probe and learn from the broader geopolitical circumstances surrounding the formation, operation, and closure of the school to those that confront us today.”

Co-curated by Steven Hillyer, director of the Irvin S. Chanin School of Architecture Archive, the group show, described as a “peer review of sorts,” presents models, diagrams, drawings, and animations that “analyze and reconstruct” the work of Vkhutemas students and faculty, many of whom were persecuted by the Stalin regime following the dissolution of the school. A total of 27 Cooper Union undergraduate and graduate students participated in the exhibition, which was borne from two research seminars and a studio workshop led Bokov with the aim to “highlight the significance of this revolutionary, yet little-known pedagogy,” as the announcement detailed. First established in 1920, Vkhutemas is often likened as the Soviet counterpart to the similarly revolutionary Bauhaus school, which operated during roughly the same time period in three different German cities.

The work on view within Vkhutemas: Laboratory of Modernism will be organized around five central themes: Instruments, Constructions, Objects, Exercises, and Projects, the last of which will present ten diploma works by Vkhutemas students reconstructed by Cooper Union students. 

Complementing the exhibition, Cooper Union will also hold a panel discussion entitled War/Art Balance: Deimperializing the Soviet Avant-Garde at the Time of Russia’s War on Ukraine, Its Culture, and People on the evening of Thursday, April 27. Hosted by the college with partners Shevchenko Scientific Society and The Ukrainian Museum, the public program is described as bringing together a “range of voices to speak on the complexities surrounding the histories of the Ukrainian, Russian, and Soviet avant-garde movements.” Registration information can be found here.