Culver City,
California
x
Maker: Kavrigina, V.
La Dance
Date Made: 1990
Country: Soviet Union
Measurements: 60 cm x 90 cm; 23 5/8 in x 35 7/16 in
This poster design reflects and distorts the famous work by Henri Matisse, “La Danse,” of which there are two versions: the first, lighter-colored study, and the second, more vibrantly-colored painting of the same female figures, joined by the hand in a circular dance. Here, the dancers are clearly male, shown by the sketched male genitalia, and their dance appears painful and forced, with the figures connected by grabbing each other’s hair violently rather than each other’s hands. These figures dance on a white background, rather than the blue-green background of the original work, and their mouths are open in a silent yell as opposed to Matisse’s close-mouthed figures. The second “La Danse” by Matisse was painted in 1910 specifically for Russian art collector Sergey Shchukin, and it hung in his Moscow mansion until the October Revolution of 1917. The date, 1990, painted across the bottom of the painting, connects Matisse’s original 1910 depiction of a folk-themed, pagan bachanalia celebration with the chaos and uncertainty of cultural life in Russia in the wake of the recent deterioration of the Soviet Union in 1990.
Accession Number: 2009.053.091
Item Name: Painting
Credit Line: The Ferris Russian Collection, Donated by Tom and Jeri Ferris
Collection/Series: The Ferris Russian Collection, Donated by Tom and Jeri Ferris