Tango with Cows

The Getty Center has an exhibition called Tango with Cows, named after a book and poem by Vasily Kamensky:

The absurd image of farm animals dancing the tango evokes the clash in Russia between a primarily rural culture and a growing urban life. During the years spanning the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, Russia was in spiritual, social, and cultural crisis. The moral devastation of the failed 1905 revolution, the famines of 1911, the rapid influx of new technologies, and the outbreak of World War I led to disillusionment with modernity and a presentiment of apocalypse.

This exhibition explores the way Russian avant-garde poets and artists responded to this crisis through their book art.

You can page through the books online, listen to the poem in Russian and English, and download a 6MB PDF of the book.

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