Rudolf Klix and the Exhibition Design of the USSR at International Exhibitions

The activities of Rudolf Klix, a Soviet artist-designer of the USSR expositions at international exhibitions, were multifaceted and meaningful, but have so far remained outside the attention of researchers. This paper is the first attempt to determine Klix's creative method and contribution to the development of Soviet exposition design. Among the objectives of the study, which are directly related to the methodology, we can mention the formal and stylistic analysis of the spatial environment of Soviet expositions, the identification of the main aspects of R. Klix's exhibition directing (using elements of social history of art), as well as the identification of the peculiarities of the use of exhibits and their environment as a tool of political propaganda on the basis of cultural and historical analysis. As sources for the present study, we used previously unpublished archival documents from the Russian State Archive of Art and the State Archive of the Russian Federation - Klix's personal files, autobiographies, documents on the USSR's participation in international exhibitions, as well as Klix's monographs on exhibit design and articles about him in a number of Soviet journals. The main results of the work were the reconstruction of Rudolf Klix's creative biography on the basis of archival documents and their comparison with monographs and articles in periodicals, identification of key features of Klix's approach to the design of exhibition spaces, including theatricality, building visual balance, departure from a clear structured space, freedom from control over the movement of the viewer, active use of the latest audiovisual technologies of display. Based on a comparative analysis of exhibition spaces designed under the direction of Klix, as well as his main competitor - project artist Konstantin Rozhdestvensky, the paper also presents general trends in the design of the Soviet modernist era.