Sundays, 17 March, 14 April and 12 May. Registration via sg-lectures@maastrichtuniversity.nl. Registration is necessary. Those who follow a whole series get a certificate.
In the early years of the 20th century, on the eve of World War I, Europe was in a state of general turmoil. Growing international tensions, economic stagnation and internal political unrest fostered the call for radical change. At the same time scientific and technological discoveries brought forth high expectations and futuristic visions of the new century.
In this agitated atmosphere the artistic avant-garde nurtured the collective imagination with exciting experiments. In a short period of time a series of new currents led to the breakthrough of radically new ways of seeing as presented in the works of cubists and futurists.

Of all the European countries Russia provided the most colorful scenery. Here we find the sharpest contrasts between tradition and renewal, here the call for change was the most urgent and it was here that the dialogue of art and politics was the most fruitful.

The Big Change is a series of three lectures in which Ko van Dun sketches a comprehensive and lively image of Russian art prior to the October Revolution of 1917 in the broader scope of the European culture of La Belle Epoque.

The lectures accompany the big exhibition with the same title in the Bonnefanten Museum.

The separate lectures:

1. On the Threshold of a New Era (17 Mar.)
- Utopia and reality
- The Black Square I
- October 1917
- Europe in turmoil
- Art and Politics on the Eve of the Revolution
- Mhyts and Traditions of an old World
- Russian Art 1870-1900

2. Paris – Moscow (14 Apr.)
- Writers, Painters and Composers
- East and West: on Tradition, Progress and Decadence
- French Art 1870-1910: Impressionism to Cubism
- Paris – Moscow
- Les Ballets Russes
- The first Russian Modernists

3. Art and Revolution (12 May)
- Futurism and Cubism in Russia
- Tatlin in Paris
- Gonchorova, Larionov and Rayonism
- Kazimir, Malevich untill 1915
- The Balck Square II
- The international Avant-garde of Wartime Europe
- Art and Revolution
- Suprematism and Constuctivism
- Malevich after 1915
- The Black Square III

Lecture Series within the context of the Russia programme.