BU-MM! The True Story of Ksana Boguslavskaya and Ivan Puni

Ivan Puni, a comrade of Kazimir Malevich, who organized two programmatic exhibitions of left art "Tram V" and "0,10" together with him, made a bright statement in the mid-1910s. After the revolution, he actively collaborated with the Bolsheviks, taught at the State Free Art Workshops in Petrograd, and worked in Vitebsk with Marc Chagall. In the early 1920s, he made a lot of noise in Berlin with his exhibition at the "Sturm" gallery, and in 1923 he moved to France, where he gradually blended into the ranks of the artists of the Paris School. The fame of the avant-garde hero was cemented after his death by the efforts of his widow, Kseniya Boguslavskaya. Her role as the personal manager of the artist, an irreplaceable participant in their successful tandem, became a particular focus of the book's authors. It is no coincidence that Mikhail Matyushin wryly remarked: "Kseniya Boguslavskaya, not lacking in intelligence and talent, saw in art primarily the external, as she herself said: 'We need to make a bu-mm'. That is, to make a splash completely." The strategy worked: Ksana (as her friends called her) was able not only to immortalize her husband's memory, literally recreating his creative achievements of his early years, but also contributed to the creation of a mythologized history of Russian art of the "combat" decade.

The authors found numerous previously unpublished materials in the archives of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. New data sheds light on the actions of the book's heroes and debunks a number of myths propagated by Boguslavskaya, who considered the glorification of the talent of her adored husband to be the main task of her life.

Olga Muromtseva - historian and art critic, candidate of historical sciences. Lecturer at the S. G. Stroganov Moscow State University of Arts and Industry (since 2015). Author of over 40 scientific articles, compiler of scientific catalogs for several exhibitions of art from the first half of the 20th century. Director of the cultural and charitable foundation "U-Art: You and Art" (since 2016), organizer and ideological inspirer of the music festivals VIVARTE and VIVACELLO, as well as publisher of exhibition and grant programs of the foundation.

Alexey Rodionov - art historian, collector. Specialist in the works of Robert Genin, Ivan Puni, Vladimir Yashke, and administrator of websites dedicated to them. By first education, a shipbuilding engineer, candidate of technical sciences.