The April Theses, 2017
On the 7th of April 1917th, the Pravda publishes « The April Theses » by Lenin, who after 10 years exiled, undertakes his return to his homeland. With the German authorities’ help, who were at war against Russia, the revolutionary Bolshevik’s Party leader crossed by train Germany, Sweden and Finland to Saint-Petersburg. He calls the people to overthrow the provisional government set up after the February Revolution and Nicolas II abdication. Lenin exposes his April Theses, a strategy that 6 months later, leads to the October Revolution and to the Bolshevik empowerment. Lenin takes the leads of a country that covers more than 15% of the whole world surface area with 160 million people.
100 years after these events that turned upside down Russian History and by extension, the World History, Davide Monteleone had the deep desire to trace this return from exile. In looking for the original April Theses, he retraces, creates again, and sometimes plays Lenin’s travel, from records of the RGASPI (National Russian archives about the political Soviet History), and from books as To the Finland Station by Elmund Wilson and as The Sealed Train by Micheal Pearson. In the guise of a landscape collection, of pictures from archive, and of self-portraits staged, Davide Monteleone, invites to a voyage through space and time
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