In 1917, the Bolsheviks overthrew Tsar Nicholas II, forcing his abdication. Shortly afterward, the Imperial family was taken hostage and murdered, and a nervous new freedom filled the streets. Civil war took hold, however, and in 1922 Russia became communist. In the push to build an egalitarian Soviet culture, cinema was a powerful form of propaganda. Buildings were papered with dynamic film posters, created by artists and meant to draw people into movie theaters. This golden age of Soviet graphic design, a time that saw Alexander Rodchenko, the Stenberg brothers, and Semyon Semyonov rising to prominence, is the subject of “The Utopian Avant-Garde.” —Elena Clavarino