Rodchenko & Popova. Defining Constructivism
The Russian Revolution was accompanied by a remarkable period of artistic experiment known as Constructivism, which questioned the fundamental properties of art and asked what its place should be in a new society. The Constructivists challenged the idea of the work of art as a unique commodity, explored more collective ways of working, and looked at how they could contribute to everyday life through design, architecture, industrial production, theatre and film.
Liubov Popova (1889-1924) and Aleksandr Rodchenko (1891-1956) were pivotal figures in the debates and discussions that defined Constructivism. Rodchenko, whose wife Varvara Stepanova was a major artist in her own right, energetically embraced almost all of its manifestations, from advertising to photography and film. Popova's achievements in painting, theatre, and graphic and textile design took place in spite of ill health and tragedy: her husband died of typhoid in 1919, and she spent a year recuperating from the illness herself. In 1924 she and her son both died of scarlet fever.
The Constructivists compared the artist to an engineer, arranging materials scientifically and objectively, and producing art works as rationally as any other manufactured object. This was, in theory, an art that transcended gender differences. The equality of the sexes was an important Communist principle, and this was one of the first periods in history when female artists were valued as highly as their male counterparts.
Paintings 1917-18
The Bolshevik Revolution aimed to transform an entire civilisation, and artists were among the first to show their support. There was already a distinct strain of utopianism in the Russian avant-garde – a determination to reinvent art, as if from zero. Kasimir Malevich's abstract paintings freed art from what he called 'the dead weight of the real world'. Equally radical were Vladimir Tatlin's Counter-Reliefs, made by assembling real materials, such as wood, glass and metal into three-dimensional constructions.
Following these examples, the Constructivists rejected all ideas of illusory representation. Rodchenko focused on faktura, the physical qualities of the painting: the use of different paints and different textures, and how these related to other elements such as the painting surface, or the choice of colour. His experiments led to the 'Black on Black' series, in which the elimination of colour focused attention on the texture of the painting's surface, and its interaction with light. In these works, Stepanova wrote, 'nothing but painting exists'.
Popova's Painterly Architectonics respond to some of Malevich's ideas, but push them further. Geometric shapes jostle together, overlapping,intersecting, their edges pressing beyond the frame. A dynamic sense of instability and movement is matched by her use of strong colour. As the title suggests, Popova was already looking beyond painting, into architecture and three-dimensional structures, yet cramming that expansive energy onto the flat surface of a painting.
Graphic works 1917-19
Dating from the very early years of the Revolution, this selection of works on paper shows how rapidly Rodchenko and Popova started thinking about new roles for art, belying the widespread assumption that the turn towards architecture and design did not take place until the early 1920s.
Even in 1917, Popova was making abstract collages as embroidery designs for 'Verbovka', an artisan cooperative in Ukraine where avant-garde art was combined with traditional folk and handicraft skills. her portfolio of six linocut prints was, similarly, intended to move away from the idea of the unique work of art. She was looking at ways of distributing her work more widely.
Rodchenko's designs for an aircraft storehouse bring together Communist symbols with the abstract, geometric elements of non-objective art. he also worked on the designs for the Kafe Pittoresk in Moscow, a bohemian cabaret that was to be decorated with abstract sculptures and paintings. The sketches of lamps shown here are an example of applying the principles of early Constructivist sculpture to a wall-furnishing.
Paintings 1919-21
INKhUK, an interdisciplinary research institute, was established in May 1920, to analyse the principles underlining contemporary art. It was soon dominated by the Constructivists, led by Rodchenko. In a series of debates, they rejected ideas of 'Composition' – a subjective approach to art that expressed the personality of the artist, guided by ideas of taste and emotions – in favour of 'Construction', a more impersonal method dictated by the materials at hand and stripped of anything decorative or unnecessary.
Popova's Space force Constructions were made in response. Geometric forms are set out on plywood or cardboard rather than canvas, and sprinkled with wooden dust that emphasises the solid physicality of the painted surface. In some works, the shifting planes bring out their relationship to Cubism, while others emphasise clearly delineated lines, suggesting powerful constructions or diagonal grids.
Rodchenko's own investigations placed a particular emphasis on the line as the sole essential element in a work of art. Colour, tone, texture and surface, he argued, could all be eliminated as mere decoration, or as techniques for imitating the appearance of things.
Ultimately, the Constructivists concluded, Construction was not just an aesthetic style that could be represented on canvas, but an approach to materials that was irreconcilable with the two-dimensional medium of painting.
Graphic works 1919-21
Even as they began to devote themselves to more applied, production-based work, artists continued to explore formal questions. The understanding was that such speculative exercises, which they called 'laboratory work', would lay the theoretical ground for future, more useful tasks.
These works show some of Rodchenko and Popova's explorations of line. Strikingly, Rodchenko abandoned drawing freely by hand in favour of ruler and compass. Old ideas of artistic skill or expressive handwork are rendered redundant by the use of mechanical devices. The role of the Artist-Constructor lies, instead, in determining how elements are arranged on the canvas or page.
In his essay on line, Rodchenko explained that the delicate brushwork of the past was necessary for traditional figurative painting, in which it imitated the appearance of objects and other aspects of the visible world. for the Constructivist such subtleties were no longer required: 'The brush... became an insufficient and imprecise instrument in the new, non-objective painting, and it was crowded out by the press, the roller, the ruling pen, the compass.'
Kandinsky
One of the great pioneers of abstract art, Wassily Kandinsky was an influential figure in the early development of Constructivism, but his relationship with the younger generation of Russian artists became increasingly contentious. Rodchenko and Stepanova were particularly close to him, and moved into his apartment in 1919. Several of Rodchenko's paintings from this period show the influence of Kandinsky's brand of expressionism, notably Abstraction 1920. Another work, Composition no.117 1920 was a direct response to Kandinsky's writings, with a sprinkling of coloured dots over one of Rodchenko's characteristic black on black surfaces.
Kandinsky was appointed by the Bolsheviks to a number of prestigious cultural posts, notably the director of inkhuk. As part of his research programme, he circulated a questionnaire on how artists perceived colour and form. One of Popova's studies in this room was made in answer to the questionnaire, along with the painting Construction 1920.
However, even in these sympathetic responses to Kandinsky, significant differences emerge. At his most abstract, Kandinsky still referred back to figurative elements, while Rodchenko and Popova's works are entirely abstract. And the Constructivists came to reject Kandinsky's emphasis on psychology, subjectivity and symbol. In December 1922 he left Moscow, never to return.
Sculpture: objects in space
Rodchenko made his first freestanding abstract sculptures in 1918, and later suggested that these geometric constructions, made using everyday materials, 'signified the abandonment of painting for the move toward real space'. While Tatlin’s Counter-Reliefs were mounted on the wall, he noted, his own Spatial Constructions could be looked at from all sides. Their extravagant configuration of geometric forms in space would be echoed in his architectural designs.
With his hanging Spatial Constructions of 1920-1, Rodchenko gave his objects even greater autonomy, liberating them from the floor as well as the wall. Each one of the series was based on a different geometric solid, which Rodchenko modelled in a succession of two-dimensional shapes cut out of plywood, which opened out to define a three-dimensional form.
His architectural investigations with the Zhivskul'ptarkh group, in particular, seem to have been a direct inspiration for his 1921 standing constructions, in which regular wooden components are assembled in various ways to create a series of figures. These complex geometric forms provide a three-dimensional equivalent to his experiments with ruler and compass.
Popova's Studies for a Construction in Space outline her move from the two-dimensional plane of her Space-force Constructions into the three dimensions of her production and theatre work.
5 x 5 = 25 Paintings
The two-part exhibition 5 x 5 = 25, which opened in Moscow in September 1921, was intended as a farewell to painting. Rodchenko and Popova and fellow artists Varvara Stepanova, Aleksandr Vesnin and Aleksandra Exter each exhibited five paintings. They also contributed statements and five covers each to 25 handmade catalogues.
Not all of the paintings can be identified with certainty, but they included Popova’s Space-Force Construction no.80 1921, which combines a network of impersonal ruler-drawn lines with softer, more painterly triangles among the sharp angles. The works that drew most attention, however, were Rodchenko’s triptych Pure Red Colour, Pure Yellow Colour, Pure Blue Colour 1921. As he later described these works, ‘I reduced painting to its logical conclusion and exhibited three canvases: red, blue and yellow. I affirmed: it’s over. Basic colours. Every plane is a plane and there is to be no representation.’ The painting is presented as a single physical object, with raw colour as its essential material.
The second part of 5 x 5 = 25 took place in october 1921. This selection of works was intended to prove how art could progress to playing a role in the real world. Rather than paintings, these were works on paper or maquettes. Rodchenko, for example, exhibited Constructivist designs for lamps and chandeliers. Popova presented her designs for a series of banners. Vesnin and Exter showed stage designs, and Stepanova contributed her sketches for figures.
The ideas behind the two parts of the exhibition were confirmed in the ideological debates taking place at INKhUK. At a meeting in November 1921, the critic Osip Brik proposed that, having rejected easel painting once and for all, artists should devote themselves to industrial production. Popova and Rodchenko were both among those who signed their agreement, adopting the slogan 'art into life' and acknowledging ‘production art as an absolute value and Constructivism as its only form of expression.’
Advertising and graphic design
In 1921, faced with food shortages and famine, Lenin announced the new Economic Policy (nEP), allowing private enterprise to operate on a limited scale. while agricultural and industrial production slowly recovered, many Bolsheviks saw the policy as a compromise with capitalism.
Rodchenko responded to these new circumstances by going into partnership with the futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky as experts on advertising. Their clients were the state-run industries who now faced competition from the private sector, and they designed posters or packaging for products such as cigarettes, bread, sweets and biscuits. Against those who condemned advertising as irredeemably capitalist, Mayakovsky argued that 'it is necessary to employ all the weapons used by our enemies'.
In their approach to advertising, book and magazine design, Rodchenko and Popova were able to adapt Constructivist principles and innovative techniques such as photo-montage. Even amid the compromises of nEP, such projects retained a sense of urgency and dynamism, and the critical approach to the visual that was one of the ideological hallmarks of Constructivism.
New everyday life
'New byt', or 'new everyday life' was a 1920s campaign aimed at transforming domestic life. The Constructivists responded with innovative designs for furniture, clothing, dishware and other household goods. This was seen as essentially women's territory: the title of Trotsky's Questions of Everyday Life (for which Rodchenko submitted a proposed cover) referred to the role of women in Soviet society, arguing for their emancipation from domestic slavery and the introduction of socialised childcare.
Political advertising and education
Rodchenko and Popova both produced propaganda and educational posters. The Bolsheviks recognised the importance of boldly designed visual materials in winning support for their ideas, especially given the low levels of literacy in Tsarist Russia.
Among Rodchenko's projects was a series of posters illustrating the history of the Bolshevik party, incorporating archival images, excerpts from newspapers and other documents. Rather than imposing an overarching narrative, Rodchenko's design encourages viewers to immerse themselves in the historical material, sift the evidence and make their own assessment.
This section also includes slogan-posters designed by Popova as projected elements for Earth in Turmoil 1922-3, a theatrical collaboration with Meirkhol'd. The production was intended to be the visual equivalent of a propaganda poster, with a montage of political quotations, party slogans and film excerpts providing an ideological commentary on the action.
Textiles and costumes
In 1923, Popova and Stepanova were invited by the first State Cotton-Printing factory in Moscow to contribute original designs for new textiles. Before the war, all such designs had been imported from the west. Popova embraced the task with gusto, creating more than a hundred highly inventive patterns for mass production. Rodchenko also made fabric and costume designs, but Popova’s work represented one of the rare occasions when Constructivist design was able to reach a genuinely popular audience without compromising its ideas. After her death, Popova was quoted by osip Brik as saying 'no single artistic success gave me such profound satisfaction as the sight of a peasant woman buying a piece of my fabric for a dress'.
Theatre
In 1921, Popova began to teach at the State Theatre workshops, applying Constructivist principles to stage and costume design. for the Constructivists, the performing arts offered an escape from the isolated environment of the studio, and a way of bringing art to the wider public.
Her most important production was The Magnanimous Cuckold 1922, a farce by Fernand Crommelynck, which Meirkhol'd used as a showcase for his system of biomechanics, an acting style based on gesture and movement. The set was a stylised mill with turning wheels, chutes and conveyer belts in operation throughout the play. Popova also designed geometric working clothes for the actors, recasting the body as an abstract element in a Constructivist composition.
Rodchenko too collaborated with Meirkhol'd on The Bedbug 1929, a satire by Mayakovsky whose proletarian hero adopts the slovenly, dissolute lifestyle of the bourgeoisie. Frozen in ice, he wakes up fifty years later in a soulless socialist utopia, which he infects with music, alcohol and love. Rodchenko was brought in to provide the futuristic designs. Unable to develop his radical ideas for furniture, clothing and architecture in real life, plays such as The Bedbug and Inga 1929 allowed him to embody them on stage.
Cinema
In the early 1920s, a multitude of new cinemas opened, and audiences flocked to see the latest German and American productions. Artists worked on film magazines and designed advertising posters whose visual style echoed the bold compositions and dynamic modernity of the films themselves.
Rodchenko's engagement with film included art direction for Boris Barnet's Moscow in October 1927, shown at the entrance to the exhibition. he also designed the titles for Dziga Vertov's Kino-Pravda ('Cine-Truth'), shown in several rooms in the exhibition. This newsreel series was intended to both document and analyse everyday life in Soviet Russia. Unusual camera angles and sophisticated editing enabled viewers to see their own lives and social surroundings in a new light. Echoing the philosophy of 'art into life', Vertov wanted to project his films in streets and factories rather than in cinemas, to become part of the environment they were depicting.
The female journalist
Rodchenko's film projects also included Lev Kuleshov's The Female Journalist 1927, a romantic story that poked fun at the bourgeois culture which developed under the New Economic Policy. As well as designing sets, Rodchenko helped to select the camera angles and framing that would determine how these environments were represented on screen. He considered these innovative designs as a way of presenting and popularising his ideas about urban living and interior design. The newspaper's editorial office was decorated with Constructivist furniture and lamps. The living quarters of a journalist who worked for a bureau called the Scientific organisation of Labour were – like the workers Club (in room 12) – a study in multifunction efficiency. The bed folded up into a cupboard, while the desk incorporated a number of detachable components for maximum flexibility, a built-in radio and lightbox for viewing slides.
Like Popova's involvement in theatre, Rodchenko approached film as a collaborative art form that could genuinely reach out to the masses. But both ventures were ultimately an acknowledgment of failure, recognising that the Constructivist dreams of reshaping social space could only be realised within the limited parameters of the stage or the cinema screen.
Workers' Club
The 1925 international Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Modern industry in Paris was an opportunity for the Soviet government to showcase its cultural achievements on an international stage. The exhibits included a selection of Popova's textiles, and Rodchenko's design for a workers' Club - a collective leisure space, in which bourgeois comfort was replaced by geometric functionalism. A chess table, bookcases and space to read encouraged the proletariat to spend their time productively. There were movable display cases for photographs, documents and maps, and pull-out projection screens for presentations. The 'Lenin Corner' was devoted to study materials related to the former Soviet leader, who died in 1924. while in Paris, Rodchenko bought two new cameras: from now on, he would devote much of his energy to photography and film.
This room also includes photographs of fellow artists, architects, writers and critics. Constructivism was a collective enterprise, which thrived on the sharing of ideas and collaboration between different disciplines. By the 1930s, however, it was losing ground, as the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR) promoted 'heroic realism' to glorify workers and peasants through easel painting and monumental sculpture. in the years to come, Rodchenko and his colleagues were increasingly marginalised and Socialist Realism was endorsed as the sole approved artistic style of the Soviet union
Fuente:
Tate Modern
