Tag: constructivism

  • Constructivism

    Constructivism

    Constructivism was primarily an art and architectural movement originating in Russia after World War 1. It rejected the idea of art for arts’ sake and the traditional bourgeois class of society to which previous art had been catered. Instead it favoured art as a practise directed towards social change or that would serve a social purpose. The movement sought to push people to rebuild society in a Utopian model rather than the one that had led to the war.

    The term construction art was first coined by Kasmir Malevich in reference to the work of Aleksander Rodchenko. Graphic Design in the constructivism movement ranged from the production of product packaging to logos, posters, book covers and advertisements. Rodchenko’s graphic design works became an inspiration to many people in the western world including Jan Tschichold and the design motif of the constructivists is still borrowed, and stolen, from in much of graphic design today.

    See also:

    Constructivist typography  Google images

    • Naum Gabo  wikipedia
    • Mayakovsky (poet)
    • Aleksandr Rodchenko

  • El Lissitsky

    El Lissitsky

    Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (1890 – 1941), better known as El Lissitzky  was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the former Soviet Union. His work greatly influenced the Bauhaus and constructivist movements, and he experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate 20th-century graphic design.

    El Lissitzky was devoted to the idea of creating art with power and purpose, art that could invoke change and saw the artist of an agent of change. “das zielbewußte Schaffen” (goal-oriented creation).

    Book and Graphic Design

    Lissitsky’s work with book and periodical design was perhaps some of his most accomplished and influential. He perceived books as permanent objects that were invested with power. This power was unique in that it could transmit ideas to people of different times, cultures, and interests, and do so in ways other art forms could not.

    In contrast to the old monumental art [the book] itself goes to the people, and does not stand like a cathedral in one place waiting for someone to approach . . . [The book is the] monument of the future.

    Lissitzky  began his career illustrating Yiddish children’s books in an effort to promote Jewish culture in Russia, a country that was undergoing massive change at the time and that had just repealed its antisemitic laws. In a visual retelling of the traditional Jewish Passover song Had gadya (One Goat)which El Lissitzky integrated letters with images through a system that matched the color of the characters in the story with the word referring to them. In the designs for the final page , El Lissitzky depicts the mighty “hand of God” slaying the angel of death, who wears the tsar’s crown.  Visual representations of the hand of God would recur in numerous pieces throughout his entire career, most notably with his 1925 photomontage self-portrait The Constructor, which prominently featured the hand.

    In the late 1920s Lissitzky began experimenting with print media again. He launched radical innovations in typography and photomontage. He even designed a photomontage birth announcement in 1930 for his recently born son, Jen. The image itself is seen as being another personal endorsement of the Soviet Union, as it superimposed an image of the infant Jen over a factory chimney, linking Jen’s future with his country’s industrial progress.

    In the late 1930s Lissitzky’s work on the USSR im Bau (USSR in construction) magazine took his experimentation and innovation with book design to an extreme. In issue #2 he included multiple fold-out pages, presented in concert with other folded pages that together produced design combinations and a narrative structure that was completely original. Each issue focused on a particular issue of the time – a new dam being built, constitutional reforms, Red Army progress and so on.

     Prouns

    In May 1919, on invitation from fellow Jewish artist Marc Chagall, El Lissitzky returned to Vitebsk to teach graphic arts, printing, and architecture at the newly formed People’s Art School.  Chagall also invited other Russian artists, most notably the painter and art theoretician Kazimir Malevich and El Lissitzky’s former teacher, Yehuda Pen.

    1919 propaganda poster “Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge”. The image of the red wedge shattering the white form, simple as it was, communicated a powerful message that left no doubt in the viewer’s mind of its intention. The piece is often seen as alluding to the similar shapes used on military maps and, along with its political symbolism, was one of El Lissitzky’s first major steps away from Malevich’s non-objective suprematism into a style his own.

    In January 17, 1920, Malevich and El Lissitzky co-founded the short-lived Molposnovis (Young followers of a new art), a proto-suprematist association of students, professors, and other artists. After a brief and stormy dispute between “old” and “young” generations, and two rounds of renaming, the group reemerged as UNOVIS (Exponents of the new art) in February. The group,  disbanded in 1922, but was pivotal in the dissemination of suprematist ideology in Russia and abroad and launch El Lissitzky’s status as one of the leading figures in the avant garde.

    “The artist constructs a new symbol with his brush. This symbol is not a recognizable form of anything that is already finished, already made, or already existent in the world – it is a symbol of a new world, which is being built upon and which exists by the way of the people.”

    The exact meaning of “Proun” was never fully revealed, with some suggesting that it is a contraction of proekt unovisa (designed by UNOVIS) or proekt utverzhdenya novogo (Design for the confirmation of the new). Proun was essentially El Lissitzky’s exploration of the visual language of suprematism with spatial elements, utilizing shifting axes and multiple perspectives. Suprematism at the time was conducted almost exclusively in flat, 2D forms and shapes. El Lissitzky, with a taste for architecture and other 3D concepts, tried to expand suprematism beyond this. In Prouns, the basic elements of architecture – volume, mass, color, space and rhythm – were subjected to a fresh formulation in relation to the new suprematist ideals.  Jewish themes and symbols also sometimes made appearances in his Prounen, usually with El Lissitzky using Hebrew letters as part of the typography or visual code. His Proun works (known as Prounen) spanned over a half a decade, evolving from straightforward paintings and lithographs into fully three-dimensional installations that laid the foundation for his later experiments in architecture (architectons) and exhibition design.  Through his Prouns, utopian models for a new and better world were developed.

    Bauhaus and De Stijl

    In 1921, roughly concurrent with the demise of UNOVIS, suprematism was beginning to fracture into two ideologically adverse halves, one favoring Utopian, spiritual art and the other a more utilitarian art that served society. El Lissitzky was fully aligned with neither and left Vitebsk in 1921. He took a job as a cultural representative of Russia and moved to Berlin where he worked with and influenced important figures of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements, most notably Kurt Schwitters, László Moholy-Nagy, and Theo van Doesburg. Together with Schwitters and van Doesburg, El Lissitzky presented the idea of an international artistic movement under the guidelines of constructivism while also working with Kurt Schwitters on the issue Nasci (Nature) of the periodical Merz, and continuing to illustrate children’s books.

    Horizontal skyscrapers and exhibitions of the 1920s

    In 1923–1925, El Lissitzky proposed and developed the idea of horizontal skyscrapers (Wolkenbügel, “cloud-irons”). Lissitzky argued that as long as humans cannot fly, moving horizontally is natural and moving vertically is not. Thus, where there is not sufficient land for construction, a new plane created in the air at medium altitude should be preferred to an American-style tower. These buildings, according to Lissitzky, also provided superior insulation and ventilation for their inhabitants.

    “1926. My most important work as an artist begins: the creation of exhibitions.”

    In June 1926, Lissitzky designed an exhibition room for the Internationale Kunstausstellung art show in Dresden and the Raum Konstruktive Kunst (Room for constructivist art) and Abstraktes Kabinett shows in Hanover, and perfected the 1925 Wolkenbügel concept in collaboration with Mart Stam.

    One of his most notable exhibits was the All-Union Polygraphic Exhibit in Moscow in August–October 1927, where Lissitzky headed the design team for “photography and photomechanics” (i.e. photomontage) artists and the installation crew. His work was perceived as radically new, especially when juxtaposed with the classicist designs of Vladimir Favorsky (head of the book art section of the same exhibition) and of the foreign exhibits.

    In the 1928 Press Show scheduled for April–May 1928 the Soviets rented the existing central pavilion, the largest building on the fairground and the Soviet program designed by Lissitsky revolved around the theme of a film show, with nearly continuous presentation of the new feature films, propagandist newsreels and early animation, on multiple screens inside the pavilion and on the open-air screens. His work was praised for near absence of paper exhibits; “everything moves, rotates, everything is energized” Lissitzky also designed and managed on site less demanding exhibitions like the 1930 Hygiene show in Dresden.

    Final years

    In 1932, Stalin closed down independent artists’ unions; former avant-garde artists had to adapt to the new climate or risk being officially criticised or even blacklisted. El Lissitzky retained his reputation as the master of exhibition art and management into late thirties. In 1941, his tuberculosis worsened, but he continued to produce works, one of his last being a propaganda poster for Russia’s efforts in World War II, titled “Davaite pobolshe tankov!” (Give us more tanks!) He died on December 30, 1941, in Moscow.

     

     

     

     

  • Varvara Stepanova

    Varvara Stepanova (1894-1958) was a Russian painter, photographer and designer. She was influential as member of the Russian avant-garde movement and, later in her career, she would refer to herself as a constructivist. Her work shows a direct influence of the Cubists and the Futurist art movements and she spent her career dedicated to trying to use her work to create revolutionary change within society.

    Life

    Varvara Stepanova was born in a peasant family in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania. In 1910 she entered the Kazan Art School, where she met Rodchenko, her future husband and life-long colleague. Still at school she bought herself a Singer sewing machine, worked as a seamstress and learned dress design. She designed Cubo-Futurist work for several artists’ books, and studied under Jean Metzinger at Académie de La Palette, an art academy where the painters André Dunoyer de Segonzac and Henri Le Fauconnier also taught. She was a friend of the feminist artist and printmaker Lubov Popova.

    In the years before the Russian Revolution of 1917 she and Rodchenko leased an apartment in Moscow, owned by Wassily Kandinsky. In 1917 Stepanova began creating her innovative non-objective and graphic poetry, based on expressive combinations of sounds and their corresponding expression in form and color. In 1918 she published her books of graphic poetry “Rtny Khonle”, “Zigra Ar”, “Globolkim”. In her 1919 series of “Figures” the artist has moved towards shematization of the human figure. She painted them in geometrical simplified forms, in vivid and bold colors, against dark background or made of larger forms, busy with some kind of well-familiar human activity and social interaction: dance, play, music, walk. Rarely did the subject repeat. There is almost no trace of brush strokes, the paint was applied directly over a stecil plate, making the texture uniform. For the figures of 1920 a white backround was introduced, disattaching the figures as it was from their surroundings. At this time she also worked as assistant director of the Art and Literature section of IZO Narkompros (1919-1920).

    In the years following the revolution, Stepanova involved herself in poetry, philosophy, painting, graphic art, stage scenery construction, and textile and clothing designs. She contributed work to the Fifth State Exhibition and the Tenth State Exhibition, both in 1919.

    Constructivism

    In 1921, together with Aleksei Gan, Rodchenko and Stepanova formed the first Working Group of Constructivists, (the INKhUK 1920-1923) and was their research secretary. Together they redefined the concepts of composition and construction – they considered an object’s form already incorporated most of the construction and composition in its very structure; and therefore the designer artist’s role was to help bring it together in practical ways by use of colour and material design. They rejected fine art in favour of graphic design, photography, posters, and political propaganda.

    In her paper on Constructivism Stepanova wrote: “Industry and technology are developing continuously. … The realization of ideal beauty is thereby eliminated as a function of artistic activity, forcing the artist to move into industrial production in order to apply his objective knowledge of forms and constructions.” And then: “The intellect is our point of departure, taking the place of the ‘soul’ of idealism. From this it follows that, on the whole, Constructivism is also intellectual production (And not thought alone) incompatible with the spiritualuty of artistic activity”.

    In 1920-1921 the Constructivism group advanced from their definition “from invention to construction” to “from construction production”. They attempted to introduce various production art into the VKhUTEMAS.

    In 1920-1922 Stepanova was a member of the Presidium of the IZO section of the Union of Art Workers (RABIS), and taught in the studio at Krupskaya Academy for Communist Education (1920-1925).

    A pair of “5×5=25” exhibitions was held in the Union of Poets hall, with participation of five artists (A. Vesnin, L.Popova, A.Rodchenko, V.Stepanova, A.Exter), exhibiting five works each. The forum was used to announce the mvoe of the Constructivism artists from the easel to design and production. The second of the two, which was dedicated to graphic works, included designs  for construction of stage portals. This attracted the interest of Meierkhold, who invited Popova nad Stepanova to work in his theater.

    Stepanova declared in her text for the 1921 exhibition 5×5=25, held in Moscow: ‘Composition is the contemplative approach of the artist. Technique and Industry have confronted art with the problem of construction as an active process and not reflective. The ‘sanctity’ of a work as a single entity is destroyed. The museum which was the treasury of art is now transformed into an archive’.

    Theatre sets

    She designed the sets for The Death of Tarelkin in 1922. An adaptaion of play by A.Sokhovo-Kobylin, this was a total innovation in the theatre world. Stepanova made her set fully interactive with the actors and their play. The set was a combination of individual mechanical devices, designed to look like the most basic furniture, uniform in appearance and transforming at the actor’s will. The play itself included acrobatics and other fair-entertainment performance techniques, which interacted neatly with the set. The costumes were made of dark blue and light gray fablic, in stark geometric design.

    Clothing design and textiles

    In clothing design Stepanova developed the approach of “prozodezhda” (professional clothing) at a new angle: she differentiated between several groups of clothing, according to utilization. She designed several basic models, which could then be modified for the particular profession. In all she made the distiction between working “prozodezhda”, “sportodezhda” (sport clothing) and “spetzodezhda” (specialized clothing incorporating extra requirements, as for pilots, surgeons, firement etc). In article printed in the journal “LEF” 1923 the following observation is made: “Fashion, which psychologically reflects our daily life, habits and aestethic taste, is giving way to clothing organized for working in various branches of labor, for a specific social function, to clothing which can be worn only during the work process, to clothing which had no self-sufficient value outside real life”.

    In addition, she considered that the clothing has no need of additional decoration. The very seams, the design, the pockets, the fastening etc. are to provide the form; while the fabric design gives the color and visual pattern.

    From here the next step of fabric design was a very logical transition. Stepanova wrote: “We are now approaching a point where a gulf separating the fabric itself and the ready-made garment is becoming a serious obstacle to improving the quality of our cloting production. Itis time to move from designing clothing to designing the structure of fabric. This will allow the textile industry to jettison its present excessive variety, and help it standardize and improve, at long last, the quality of its production”.

    In the year the artist worked at the First Textile Printing factory she  designed more than 150 different fabrics. About two dozen were put into production. This was the very action upon the slogan “from construction into production”. Popova and Stepanova did not limit themselves in the textile industry with pattern design of the fabric. They were actively involved in incorporating designs into the production process, perfecting the printing processes; worked out models and cuts. To understand the processes and work together with its technological developers and engineers was essential in their approach. They strived to incorporate the design from within the very fabric, weave it in, dye it in, design the very physical properties of the fabric. And outside the process – there was the advertising of the industry and its achievements.

    In 1923 Stepanova became professor in the Textile Department at VKhUTEMAS. She held the view that the faculty needed to teach designer-artists, “artist-constructor in the textile industry, not an applied artist”. She made her students carry a special notebook, noting in it the people’s manner of dress, then anylizing it; created assignments of designing window-displays for fabric stores; designing actual clothes for people.Book illustration was Stepanova’s most consistent activity for over 30 years, from 1924 to 1958. In this field she was able to fully exploit her organizational and managerial skills along with the artistic and technical design of the polygraphic industry. She was a permanent staff member of the journals “LEF” and “New LEF” in 1923-1927. In 1933-1934 she served as an art editor for the “Partizdat” publishing house. When the conditions became difficult, in the 30s, 40s and 50s, she was forced to move more to the duties of technical editor, publisher and editorial secretary. But in the 20s this was the industry most suitable for the graphic expression of Constructivism – in the book, the poster, the periodicals of the time.

    During the WWII Stepanova and Rodchenko were evacuated to Perm and Ocher in Molotov District, and worked in the Ocher Agit-poster studio (1941-1942). At the end of 1942 they returned to their old apartment in Moscow.

    Varvara Stepanova died May 20th 1958