CONSTRUCTIVISM

History

The term "Construction Art" was first used by Kasimir Malevich as an impolite way of describing the
work of Alexander Rodchenko in 1917. However, Constructivist ideas were first expressed by Vladimir
Yevgrafovich Tatlin (1885-1953) who, after visiting Picasso in his Paris studio, returned to Russia and
began producing his Relief Constructions (1913-17), a series of sculptures made from an assortment of
junk and other "found" materials, in an imitation of similar works by his Spanish host. These Relief
Constructions culminated in Tatlin's Monument to the Third International (an unfinished wooden
prototype, the full-size version of which was intended to rival the Eiffel Tower in Paris, designed by
Gustave Eiffel), exhibited in 1920, which was a symbol of the Constructivist movement. Although not
himself a member of the Russian Futurist movement, Tatlin - like most progressives - agreed with
Futurists in the liberating value of technology, and also strongly believed in socially useful art.

Meaning

What is Constructivism?

The movement emphasized building and science, rather than artistic expression, and its goals
went far beyond the realm of art. The Constructivists sought to influence architecture, design, fashion,
and all mass-produced objects. In place of painterly concerns with composition, Constructivists were
interested in construction. Rather than emerging from an expressive impulse or an academic tradition,
art was to be built.

A new, Constructivist art would look toward industrial production; approach the artist as an
engineer, rather than an easel painter; and serve the proletariat. Constructivists used sparse, geometric
forms and modest materials. From paintings to posters to textiles, they created a visual language out of
forms that can be drawn with utilitarian instruments like compasses and rulers. They placed visual
culture under the microscope, analyzing materials like wood, glass, and metal, to judge them for their
value and fitness for use in mass-produced images and objects.
Important Constructivist Artists

Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin (1885-1953) Politically flexible, conceptual founder of Constructivism and
key member of the Russian avant-garde. An exhibitor with the Donkey's Tail group in 1912, he staged
The Store exhibition in 1916. Best known for his unfinished Monument to the Third International.

Monument to the Third International

Vladimir Tatlin was, with Kazimir Malevich, widely considered the most important figure of the Soviet
avant-garde of the 1910s and 20s. The visionary Monument to the Third International was his most
famous work. Commissioned to create a monument to the Bolshevik Revolution in Petrograd (St.
Petersburg), Tatlin conceived of his building as the headquarters for the Third International – the world
organization of the Communist party founded in 1919 and intended to spread global revolution. In doing
so, he created not a memorial to the past, but a structure intended to bring a utopian future into being.
Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956)

Painter and photographer. Invented the term "non-objective art", referring to geometric abstraction.
Exhibited constructivist drawings at The Store exhibition; became the leader of the First Working Group
of Constructivists in 1921; one of the first Russian artists, along with Tatlin, to switch to industrial design.
Also known for his photographs of Soviet Russia.

White Circle

Alexander Rodchenko’s White Circle is an abstract composition with variations of the simplest geometric
figures. The artist constructs a new representational spatiality, the optical effect of which is intensified
by the textural working of the surface of the canvas and the logical colour combinations. Line, colour
and space are the main components of Rodchenko,s painterly technique. In 1918, he wrote that he was
“persistently studying projection into depth, height and breadth, opening up the endless possibility of
constructing beyond the bounds of time.” He called his works “compositions of coloured movements
and projected parts.”
Lyubov Popova (1889-1924)

One of Russia's earliest abstract painters, known for her wholly abstract pictures known as Painterly
Architectonics (1916-20). Her pioneering work was shown at later Knave of Diamonds exhibitions.
Turned to photography, photomontage and set design, before her tragic death from scarlet fever.

Painterly Architectonic

In Painterly Architectonic, one of a series of works with this title, Popova arranged areas of white, red,
black, gray, and pink to suggest planes laid one on top of the other over a white ground, like differently
shaped papers in a collage. The space is not completely flat, however, for the rounded lower rim of the
gray plane implies that this surface is arching upward against the red triangle. This pressure finds
matches in the shapes and placements of the planes, which shun both right angles and vertical or
horizontal lines, so that the picture becomes a taut net of slants and diagonals.
El Lissitzky (1890-1941)

Painter and illustrator and follower of Suprematist Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935) before become an
adherent of constructivism. Known for his Prouns series of abstract pictures (1919-24). At the Bauhaus,
he introduced Constructivist ideas to the architect Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969).

Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge

Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge is one of Lissitzky's earliest attempts at propagandistic art. He
produced this politically charged work in support of the Red Army shortly after the Bolsheviks had
waged their revolution in 1917. The red wedge symbolized the revolutionaries, who were penetrating
the anti-Communist White Army. Here Lissitzky uses his signature coded color combination of red, white
and black, which reinforces the message indicated by the work's title. Colors and shapes take on directly
symbolic significance.