(b
St Petersburg, 23 Nov 1891;
d Moscow, 3 Dec
1956).
Russian painter, sculptor, designer and photographer. He was a central
exponent of Russian Constructivism, owing much to the pre-Revolutionary
work of Malevich and Tatlin, and he was closely involved in the cultural
debates and experiments that followed the Revolution of 1917. In 1921 he
denounced, on ideological grounds, easel painting and fine art, and he
became an exponent of Productivism (CONSTRUCTIVISM) in many fields,
including poster design, furniture, photography and film. He resumed
painting in his later years. His work was characterized by the
systematic way in which from 1916 he sought to reject the conventional
roles of self-expression, personal handling of the medium and tasteful
or aesthetic predilections. His early nihilism and condemnation of the
concept of art make it problematic even to refer to Rodchenko as an
artist: in this respect his development was comparable to that of Dada,
although it also had roots in the anarchic activities of Russian
Futurist groups. |
Rodchenko and
Mayakovsky |
