(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.
