Constructivism

Rodchenko’s research into the concept of line was fundamental to the ambitions of Russian constructivism. Careful examination of his paintings and objects from 1918 to 1921 show both the experimentalism and the hesitations that accompanied his move from construction to production art. Based on the 2009 Tate Modern exhibition Rodchenko and Popova: Defining Constructivism, the article reflects on the successes and limitations of Rodchenko’s experiment.

In 1923 the painter Liubov Popova began creating designs for fabric to be manufactured by the First State Textile Printing Works in Moscow. This paper looks at the development of her involvement with constructivism while also examining the relationship between her textile prints and the abstract language of her earlier paintings.

Naum Gabo’s arrival in Berlin in 1922, which initiated his lifetime emigration from the Soviet Union, has been interpreted as an explicitly anti-Soviet act. This view has led them to condemn his subsequent creative activities as right-wing and non-progressive. This essay contests such opinions, emphasising Gabo’s connections with the October Revolution, arguing that he did not initially intend to stay in the West, and examining the nature of his émigré activities in this light.

In Western art history the grid has been positioned as an emblem of modernism. In Russia, however, early constructivist artists saw the grid as both a formal and ideological device. After a period dominated by socialist realism, the grid was re-adopted in the 1960s and 1970s by some dissident modernist and conceptualist artists. This essay argues that the grid can still be an effective device in radical art practices as long as it is not perceived as an escapist structure that does not address the topics of today.