Aleksandr Rodchenko. Daesh'!, no. 14. 1929. Journal, page: 11 15/16 × 9 1/16" (30.3 × 23 cm) (irreg.). Gift of The Judith Rothschild Foundation

“I reduced painting to its logical conclusion and exhibited three canvases: red, blue and yellow. I affirmed: It’s all over.”

Aleksandr Rodchenko

When The Museum of Modern Art’s first director, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., met Aleksandr Rodchenko on his trip to Moscow in 1927—one of the first times an Anglophone art historian had visited the Soviet Union in the years since the Russian Revolution—he wrote, “Rodchenko showed us an appalling variety of things—Suprematist paintings (preceded by the earliest geometrical things I’ve seen, 1915, done with compass)—woodcuts, linoleum cuts, posters, book designs, photographs, kino sets, etc…. [He] showed much satisfaction at having delivered the death blow to painting.”1 Rodchenko had declared the death of painting in 1921, with three monochrome paintings—Pure Red Color, Pure Yellow Color, and Pure Blue Color—exhibited in the exhibition 5x5=25 alongside works by fellow Russian artists Varvara Stepanova, Alexandra Exter, Lyubov Popova, and Aleksandr Vesnin. In these works, Rodchenko emphasized the paintings’ material qualities, applying the three primary colors in a way that drew attention to their substance as matter. “I reduced painting to its logical conclusion and exhibited three canvases: red, blue, yellow,” he declared. “I affirmed: it’s all over. Basic colors. Every plane is a plane and there is to be no more representation.”2

After he jettisoned painting, Rodchenko turned his attention to merging art with life. He became a founding member of the Constructivist Working Group in 1921, which defined art making as a form of professional expertise and labor like any other, and not as a spiritual calling. Using the materials and tools of an architect or engineer—a compass, ruler, and plywood—he produced a series of spatial constructions in 1921, which were hung suspended from the ceiling. With these circular structures, he abandoned the premises of traditional sculpture—mass, pedestal, and precious materials—in favor of open volumes made from everyday materials like wire and plywood. His spatial constructions were included alongside works by leading Constructivist artists Karel Ioganson, Georgii and Vladimir Stenberg, and Konstantin Medunetskii in an exhibition organized by OBMOKhU (Obschestvo molodykh khudozhnikov [Society of Young Artists]) in Moscow in May 1921. Between 1920 and 1930, Rodchenko taught construction and metalwork at VKhUTEMAS (Vysshie khudozhestvenno-tekhnicheskie masterskie [Higher state artistic and technical studios]), the Russian equivalent of the German Bauhaus.

In the mid-1920s Rodchenko turned to other mediums, including graphic design, book illustrations, and, most notably, photography. On a trip to Paris in 1925 he bought a handheld camera, which allowed him to easily experiment with the composition of images. He framed the world from new points of view—from above, below, and at other unexpected, sharp angles—encouraging the viewer to see familiar things in new ways. His photographs and photomontages were published widely in such avant-garde periodicals as LEF and Novyi LEF, and in such state-run publications as Sovetskoe Foto and USSR in Construction. In the early 1930s he embraced photography as a tool for social commentary, critically depicting the disparity between the idealized and lived Soviet experience. The images he made contrasted with Socialist Realism, which was declared the official style of art in the Soviet Union in 1934. Preferring the saccharine depictions of positive, heroic, and idealized subjects unencumbered by the trials and tribulations of everyday life, Soviet critics found Rodchenko’s photography too formalist at times. Nevertheless, he continued to find support abroad, exhibiting in Film und Foto: Internationale Ausstellung des Deutschen Werkbunds at the Städtische Ausstellungshallen in Stuttgart, Fotomontage at the Staatliche Kunstbibliothek in Berlin, Cubism and Abstract Art (1936) and Abstract Painting: Shapes of Things (1941) at MoMA, and Mezinárodní Výstava Fotografie at the Manes Exhibition Hall in Prague. Rodchenko died on December 3, 1956, in Moscow.

Ksenia Nouril, C-MAP Fellow for Central and Eastern Europe, Department of Photography, 2016

  1. Barr, Alfred H. “Russian Diary 1927–28,” in October 7 (1978): 10–51.

  2. Yve-Alain Bois, “Painting: The Task of Mourning,” in Painting as Model (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990), 238.

Wikipedia entry
Introduction
Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko (Russian: Александр Михайлович Родченко; 5 December [O.S. 23 November] 1891 – 3 December 1956) was a Russian and Soviet artist, sculptor, photographer, and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design; he was married to the artist Varvara Stepanova. Rodchenko was one of the most versatile constructivist and productivist artists to emerge after the Russian Revolution. He worked as a painter and graphic designer before turning to photomontage and photography. His photography was socially engaged, formally innovative, and opposed to a painterly aesthetic. Concerned with the need for analytical-documentary photo series, he often shot his subjects from odd angles—usually high above or down below—to shock the viewer and to postpone recognition. He wrote: "One has to take several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round rather than looked through the same key-hole again and again."
Wikidata
Q312631
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Getty record
Introduction
From 1907 to 1914, Rodchenko studied painting at the Kazan School of Art. In 1915, he moved to Moscow where he worked as an independent painter and designer, becoming one of the leading members of the constructivist movement. In 1921, Rodchenko renounced painting to concentrate on design and photography. He resumed his work as a painter in 1932 in Moscow, pursuing this career until 1942. From 1921 to 1932, Rodechenko worked as a magazine photographer and photographic reporter in Moscow. From 1942 to 1956, Rodchenko worked as an exhibition designer in Moscow. Russian painter, sculptor, designer, photographer.
Nationality
Russian
Gender
Male
Roles
Artist, Architect, Ceramics Designer, Manufacturer, Cinematographer, Designer, Fashion Designer, Typographer, Design Studio, Furniture Designer, Photojournalist, Jewelry Designer, Collagist, Graphic Artist, Illustrator, Lecturer, Painter, Photographer, Sculptor
Names
Alexander Rodchenko, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Aleksandr Rodčenko, Aleksandr Rodtchenko, Alexander Mikhaylovich Rodchenko, Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Rodchenko, Aleksandr Mikhaĭlovich Rodchenko, Alexandr Rodchenko, Alexander Rodtchenko, Alexander Michajlowitsch Rodschenko, Aleksandr Mikhailovich Rodchenko, Alexandre Mihailovitch Rodchenko, Alexander Michajlowitsch Rodtschenko, Alexander Michailowitsch Rodtschenko, Alexandre Rodtchenko, Alexsandre Rodtchenko, Aleksandr Rodcenko, Aleksandr Mihailovič Rodčenko, Aleksandr Rodtjenko, Alexander Rotchenko, Aleksandr Rodtsenko, Alexandr Rodcenko, A. M. Rodchenko, Alexander Mikhailovich Rodchenko, Aleksandr Mihailovic Aleksandr Mihailov Rodcenko, Aleksandr Mihailov Rodcenko Aleksandr Mihailovic, Aleksandr. Rodchenko, Aleksandr. Rodčenko, Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Rodčenko, Alexander Rodčenko, Aleksandr. Rodtchenko, Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Rodtchenko, Alexandr Rodčenko, Aleksandr Rodtšenko, Александр Михайлович Родченко, Aleksandr Michajlovic Rodcenko, Alexander Michailowitsch Rodschenko, Alexander Mikhaïlovitch Rodtchenko
Ulan
500017582
Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License

Works

247 works online

Exhibitions

Publications

  • Engineer, Agitator, Constructor: The Artist Reinvented, 1918–1939. The Merrill C. Berman Collection at MoMA Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 288 pages
  • Sur moderno: Journeys of Abstraction—The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 240 pages
  • MoMA Highlights: 375 Works from The Museum of Modern Art Flexibound, 408 pages
  • MoMA Now: Highlights from The Museum of Modern Art—Ninetieth Anniversary Edition Hardcover, 424 pages
  • Photography at MoMA: 1920 to 1960 Hardcover, 416 pages
  • OBJECT:PHOTO. Modern Photographs: The Thomas Walther Collection 1909-1949 Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 400 pages
  • Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925: How a Radical Idea Changed Modern Art Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 376 pages
  • Aleksandr Rodchenko: Experiments for the Future. Diaries, Essays, Letters, and Other Writings Hardcover, 440 pages
  • Aleksandr Rodchenko Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 336 pages
  • Aleksandr Rodchenko Exhibition catalogue, Paperback, 336 pages

Media

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].