Конструктивизм: прагматический утопизм

This article provides an overview of the history of Constructivism and its essential theory and practice in Soviet Russia of the 1920s and early 1930s, focusing particularly on various areas of design activity, including architecture and furniture, graphic design and photography, sculpture and textiles. Consequently, it analyses in detail several designs that embody most clearly the Constructivist approach. Some of these were produced by the original members of the Working Group of Constructivists (Aleksandr Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, Aleksei Gan, etc.), while others were devised by artists who never officially joined the group but embraced Constructivist ideas (The Vesnin brothers, Gustavs Klucis [Gustav Klutsis], Lyubov Popova, Vladimir Tatlin, etc). The author acknowledges that the Constructivists’ aspiration to transform the Soviet material environment could be considered utopian in the conditions of Russia’s social, economic, and industrial circumstances of the early 1920s, but she stresses that there was also a very strong element of pragmatism in Constructivist theory and practice, which is evident in the way they tackled real problems and offered eminently practical solutions to everyday difficulties. This argument is supported by detailed analyzes of certain Constructivist objects.В данной статье представлен обзор истории конструктивизма и его основных теорий и практик в Советской России 1920-х и начала 1930-х годов с акцентом на различные сферы практико-ориентированной деятельности, включая архитектуру, мебель, графический дизайн, фотографию, скульптуру и текстиль, через подробный анализ некоторых проектов, которые наиболее ярко воплощают конструктивистский подход. Некоторые из этих проектов были созданы первыми членами Рабочей группы конструктивистов (Александр Родченко, Варвара Степанова, Алексей Ган и др.), а другие — художниками, никогда официально не входившими в группу, но разделявшими идеи конструктивизма (братья Веснины, Густавы Клуцис, Любовь Попова, Владимир Татлин и др.). Автор утверждает, что в рамках социальных, экономических и производственных условий России начала 1920-х годов стремление конструктивистов к преобразованию советской материальной среды, несмотря на попытки решения реальных повседневных проблем, было утопическим как в теории, так и на практике. Этот аргумент подтверждается подробным анализом некоторых объектов конструктивизма

Sergei Tret’iakov – The Writer as Photographer

Sergei Mikhailovich Tret’iakov was among the first Russian avant-garde creative figures to become active in photography. This article identifies factors that may have stimulated his move into photo-journalism. These include the emergence of an illustrated press; Tret’iakov’s association with the journal LEF and colleagues like Osip Brik; the theoretical position of Aleksei Gan’s magazine Kino-Fot; Lenin’s ‘Directive on Cinema Affairs’; the prominence given to photography following Lenin’s death in 1924; Tret’iakov’s connection with film through Sergei Eisenstein, film stills and his work for Proletcult (Proletkul’t); and his travel to China in 1924–1925. Several photographs and layouts are examined in detail

1905 and Art: From Aesthetes to Revolutionaries

This article examines the impact that the experience of the 1905 Revolution had on the political attitudes of professional artists of various creative persuasions and on the younger generation who were still attending art schools. It inevitably focuses on a few representatives and argues that Realists as well as more innovative artists like Valentin Serov and the World of Art group became critical of the regime and began to produce works satirizing the Tsar and his government. These artists did not, however, take their disenchantment further and express a particular ideology in their works or join any specific political party. The author also suggests that the Revolution affected art students like Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova, who subsequently became leaders of the avant-garde and developed the style known as Neo-Primitivism. The influence of 1905 can be seen in their pursuit of creative freedom, the subjects they chose, and the distinctly anti-establishment ethos that emerged in their Neo-Primitivist works around 1910