chapter 10 Transition from Constructivism to Productivism, According to Tarabukin

Tarabukin, among Others

Who was Nikolai Tarabukin (1889–1954)? What makes him a good source and privileged participant in the debate about art in revolutionary Russia? Born in Moscow in 1889 and having studied philosophy, art history, and philology at the University of Moscow, Tarabukin participated in the original core of Russian Revolutionary constructivism, becoming one of the most active and inspiring members of the movement as a debater, art thinker, and writer of his- toriographical texts. From 1921 to 1924, Tarabukin was academic secretary at INKhUK, the Institute of Artistic Culture, Moscow, a state agency that oper- ated from 1920–1924. The institute’s debates and research – developed by the Working Group of Objective Analysis, in which the author took part – directly resulted in the constitution of the first Working Group of Constructivists in March 1921. Tarabukin also collaborated with OBMOKhU, the Society of Young Artists, an agit-prop group founded in 1919. It was born of the free art workshops that had emerged with the dissolution of the art schools and academies of the Tsarist Ancien Régime. The OBMOKhU organised two exhibitions, in 1919 and 1920, which mainly presented posters and other graphic projects of agitation and propaganda, aim- ing at mobilisation for the civil war against the Whites. The third OBMOKhU exhibition, in May–June 1921, presented constructions and became a historical landmark of the constructivist movement. This third show included several works by Rodchenko. These works consisted of spatial constructions suspen- ded from wires and developed Tatlin’s Corner or Angular Counter-relief pro- posal of 1914–1915, made after his return from Paris where he had seen Braque’s and Picasso’s constructions and collages. In sum, the constructivist platform was engendered by the activities of two research and debate centres, INKhUK and OBMOKhU, as well as other comparable institutions like VKhUTEMAS (Higher State Artistic and Technical Workshops), which functioned as a school of architecture and design. It also developed out of discussions in several publications such as lef (the journal of the left front of the arts).1 Soon after, the transition to productivism emerged

1 For further details on the publication in its two phases, as lef (Moscow, 1923–1925, edited by

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004346086_012 transition from constructivism to productivism 195 from these same centres in the last quarter of 1921, proposing the new move- ment as a critical and materialist radicalisation of constructivism. Tarabukin was an early constructivist who also helped to develop the move- ment. Thus, he is situated among other productivist theoreticians and writers, such as Osip Brik, Boris Arvatov, Boris Kushner, and Aleksei Gan. As such, the following comments about Tarabukin should not be taken to refer to a sup- posedly unique or singular author. Rather, they should be read as part of a collective and public debate. Equally, one must bear in mind that in addition to being a collective act, constructivism was an intrinsically interdisciplinary movement. Many members of the group started out painting and writing, but they also worked in other fields, such as graphic arts, architecture, etc. Among the writings of the group, the specific relevance of Tarabukin’s works – From Easel to Machine and Toward aTheory of Painting, both published in Russia in 1923 – is inseparable from the fact that some of his essays, translated into French, English, and Spanish, were central in introducing to the wider world the arguments of revolutionary constructivism.They contributed to con- structivism’s distinctiveness in comparison with other movements. Even today Tarabukin’s writings provide a decisive point of view for the critical reinter- pretation of certain constructivist artworks that became ‘popular’ in the West. Some works by Malevich, Tatlin, Rodchenko, Eisenstein, and Vertov had even been acquired by major capitalist museums; nevertheless, they were exhib- ited in an entirely de-contextualised way, thus raising varied historiographical absurdities which remain to this day. Like many constructivists and productivists, Tarabukin fell into disgrace with the rise of Stalinism. He was not arrested like Gan, Kushner, Punin and many others. In his case the doors of publishing houses were closed to him from 1928 onwards, when his study on Bogaevskii was attacked as ‘formalist’. The Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences (GAKhN) was also closed down that same year. After his time in INKhUK, Tarabukin had directed a department at the GAKhN from 1924 to 1928, dealing with cinema, theatre, and in particular the work of Eisenstein and Meyerkhol’d. After that, Tarabukin lost all capacity to act publicly and subsequently took refuge amid a small circle of friends. From then on, there is only one reference to his work – by Aleksey Losev, in The Dialectics of Myth (1930).2 Other works by Tarabukin were only edited posthumously, beginning in 1973. One of his most

B. Arvatov, O. Brik, B. Kushner, V. Mayakovskii, S. Tret’yakov, and N. Chuzhak) and Novyi lef (Moscow, 1927–1928, edited by V. Mayakovskii and S. Tret’iakov), see Lodder 1990, p. 323. 2 Nakov 1980b, p. 19. See also Gough 2000.