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Home , Alexander Rodchenko, Constructivism (art), Installation art, Stenberg brothers, Stroganov School, Suprematist Composition

ENGINEERS OF THE HUMAN SOUL: THE RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE IN THE 1920s by Sarah Gates

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of with Honours in History

Acadia University April, 2010 © Copyright by Sarah Gates, 2010

This thesis by Sarah Gates

is accepted in its present form by the

Department of History

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Bachelor of Arts with Honours

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I, SARAH GATES, grant permission to the University Librarian at Acadia University to reproduce, loan or distribute copies of my thesis in microform, or electronic formats on a non-profit basis. I however, retain the copyright in my thesis.

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ABSTRACT

The 1920s were a remarkable decade for the USSR. After emerging from the October Revolution and the horrors of the Civil War, the tasks of socialist construction lay ahead. The artistic avant-garde produced which was meant to inspire the masses and guide them towards the fulfillment of . Realizing the didactic power of the artistic avant-garde, the Party began courting various groups of and commissioned them to produce “agitational art”- posters, plays, and easel art containing revolutionary messages. The artists saw themselves as the ultimate Marxists, spare in their art and implacable in their didactic leadership of the masses. Beginning in 1923, a shift in avant-garde thought occurred: agitational art remained important, but it was carried in new directions in order to change the material basis of life inside the young USSR. By entering the field of production, the Constructivist avant-garde produced items for mass distribution with the intent of changing the proletariat’s attitude toward material goods. After Lenin’s death and the ascendancy of Stalin, the role of the gradually changed: the artist-constructor of the 1920s was replaced by the artist-advertiser. Easel art and were replaced by the . This return to was cemented into official policy by 1932: the non-objective art of the 1920s was no longer acceptable to the Party. Henceforth the Soviet artistic community could only represent the idealized vision of Stalinist progress, and could only do so via the sterile genre of .

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Chapter 1: Artists and the State in the Young USSR

From the time of the October Revolution, the newly-formed was in a constant state of flux. A new day seemed to be dawning for the peoples of the : their centuries-old monarchical system had been swept away, replaced by an ineffectual provisional government and soon after by the . Soviet citizens knew they were at an important historical crossroads: the dramatic shift of political dynamics brought with it a re-evaluation of cultural and societal attitudes. Indeed, in the

USSR’s infancy there no longer seemed any restrictions on either the form or the function of their new society, beyond the utopianist vision laid down in the writings of

Karl Marx.

In this new environment, the people who thought themselves most able to take the reins of social leadership were the artistic avant-garde. In their opinion, the role of an artist was didactic: they would lead their fellow citizens, by example, into the glowing future promised by full Communism. As a result of their activities and by the superior example set by their new society, Communism would consequently spread across the globe. Through art1 they hoped to guide public opinion toward the revolutionary utopian future. The nineteenth-century propagandist and democrat Nikolai

Chernyshevsky wrote, “Reality is superior to its imitation in art. Let us tear ourselves away from our speculative activity and find a way to real work!”2 In seeking to serve the new Soviet state, and to direct its development, through their art the artistic avant-

1 “Art” is a term which includes easel , posters, , photomontage, , textiles, and . 2 Nikolai Chernyshevsky, as quoted in , introduction, The Russian Experiment in Art (1962, London: Thames and Hudson, 1986) 280.

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garde hoped to go further than Chernyshevsky imagined: the artistic endeavour would not be abandoned in favour of “real work”; it would become the real work itself.

From this utopian vanguard emerged the new artistic movements of

Suprematism, created by Kasimir Malevich and , created by Vladimir

Tatlin. These two movements dominated the modern artistic scene in the postrevolutionary period and were at the forefront of the struggle to create a utopian society in the 1920s and early 1930s. While focused on creating a new artistic style based on the square and circle, Constructivism, as its name suggested, was intended to facilitate the growth and development of socialism through the application of artistic media. Constructivists were fascinated by utility and strove to create usable art; members of the movement were urged to put their skills to use in the factory, not the studio. However, a split soon formed not only between the Suprematists and

Constructivists, but also between the Constructivists and their sub-genre, the

Productivists. After Lenin’s death and Stalin’s ascent to power, the respective art movements struggled with the challenge of appeasing Stalin (and subsequently Andrei

Zhdanov, the Politburo’s cultural supremo) or staying true to their ideals despite the growing, and likely fatal, possibility of being labelled an ‘enemy of the people’. The history of this challenge, the various strategies adopted by artists to meet it, and the ways in which the artistic communities were affected by their changing relationship to the political elite, form the investigative core of this thesis. Subjective questions will be examined such as if an artist is producing art simply to appease/flatter a dictator, can their work truly be seen as having any artistic credibility? Have they simply sold out their

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original vision? These questions will be investigated, along with objective analyses dealing with elite views of art, particularly those emanating from Stalin and his closest

Politburo associates. Was Stalin, like Lenin, interested in using art for a didactic purpose, or was he simply content to watch the artists tear each other apart for his political ends? With so many ambiguities present in this period of time, the main challenge is attempting to find out someone’s true attitude, especially when one adds Stalin, the supreme masker of true emotions, to the equation.

The artistic avant-garde which emerged in early 20th century was dynamic and iconoclastic. Foreign investment flooded into the country from Western Europe, bringing the old empire into the fold of rapidly expanding and culturally progressive

European countries.3 The relationship between France and Russia also bloomed during this time since France was the main investor promoting Russia’s rapid industrialization.

The two countries had been culturally entwined, although occasionally bitter enemies, since the time of Czar Alexander I and the defeat of Napoleon: French was the spoken language of the Russian court, and St. Petersburg was commonly referred to as the

“ of the North.” French culture was seen as an ideal for which to strive and it is no surprise that when fledgling Russian artists began emulating Europe’s avant-garde, they paid closest attention to the French masters. As a result of the rapprochement between

Russia and the rest of Europe, Russia came to be acquainted with the artistic movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The works of the post-

Impressionists, and of Matisse in particular, were tremendously inspirational, causing

3 Camilla Gray, The Russian Experiment in Art 1863-1922 (1962, London: Thames and Hudson, 1986) 65.

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the establishment of the ‘World of Art’ () magazine and subsequently an in itself in 1905 as sought to emulate their idols. The World of

Art movement was made up of such artists as Alexandre Benois and and was responsible for exhibits which showcased the most cutting-edge work from Russia and abroad. These exhibits played an influential role in shaping the of Vladimir

Tatlin and Kasimir Malevich. The World of Art movement also contributed to the development of a “buyer class”, a section of the middle class which accumulated by Matisse, Cézanne, and Gauguin. As these collections were exhibited contemporary directions in artistic culture were further assimilated into the Russian . From there the current shifted from and toward Cubo-.

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s “Futurist Manifesto” of 1908, which urged a break from the stagnant avant-garde and a move to embrace speed, violence and the world of the machine,4 produced a revolution in Russian artistic thought and practice. Russian artists very quickly adapted to these ideals and those presented by the emerging Cubist movement. The fusion of and Futurism was a uniquely Russian phenomenon, combining the best of what they had seen exhibited by Matisse and Picasso, with a fusion of the work of Marinetti and . The hallmarks of this remarkable

Russian movement were the fractured appearance of the subject as well as the impression of movement and the use of bright colours.

The movement reached its zenith with Kasimir Malevich’s “The Knife Grinder” in

1912, but immediately thereafter, indeed within a year, Malevich himself would lead

4 Flaminio Gualdoni, Art: The Twentieth Century (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 2008) 79.

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the Russian art world away from Cubo-Futurism, and away from objective art altogether. Malevich was born in Kiev, the youngest of 14 children. His parents were

Polish and could trace their lineage to pre-revolutionary Polish nobility. The Malewicz line possessed a coat-of-arms and had at some point received royal recognition. As

Ukrainian refugees from the Polish rebellion of 1862, Malevich’s father worked in a sugar beet mill. Malevich did not like being part of the industrialized proletarian society.

Instead, he preferred forging friendships with peasant children. The peasant influence is evident in his work: it is apparent in the bright colours so reminiscent of traditional

Ukrainian clothes, and it is apparent his depiction of nature: rolling, lush, and saturated with colour.5 He first experienced art while watching the peasants learn to paint icons, the traditional Orthodox form of religious art.6 Looking back on this childhood experience, he wrote: “All of the peasants’ life fascinated me. I decided that I would never look and work in factories; moreover, I would never study at all. I thought that the peasants lived very well...”7 His own flirtations with painting caught the attention of factory engineers who urged his father to send him to . His mother indulged him and at the age of sixteen he was accepted into the Kiev School, later to enjoy the tutelage of Fedor Rerberg from 1905 to 1910, in which time he gained an understanding in composition and colour.8 In 1913 he unveiled the first pieces demonstrating his new art movement, Suprematism. As he says, “In 1913, trying desperately to liberate art from the ballast of the representational world, I sought

5 I find his painting “Fruit Gathering/Abundance” (1909) to be most representative of this statement. 6 Gerry Souter, Malevich:Journey to Infinity (New York: Parkstone International, 2008) 19. 7 Souter, Malevich:Journey to Infinity, 24. 8 Souter, Malevich:Journey to Infinity, 61.

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refuge in the form of the square.”9 Suprematist non-objectivity took the form of geometric shapes, typically a or circle or cross, against a white canvas. In

1915 he painted “Black Square”, literally a black square against a stark white canvas (see

Appendix, Fig.1). His milestone achievement is typically thought to be “White on

White”, painted in 1918, which marked Russia’s declaration of war against the very act of painting itself (see Appendix, Fig.2). Malevich saw painting as bourgeois, an idealistic after-thought. Progress was to be made by renouncing the regressive elements of backgrounds or themes in favour of the sublime non-objectivity of geometric forms.

The move toward non-objectivity is an important milestone: without it,

Constructivism may not have appeared when it did. As it was, from 1915 until 1917, the confusion of World War One and the tumult experienced in Russia at this time formented the rejection of art for art’s sake. Iconoclastic art movements were appearing all around Europe, led by in and Suprematism in Russia. Both movements encompassed an emerging boldness, a feeling of contempt for the confusion of the world around them, and an “uncompromising war on art”.10 In

Suprematism’s case, Malevich described how the use of non-objectivity simplifies the transfer of emotions to the canvas:

Suprematism has opened up new possibilities to create art, since by virtue of the abandonment of so-called “practical considerations”, a feeling rendered on canvas can be carried over into space. The artist (the painter) is no longer

9 Kasimir Malevich, as quoted in “Revolution: Russian Avant-Garde, 1912-1930” MoMa 8 (Autumn 1978): 6. 10 as quoted in “Revolution: Russian Avant-Garde, 1912-1930” MoMa 8 (Autumn 1978) .

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bound to the canvas (the picture plane) and can transfer his compositions from canvas to space.11

Malevich’s Suprematism contended that art was its own reality.12 Realism need not be a still-life or portrait in order to portray reality; for him, there was more “reality” present in geometric shapes because they do not attempt to copy nature, they exist alongside, and indeed form the basis of, the natural.13

Malevich’s idea of Suprematist non-objectivity was only one side of the avant- garde which began in 1915 and persisted after the October Revolution. Closely tied to the Suprematists were those artists who believed that art’s main purpose was not to raise ideas but to serve a utilitarian purpose. Constructivism owes a small debt to

Kasimir Malevich not only due to their shared disdain for old-style objective art, but also because , the so-called father of Constructivism, developed his style while working alongside Malevich; the two had been members of the same avant-garde inner circle in the days of .14 The group consisted of Malevich, Tatlin, Mikhail

Larionov and Nataliya Goncharova, all of whom were considered powerhouses of the

Russian art world. There was apparently much tension between Tatlin and Malevich, and perhaps this tension spurred the journey of Suprematism and Constructivism along divergent paths: the two were regarded as the avant-garde’s “twin catalysts” and were

11 Kasimir Malevich, The Non-Objective World: The Manifesto of Suprematism (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2003) 100. Emphasis original. 12 Paul , “Realisms and Realities,” Realism, Rationalism, : Art Between the Wars (The Open University, 1993) 266. 13 Paul Wood, “Realisms and Realities,” 264. 14 Camilla Gray, The Russian Experiment in Art 133. Primitivism was an artistic style which embraced the primitive state of being, that is the way of life humans possessed before they became involved with complex industry. Primitivists idealized tribal art as well as the artwork of children, similar to the way the English Romantics idealized peasants.

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constantly in competition. Tatlin even set up a tent in his studio, shielding his work from casual observation so that Malevich could not spy on his progress.15 When Malevich flaunted his association with Cubism and his appreciation of the movement, Tatlin publicly declined to profess any interest in Cubism, but was seen drawing nudes in the

Cubist style at home.16 The two had a type of creative and frenetically competitive kinetic energy, pushing each other further and further into the uncharted space of . Their competition was integral to pushing Russian art to the cutting edge of progressivism and perhaps beyond.

Tatlin is credited with being one of the first modern artists to identify the role of the artist as a builder. In 1916 he began experimenting with the idea of “real materials in real space” in his constructions meaning space was incorporated as an element of his art, and his art turned away from painting in favour of installation. There are no frames, so his forms are not bounded or restricted. Instead, they interact with the space around them, in some cases (as with his Corner Reliefs, 1915-1916) even depend on the space around them (see Appendix, Fig.3).17 In the period after the Revolution, the so-called

“first period” characterized by War Communism and the civil war, it was Tatlin’s

Monument to the Third International that became one of the defining art pieces of this new era ushered in by the Bolsheviks (see Appendix, Fig.4). Tatlin had been seized by the breathless anticipation that was gripping the country, and invariably felt obligated to create not only a tribute to the Bolsheviks and their Revolution, but also to create an

15 Vasilii Rakitin, “The Artist and the Prophet: Marginal Notes on Two Artistic Careers,” The Great Utopia, (New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1992) 29. 16 Vasilii Rakitin, “The Artist and the Prophet: Marginal Notes on Two Artistic Careers,” 27. 17 Karl Ruhrberg, Manfred Schneckenburger, Ingo F. Walther, Art of the 20th century, vol. 1 (Cologne: Taschen, 2000) 447.

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actual space in which the Party could operate. The monument was never built, but a small-scale was constructed to demonstrate his vision. This model, in turn, was toured around the countryside as a mobile didactic instrument to show the newly sovietised population what the Communist future would look like: the monument was to be taller than the Eiffel Tower and comprised of a cone, a cube, and a cylinder piece, all of which would be rotating on their own axes. The executive, the headquarters for information and propaganda, and the parliament would be housed in the massive structure. The monument was not only an ode to the Third International, it was the

Third International: it was where the organization members would work, where they would dream up ways to foster revolutionary sentiment and action not only in the USSR but also across the globe. Paul Wood explains: “By attempting to put into practice the principles of a synthesis of painting and sculpture with architecture, thereby intervening in the lived environment rather than standing to one side of it, it was to be not merely a monument to the Third International but its working headquarters...”18 This ambitious if slightly impractical vision was among the first Constructivist pieces which emerged after the Revolution and “heralded art’s claim to have a hand in shaping the new society.”19

Tatlin had a role in influencing one of the most dynamic and prolific of the

Constructivists, . The two first worked together alongside

Malevich and Popova in ‘The Store’ exhibit of 1916. As Camilla Gray states:

From Malevich he [Rodchenko] derived the dynamic axis which characterizes his work throughout, and his use of pure geometric forms...From Tatlin, Rodchenko gained an interest in materials which is reflected in his works of 1916-17 with

18 Paul Wood, “Realisms and Realities,” 269. 19 Karl Ruhrberg, et al, Art of the 20th century, 447.

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their play with surface textures...From a combination of these two influences Rodchenko evolved the system of Constructivist in which he was a pioneer.20

It was with Rodchenko’s input that Constructivism gained its powerful thrust and primacy in the Soviet art world. He and his wife, , and later El

Lissitzky, were at the forefront of the Constructivist movement and largely responsible for the shape it took. I have largely been describing Constructivism as a “utilitarian art form”, meaning art which can be used in a person’s everyday life. Constructivism created uniforms, furniture, kiosks, books, plans for apartment complexes, and so on. It was art that any person (not simply the upper class or the enlightened members of society) could be immersed in, surrounded by, as they lived their lives. This revolutionary idea of art for the people is tied to the idea of the artist as the shaper of culture; artists decree the steps which society must take to achieve utopia, these steps are disseminated via didactic means such as posters, sculpture, and other artistic media, and eventually people will follow the artists’ lead. Lenin agreed with this idea enthusiastically and actively recruited artists to the Bolshevik cause. After 1917 Lenin was “impelled by the conviction reality had indeed changed *and+ commissioned a range of propagandist monuments intended to replace the old images of princes, generals, tsars and so on with images of prominent figures from the socialist tradition.”21 Since most of Russia’s population was composed of peasants who were largely illiterate, having a cadre of artists to explain and proliferate one’s ideas to the general public was

20 Camilla Gray, The Russian Experiment in Art, 213. 21 Paul Wood, “Realisms and Realities,” 268.

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in the best interest of the Bolsheviks. Lenin is quoted as saying, “*Art+ must be intelligible to these masses and loved by them. It must unite the feeling, thought, and will of these masses and elevate them.”22 He had written a pamphlet in 1905 calling for the idea of partiinost in Party organization and literature (partiinost meaning something like the incorporation of literature into Party work). Paul Wood points out that during

Lenin’s leadership, the involvement between the Bolsheviks and the art world was relatively minimal and only intervened in art “that had a functional aspect such as education.”23 Years later, Stalin would also make a comment about the artist as

“engineer of the human soul”, again asserting the importance of artists in being able to mould the consciousness of the masses, and thus being a vital tool in steering society in the direction deemed necessary by the Party.24 Stalin was responsible for bringing the term partiinost back into common usage in the 1930s: at the 1st Party Congress of the

Union of Soviet Writers in 1934, Stalin and Zhdanov announced the new policy of socialist realism. At first the concept only applied to literature, but it soon expanded to fit all of , including studio art, Constructivist art, and . Socialist realism was to be the guiding light of the people: it was to make people proud of their roles as helpers in the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union. Novels were to be like

Hollywood films: they always had to have a happy ending as the hero or heroine battled against impossible odds to achieve victory.25 Socialist realism was described as “the

22 Paul Sjeklocha, Igor Mead, Unofficial Art in the Soviet Union (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967) 28. 23 Paul Wood, “Realisms and Realities,” 321. 24 Orlando Figes, Natasha’s : A Cultural History of Russia (New York: Picador, 2002) 447. 25 Martin McCauley, Stalin and Stalinism, revised 3rd ed, Seminar Studies in History (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2008) 48.

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literary wing of Stalin’s Five-Year Plan,” and ordered the writers to depict the Stalinist drive for industrialization as a huge step forward with no negative impacts whatsoever, and a reflection of Stalin’s genius. The task, then, was to depict reality as the Party wanted it to be, not as it really was. In the art world, realism was demanded over abstraction, it was argued, because a realist picture would make more sense to all those who beheld it. If the painting were clearly of Stalin and not an experimentation with forms or planes, then it was argued that the common person could grasp the meaning of the painting far better. Stalin knew the importance of the arts in relation to the shaping of peoples’ thoughts; he cultivated the finest writers and poets (,

Boris Pasternak) and maintained a personal preference for the work of Aleksandr

Gerasimov, the official “court painter.” In another show of irony, socialist realism was not only practiced by the official court painters, it was also very much refined by El

Lissitzky, Varvara Stepanova and Alexander Rodchenko. and Rodchenko’s collaborative effort USSR in Construction was seen as one of the seminal socialist realist works with its emphasis on the “construction”26 of the USSR being a benefit to the country.

The historiography which pertains to my subject is fairly unified. It is generally accepted that the artists, seeing themselves as social engineers, worked closely with the state and power apparatus and as a result of this alliance capitulated to the demands to conform to Stalin and Zhdanov’s socialist realism. For the most part, historians agree that the Constructivists were tools of the Party who started their careers at the cutting

26 In this case “construction” can mean becoming industrialized, becoming modernized.

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edge of modern art but then kow-towed to the constrains of socialist realism. However,

Maria Gough instead argues in the final chapters of The Artist as Producer that the re- emergence of Realist art pushed forward the use of photomontage in an attempt to capture real life as opposed to an abstract subjectivity. She argues that this demonstrates Constructivism’s adaptability and refers to the continuing careers of the major Constructivists.27 Gough’s book is focussed primarily on the INKhUK (Institut

Khudozhestvennoi Kulturi, “Institute of Artistic Culture”) years, the period in the early

1920s when the Productivists were debating exactly what the role of the artist was and how best to incorporate art into the factory. The inevitable failure of the movement does little to detract from the loftiness of the artists’ original goals and the intensity of their conviction that they truly belonged at the forefront of the Revolution.

Victor Margolin, meanwhile, paints a more tragic image of failed aspirations as

Rodchenko and El Lissitzky died realizing their utopia was nowhere to be found.

Margolin makes a note of both artists’ subtle acts of political resistance within the constraints of the socialist realist system. Margolin’s focus is less an and more a political history, a story of artists dealing with a repressive regime, and I find this point of view to be the most similar to my own approach.28 Paul Wood makes the point that though the art produced by the Constructivists during the 1930s may be powerful, it deviates from what Constructivism set out to be, which was a deviation from “pure

27 I would say Gough characterizes the failure of Constructivism not as a colossal failure, but an inevitable let-down. Her coverage of the INKhUK debates reveals that the movement was already somewhat splintered from within, and the amount of squabbling and back-biting going on between artists spelled out the defeat of the movement long before socialist realism was official policy. Gough, The Artist as Producer, 215. 28 Margolin, The Struggle for Utopia, 163-193.

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and applied art”.29 I firmly agree with this statement, and would argue that this deviation was a result of the artists’ attempt to navigate the treacherous and ever- shifting dictates of Party policy.

Christina Kiaer, one of the foremost scholars of Soviet art, adds an interesting slant to the study of Constructivism with her interpretation of the “object” within

Socialist art and life. In her research she posits that in order to meet the issue of consumer desire, the Constructivists presented the object as a comrade rather than a slave. Her focus is on the early days of Constructivism during the NEP (1921-1928), but she mentions her belief that Constructivism morphed to accommodate to the socialist realism period yet retained its commitment to socialism.30 Her point of view is in opposition to the argument put forward by Christina Lodder and Paul Wood that

Constructivism failed to achieve direct connection with industry due to the state of poverty Russia was in at the time. Lodder states:

The Constructivists’ attempt at direct engagement in industry was not successful...[because] the principal reason why few projects got beyond the drawing board was the material poverty that dominated all Soviet activity in the 1920s. Material and technological standards of a higher level were required for producing industrial prototypes than for producing drawn and traditional artworks.31

Lodder is arguing that the return to pseudo-capitalism characterized by the NEP eventually led to a conservatism in society which preferred realist art over the experimental and abstract. As a result of these new societal confines, the Constructivists

29 Paul Wood, “Realisms and Realities,” 313. 30 Christina Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 2005) 27. 31 Christina Lodder as cited in Imagine No Possessions, 24.

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were forced to conform to this preference and thus to abandon their vision. In summary, Lodder argues that “the historical circumstances of NEP were to blame”32 for the decline of Constructivism.

Kiaer also disagrees with the thesis of Paul Wood’s essay “The Politics of the

Avant-Garde.” In this essay he proposes that the failure of Constructivism is not so much a result of material poverty brought on by War Communism and the NEP, but rather a failure of the Bolsheviks altogether. Wood says, “What is at issue is a far wider ‘failure’: the failure of the October Revolution itself. The failure of Constructivism or, indeed, the

‘left front’ of is best regarded as a symptom of this larger defeat.”33 In

Wood’s opinion, Constructivism’s demise was political. Due to the new societal parameters set by the NEP, the Constructivists had to re-adapt their vision to suit this new age. While Wood argues that War Communism granted Constructivism its artistic and political frame, Kiaer suggests that the NEP was key in the formation of the

Constructivist movement, indeed she refers to it as the “crucible” of the socialist object: without the NEP and the artistic tastes of the new bourgeoisie, the Constructivists would not have been forced to look at the idea of a mass produced socialist object so clearly. Thus the “compromise” with realism which Lodder posits as the end of

Constructivism is, in Kiaer’s opinion, “a side effect of their larger strategies for working toward the creation of future socialist objects in a transitional period.”34 Kiaer maintains throughout her book that the periods of War Communism and NEP were reminders that

32 Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions, 25. 33 Paul Wood as cited in Christina Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions, 25. 34 Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions, 26.

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the shift from pre-Revolutionary society to Communist utopia was still very much in progress, and in response to their society being in such a state of flux the avant-garde produced objects which were also of a transitional nature, designed to accompany its owner-comrade from the uncertain times of NEP to the projected endpoint of a full- blown Communist society.

Another critique regarding Constructivism’s success or failure as an art movement is that of Boris Groys. In his book The Total Art of Stalinism, he describes the artist-as-producer as having created Stalin, and Stalin as being the movement incarnate.

In his view, Constructivism did not fail to achieve its political goals; rather, its goals were realized in the formation of socialist realism. This point of view is wildly divergent from the commonly held view that socialist realism was the death knell for real art. Groys explains this phenomenon as follows:

[S]ocialist realism was not created by the masses but was formulated in their name by well-educated and experienced elites who had assimilated the experience of the avant-garde and been brought to socialist realism by the internal logic of the avant-garde method itself, which had nothing to do with the actual tastes and demands of the masses.35

Groys’ argument, though thrilling, is heavily critiqued by authors such as Christina Kiaer,

Catherine Merridale and Catherine Evtuhov, who say that despite these grandiose claims, Groys does little to actually back them up. Evtuhov in particular describes Groys’ thesis as “disturbing in its own claim to totality.”36 In addition, Groys’ scope extends far

35 Boris Groys, The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond, trans. Charles Rougle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992) 9. 36 Catherine Evtuhov, review of The Total Art of Stalinism, by Boris Groys, Russian Review 53.3 (1994): 438.

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beyond the Stalinist period from the 1920s up to the present day. For a book which has only 120 pages, it seems impossible to cover so many decades in such a small span of pages. I must say that I find Groys’ argument fascinating, but I cannot wholeheartedly subscribe to it when it lacks a historical backbone.

I find myself agreeing most emphatically with the school of thought brought forth by Margolin and touched on by Kiaer and Wood which suggests the Constructivists were defeated not by economic scarcity but by socialist realism. Their dedication to a socialist utopia had been of utmost importance to their art during the 1920s, and when the Stalinist regime began restricting their art and perverting the ideals of the

Revolution, they became disenchanted and Constructivism eventually faded away. The irony is that they were defeated attempting to serve the political ideology they revered: by entangling themselves too closely to the Communist Party (by then the Stalinist

Party), they ended up ensuring their own destruction.

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Chapter 2: The Avante-Garde Ascendant

The tumultuous years after the October Revolution cemented the Bolshevik grasp on power as well as the unwavering loyalty of the left-wing avant-garde. The non-objective painters and Suprematists were completely enamoured with the Bolsheviks and their promise of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and thus signed on completely to the

Communist agenda. The years immediately following 1917 seemed like a wide-open door for all of the Soviet Union: they were well on their way to achieving socialism, and by their example they could lead the entire world toward a communist future. Even in the shaky and incredibly harsh years of the Civil War, the artists stood ready. When

Lenin clamped down on the country with his policy of War Communism, a policy which ran the country in a very militarized, very heavy-handed fashion and included rationing

(or requisitioning) food, there was nary a complaint from the left-wing artists. The Party drew even more favour when the People’s Comissariat for Education (Narkompros) headed by Anatolii Lunacharskii developed a special subsection (IZO Narkompros) which catered specifically to the . Under the aegis of the state, many workshops were created with pure experimentation in mind. They were run by artists, thus the artists had free rein to produce art in whichever fashion they deemed appropriate. The

NEP period was especially beneficial for experimentation and produced some of the most daring works. Four major workshops appeared from 1919 to 1924: Unovis

(Suprematist), Obmokhu (Constructivist), Inkhuk (Constructivist), and

(Constructivist). As we will see, the membership base of Obmokhu, Inkhuk, and

Vkhutemas is somewhat incestuous. Members of Obmokhu frequently attended Inkhuk

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meetings, and were likely to be students or teachers at Vkhutemas. I will be elaborating on the goals and practices of each of these groups in order to differentiate one from the other and to show how being a member of one group would influence how the artists related to their work.

Unovis was founded by Kasimir Malevich in 1919 as his own school of art, though

“school” was perhaps not the best word to describe it. Referred to as a “school, a commune, an organization, and a program,”37 Unovis was created when invited Malevich to the School of Art as a teacher. At that time Chagall’s group was called MOLPOSNOVIS (“Young Followers of the New Art”) but due to violent disagreements between Malevich and Chagall, Malevich became the leader of the group and Chagall left for .38 Under Malevich’s leadership the whole program was reformed and Unovis was formally created in 1920 as a commanding center for the emerging avant-garde.39 Under the leadership of not only Malevich but also El Lissitzky,

Unovis produced cutting-edge Suprematist art and art theories. To explain why the school chose to head in the direction of Suprematism when the other school of thought chose production art, Sarah Bodine says:

[Malevich] opposed the philosophy of the Moscow SVOMAS, that equal representation should be given to all artistic movements, believing instead that a single creative force should guide the study and practice of art. Of course,

37 Alexandra Shatskikh, “Unovis: Epicenter of a New World,” The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915-1932 (New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 1992) 53. 38Sarah Bodine, “UNOVIS: Art as Process,” Ilya Grigorevich Chashnik, Lyucite/1920-Leningrad/1929 (Leonard Hutton Galleries, New York, 1979) 26. 39 The name Unovis (Utverditeli Novogo Iskusstva) implies as much. It means “Champions/Affirmers of the New Art.”

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Malevich chose his own Suprematist theories as the foundation for the Vitebsk studios.40

The school’s location in Vitebsk, in modern-day Belarus, is of note: the big art schools at this time (Obmokhu was only one of the eleven art collectives41) were situated in

Moscow, so founding a new art school far away from the tumult of the capital could produce purer, more clear-headed art. This is not to say that Suprematism was not influenced by Bolshevism: it certainly was. The main thrust of Unovis was to cooperate with the Bolshevik government in order to introduce Suprematist art to the masses, much like the Constructivist schools sought to do. Believing in the cooperative nature of art and ideas, the group did not sign their works with their initials. Rather, all works produced by the Unovis group were “signed” with the insignia of Malevich’s Black

Square, which became the group’s official logo. Unovis members also sewed the black square on to the cuffs of their sleeves, the part nearest their palms, in obeisance to

Malevich’s slogan: “The overturning of the old world of arts will be etched across your palms.”42 Under this seal the Unovis group plastered Vitebsk with Suprematist imagery.

In addition to paintings, reliefs, and porcelains, Unovis produced Suprematist children’s books, a Suprematist ballet, and cooperated with Aleksei Kurchenykh to produce

“”. They dabbled in almost all accessible media in order to produce an all-encompassing blanket of Suprematist design.

To better promote the Unovis school and its ideas, the group travelled extensively throughout the USSR. They distributed Malevich’s seminal work on

40 Sarah Bodine, “UNOVIS: Art as Process,” 26. 41 Sarah Bodine, “UNOVIS: Art as Process,” 27. 42 Aleksandra Shatskikh, “Unovis: Epicenter of a New World,” 63.

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Suprematism, On New Systems in Art, throughout the country. Their propaganda posters appeared in Odessa, Moscow, and Smolensk, and they exhibited alongside the

Constructivists in Moscow. This exhibition not only showcased the very finest of Unovis’ works, it was also when Lissitzky began producing his influential Prouns, works of non- objective art described as “the place where painting would ‘change trains’ to the spatial effects of architecture.”43 Lissitzky’s work would become famous for blurring the boundaries between Suprematism and Constructivism (see Appendix, Figure 11).

Despite an exhibition together, the Suprematists and Constructivists were not cooperating. Tatlin and Malevich still antagonized each other, and Malevich openly called the Constructivists “lackeys of the factory and of production.”44 Malevich’s goal was to transform the world through comprehending the “real”, the “utilitarian organisms *in the+ unified system of the world architecture of the earth.”45 Suprematism was philosophical where Constructivism focussed on the technical and the “actual.”

Unovis came to an end in 1922. Its ten star pupils (including Ilya Chashnik and

Nina Kogan) graduated in May, and followed Malevich to Petrograd where he hoped to establish a new Unovis. A year earlier, art institutions such as the Vitebsk School had gone from the jurisdiction of Narkompros to Glavprofobr (the Chief Administration for

Professional Education), which did not offer the school any support, financial or otherwise. Malevich and other members of Unovis, including those who remained in

Vitebsk, tried unsuccessfully to revive the phenomenon that had exploded in 1919, but

43 Alan C. Birnholz, “Notes on the Chronology of El Lissitzky’s Proun Compositions,” The Art Bulletin 55.3 (Sept. 1973): 437. 44 Shatskikh, “Unovis: Epicenter of a New World,” 60. 45 Shatskikh, “Unovis: Epicenter of a New World,” 59.

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its momentum had been lost and the school was no longer en vogue. A letter from Ivan

Chervinka to Ilya Chashnik and Nikolai Suetin in 1924 reveals the mood:

[Ephraim Rayak] says that UNOVIS is no more, and underlines the no. But I think that UNOVIS was and will be and that the group from UNOVIS is so complex that there can’t even be a discussion about it breaking up. Let there be three to five people with a single thought, a single will, and then thousands.46

Obmokhu

Obmokhu47 is referred to by many art historians as the key element in the formation of

Constructivism as a practice and a theory. It is not coincidental that many key

Constructivists (Karl Ioganson, the , and Varvara Stepanova to name a few) established their reputations in Obmokhu. The group’s origins, like the origins of so many workshops emerging at this time, are somewhat ambiguous, but the facts are that

Obmokhu’s origins lie in the in Moscow. From this school emerged young and talented artists who formed the “workshop without a supervisor” at the First

Free State School, also in Moscow. A letter from a member of the “workshop without a supervisor,” Georgii Echeistov, to his friend and fellow artist Georgii Schtenin, reveals how Obmokhu began to form:

Still, my being secretary pays off—I’ve been in the thick of things. A society of young artists, Obmolkhud, is being organized. I wrote the bylaws. (I emended

46 Ivan Chervinka, as cited in Sarah Bodine “UNOVIS: Art as Process,” 31. 47 Obshchestvo molodykh khudozhnikov or “Society of Young Artists.”

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them today, they need reworking and polishing.)...We’re organizing it to combat the artists in authority who exploit young talent...48

This letter was written in September 1919. The “obmolkhud” to which he refers was

Obmokhu’s original name. This letter reveals not only the date when Obmokhu began to form, but also that the group took itself seriously enough to require formal bylaws.

This is not surprising given the amount of importance artists placed on their work in terms of revolutionary and didactic potential. This didactic potential was certainly what one of the leaders of Narkompros, Anatolii Lunacharskii, had in mind when he decided to mould Obmokhu from a typical art workshop into a formal agit-production workshop in September 1920.49 The “leaderless” nature of Obmokhu made it a far better candidate for Lunacharskii’s vision than did Unovis, where Malevich was clearly in charge. With Obmokhu, Lunacharskii could simply step in and begin giving directions without having to butt heads with any existing leaders.

As an agent of Narkompros, Obmokhu accepted commissions to produce posters, paintings, installation art, and other forms of art which the state would need.

Official documents say the Obmokhu produced, among other things, “a poster supporting the Decree on the Abolition of Illiteracy...the execution of four stamps for the All-Russian Special to Abolish Illiteracy...thirty-six monumental panels

*made from sheets of iron roofing+” and other commissions paid for by Narkompros’s

Financial Department. 50 Where the Unovis group, Malevich’s Suprematist workshop

48 Aleksandra Shatskikh, “A Brief History of Obmokhu,” The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant- Garde, 1915-1932 (Guggenheim Museum Publications: New York, 1992)260-261. Italics added. 49 Shatskikh, “A Brief History of Obmokhu,” 262-263. 50 Shatskikh, “A Brief History of Obmokhu,” 263.

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which emerged at the same time, dreamed of collaborating with the state, Obmokhu and its members were being actively cultivated by the Party.

Obmokhu firmly established its presence in the modern art world with its Second

Exhibition in May 1921 (see Appendix, Figure 5).51 This exhibition showcased the work of Obmokhu members as well as some of the greats from Vkhutemas, such as

Rodchenko. Within the larger exhibition, a smaller gallery was dedicated to

“Constructivist” works. The Second Exhibition was thus an intersection of schools and of styles. The Constructivist gallery was hailed by the artistic community as a huge achievement. El Lissitzky, writing for a magazine, noted that the works of art were hung not only on the walls but in the hallways as well.52 Constructivism was entering what Maria Gough calls its “laboratory phase,” meaning the stage at which artists were negotiating how best to balance composition and construction within a , as well as how to move from the easel to three dimensions. There were many debates regarding what exactly defined a “composition” or a “construction”, but the general consensus was that a “composition” was more a product of easel painting and involved the incorporation of many aesthetic frivolities in order to make the product look pleasing. Stepanova’s thoughts on composition were as follows:

Only construction demands the absence of both excess materials and excess elements. In composition, exactly the opposite is the case—there, everything is based upon excess...The little flower on the side of a teacup is absolutely unnecessary for its constructive purposefulness, but it is needed as a tasteful element, as a compositional element.53

51 Until recently, this exhibition had been referred to as the Third Exhibition of Obmokhu, and older sources still refer to it thusly. 52 Maria Gough, “Karl Ioganson’s Cold Structures,” October 84 (Spring 1998): 93. 53 Varvara Stepanova as cited in Maria Gough, The Artist as Producer: Russian Constructivism in Revolution (University of California Press: Berkeley, 2005) 44.

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Construction was much more sterile and austere, involving only the components essential for the piece to function; there was less of a place for tastefulness and more place for function when the piece was stripped down. In addition, composition tended to occur in two dimensions whereas construction was more suited to three dimensions.

The construction/composition debate had raged between Inkhuk members, particularly in 1921, when the Obmokhu exhibition took place. Since all Obmokhu members were part of Inkhuk as well, the Second Exhibition can be seen as the zenith of the construction/composition debate. This may also explain why so many critics and art historians, upon looking back, see the Obmokhu exhibition as being a heavily

Constructivist exhibition, despite Obmokhu having more than future Constructivists in its midst.

As Lissitzky mentioned, the Second Exhibition was when the artists, Ioganson in particular, began throwing themselves into three dimensional production art, characterized by Ioganson, Medunetskii and Rodchenko’s so-called “spatial constructions.” Maria Gough explains the difference between a spatial construction and a sculpture as:

[A spatial form is] an altogether new kind of work that, although sharing the three-dimensional space of sculpture, is not on any account to be confused with monumental sculpture, with its traditional connotations of mass, gravity, immobility, and permanence...The new spatial construction advances space itself—“empty” space—as “concrete” material. It orchestrates this material but does not fill it; it declares volume with recourse to neither mass nor weight; and it dissolves the customary distinction between the exterior and interior of form.54

54 Maria Gough, The Artist as Producer: Russian Constructivism in Revolution (University of California Press: Berkeley, 2005) 66.

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The spatial construction also embodied a sense of fluidity and movement, as characterized by Rodchenko’s Hanging Spatial Constructions (see Appendix, Figure 6) and Konstantin Medunetskii’s Spatial Construction. Both artists employed curvature to grant the appearance of fluidity, differentiating their constructions from Ioganson’s.

Though Ioganson submitted spatial constructions to the exhibition, he was also toying with the idea of “cold structures” meaning rigid, immobile structures. The goal of the cold structure was to not appear “worked” and instead to show how movement is present even in a rigid structure.55

Divisions and subdivisions within the artistic community were present even at the Obmokhu exhibition. Debates raged between Rodchenko, Stepanova, and the

Stenberg brothers concerning the exact nature of “construction” or “composition”, and even when a middle ground was reached, artists still sought to out-do each other.

Despite supposedly working within a collective, the artists’ egos continued to bubble up.

These personality clashes pushed Constructivism forward from its laboratory phase into the movement we recognize today, though they also caused divides and splintering within the larger movement. For a better understanding of the debates and their context, a closer look at Inkhuk is necessary.

55 Because of the tension present within the cold structure, as well as any tension added by an outside force, the cold structure is always moving imperceptibly.

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Inkhuk

The Moscow Inkhuk (Institut Khudozhestvennoy Kultury, Institute of Artistic Culture) was active from 1921 to 1924, a time characterized not only by fierce artistic debate but also by the advent of the NEP. War Communism, the USSR’s prior policy characterized by the obliteration of private enterprise and the distribution of commodities such as food and weapons according to need, had almost sunk the entire country’s economy. In order to prevent collapse, Lenin sanctioned the return to partial capitalism, meaning some sectors of the economy remained state-owned and others were privatized. Though

Lenin argued the return of a market economy was the last crucial step before socialism could take hold, other Party members were disgusted by this apparent retreat. To some it seemed as if the country had been dragged through the Revolution and the ensuing

Civil War in order to return to the starting point. In the realm of politics, Lenin silenced dissent by outlawing factionalism within the Party. In the realm of art, most of the work was being done for him. The artists at this time were almost unanimously on Lenin’s side, especially the Constructivists and other artists embracing non-objectivity.

Rodchenko’s “Manifesto of Suprematists and Non-Objective Painters,” written in 1919 demonstrates as much. It reads:

...Objects died yesterday. We live in an abstract spiritual creativity. We are creators of non-objectivity. ...We glorify the revolution aloud as the only engine of life. We glorify the vibrations of the inventors. ...Innovators of all times and countries, inventors, builders of the new, eternally new, we are rushing into the eternity of achievements.

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...Today we reiterate that even now we will not yield to the so-called proletariat of former monarchist lackeys, to the intelligentsia, which has taken the place of the previous bureaucrats.56

As the document suggests, the artists were eagerly attempting to show their commitment to the revolution and its ideals. They were not about to compromise their vision, despite the slight “retreat” of the NEP. Their rejection of the “bourgeois” use of easel painting, not to mention their desire to purge any lingering bourgeois taint by tearing down museums and old architecture, was the ultimate zenith of Marxism. In order to start their dream society off on the proper foot, they argued, everything inherited from the old society had to be purged absolutely. This extended not only to old works of art, but to uncooperative peasants (so misguided!) and members of the clergy (so retrogressive!) as well. The artists, like artists throughout history and around the world, were rebelling against the old, in this case everything that remained from the anachronistic tsarist state. Unlike artists in other parts of the world, whose efforts were often individual, the Russian avant-garde was able to function in a collective as well as have the support of the emerging state in an effort to dismantle all traces of the USSR’s bourgeois past. The artists were eager to help further the progress of the Soviet Union, and were convinced any step, no matter how radical, would surely be justified later on.

Their zeal for revolution was such that they surpassed hard-line Party members and even made them slightly uneasy. Their art, austere, spare, and monochromatic, seemed inaccessible to some Party members, the very people for whom the art was being produced. Even Lenin admitted to finding the work of the avant-garde a bit too abstract

56 Aleksandr Rodchenko, “From the Manifesto of Suprematists and Non-Objective Painters,” Rodchenko: Experiments for the Future, trans. Jamey Gambrell (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2005) 85, 86.

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for his taste. He once admitted, “I am incapable of considering the works of

Expressionism, Futurism, Cubism, and other ‘isms’ the highest manifestation of artistic genius. I do not understand them.”57 Despite this communication breakdown, the artists continued to be sure of the importance of their art to the state.

Inkhuk, like Obmokhu, had been formed under the umbrella agency of

Narkompros. It had originally existed as The Council of Masters, comprising all the leading artistic figures of Russia at the time: Kandinsky, Rodchenko, Aleksandr

Shevchenko, and Robert Falk, to name a few. The original goal of the Inkhuk prototype was to seek help organizing exhibitions and accruing funds for the artists. However,

Kandinsky decided to take the organization in a more experimental and theoretical direction, focusing on creative expression and generally pushing the artistic envelope.58

The goal of the organization was to experiment as much as possible with art and all its facets, and to research such things as faktura (the materiality of a surface), line, and colour. As a result of this change in direction, Inkhuk came into being. The new membership base was also similar to Obmokhu: Karl Ioganson, the Stenberg brothers,

Konstantin Medunetskii, Aleksandr Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova were Inkhuk’s most prominent and prolific members.59 Aside from artists, there were also art

57 Vladimir Lenin as cited in Solomon Volkov, The Magical Chorus: A History of from Tolstoy to Solzhenitsyn, trans. Antonina W. Bouis (New York: Knopf, 2008) 73. 58 Rodchenko: Experiments for the Future, 135, note 53. 59 Karl Ioganson was a Latvian artist who has been one of the most enigmatic members of Inkhuk. Maria Gough’s work has done much to illuminate Ioganson’s work and his importance to the Constructivist movement. He worked primarily within the realm of “construction,” his three-dimension pieces seeking to negotiate the transition between aesthetics and function. The Stenberg brothers, Georgii and Vladimir, became famous for being the founding members of Obmokhu and for participating in its exhibitions, as well as for exhibiting Constructivist works in at the Erste Russische Kunst Ausstellung in 1922. Konstantin Medunetskii was another key founder of Obmokhu. His background was in stage design and sculpture, which can be seen in his three dimensional Spatial Constructions exhibited at the Second

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historians, mathematicians, and music teachers present at Inkhuk meetings, in order to demonstrate how each element could add a facet to the overall meaning of “art.”

Drawings were presented for critique, and debates were had; Inkhuk was an intellectual sounding board and a workshop at the same time. The debate regarding composition versus construction continued, and every Inkhuk member had a different theory regarding the two. There were four theories in all. Stepanova’s “Organic Unity” theory was the most straightforward, stating that construction was not necessarily a purely three-dimensional occurrence: construction could also be present within a painting due to the ways in which the colours and shapes interacted. If one aspect was changed, the entire picture was altered. The most complicated theory was Ioganson’s. This theory was born after he surmised that the constructions/compositions produced by Inkhuk members fulfilled neither criterion. They were, as he said, “only pictures.”60 His solution to the problem was found through the employment of diagrams to show difference as well as issues of dimensionality (see Appendix, Figure 12). In his Plan of a Composition:

Natur-morte, a diagram of a still-life (an apple, a bottle, and a glass on top of a tablecloth, on top of a table), he suggests that compositions can function in three dimensions, a realm previously thought to be exclusive to constructions. Maria Gough adds:

Exhibition in 1921. Aleksandr Rodchenko had his first taste of Constructivism when he worked with Vladimir Tatlin on Corner Reliefs in the Cafe Pittoresque in Moscow in 1915. He was one of the most prolific Constructivists and a firm believer that artists should enter the factory. He switched from installation art to photomontage in 1928. Varvara Stepanova was Rodchenko’s wife, and another influential Constructivist. She later taught at Vkhutemas and, with Liubov’ Popova, entered the textile industry to produce sportswear. 60 Gough, The Artist as Producer, 50.

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The schematic rendering of Plan of a Composition: Natur-morte thus articulates...the very excess defined by the Working Group...as that which delimits composition from construction. In other words, Ioganson presents not a picture—in the sense of “only pictures” submitted by his colleagues—but rather a rhetorically efficacious model of composition...By attending closely to the form of articulation –to the means of signification itself—Ioganson finds a means by which to articulate the excess deemed intrinsic to composition, while also preserving the deductive thesis of construction...61

The “deductive thesis” to which she refers was one of the theories advanced by

Rodchenko. To further the composition/construction debate Rodchenko advanced two theories: the utilitarian thesis and the “Nascent Theory of Deductive Structure.” Since the Working Group ended up embracing the utilitarian thesis and basing their manifesto on it, I will place emphasis on it as well. It suggests that a utilitarian object (in his example, a lamp) can be fully compositional. Rodchenko therefore defined construction as “the existence of a purpose or goal in the organization of a work’s elements and materials.”62 Thus, construction is a matter of intent rather than a matter of three- dimensionality. The reverse of this argument is his “Nascent Theory of Deductive

Structure” which has to do with achieving unity between the work of art plus its canvas, and the work of art as a whole. Rodchenko says:

There are two moments in construction: [i] the construction of the forms themselves, independently of their disposition on the canvas, and [ii] the construction of the whole work in accordance with the dimensions of the canvas.63

Rodchenko is suggesting that by designing with the entirety of the object in mind, accounting for all aspects involved in the end product (paint, canvas, frame) leaves

61 Gough, The Artist as Producer, 52, 56. 62 Maria Gough, The Artist as Producer, 47. 63 Gough, The Artist as Producer, 48. Emphasis original.

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nothing to aesthetics. One part of the work is of no more importance to the others because they are all important elements of the same product. Rodchenko’s showpiece at Inkhuk’s “5 x 5=25” exhibition in 1921 demonstrated his idea that aesthetics were no longer necessary. His piece was three canvases, each a single colour: one red, one yellow, one blue. In response to the questioning looks, Rodchenko declared that this work entitled Pure Red Color; Pure Yellow Color; Pure Blue Color represented an end to painting (see Appendix, Figure 7). He declared that pure art could go no further in two dimensions.64 The Pure canvases marked the beginning of Rodchenko’s departure from painting and his embrace of production art.

The composition/construction debate is only one of the many debates which raged through the artistic community in Moscow in the Inkhuk years. These debates led to splintering and factionalism, and eventually four groups emerged, one of which was the Working Group of Constructivists.65 Inkhuk was pushing the artistic boundaries at such an incredible pace that soon even Kandinskii was seen as passé. He was ousted from his position in 1921 and moved to Germany to work with the artists.

Rodchenko had a few parting shots regarding the irrelevancy of Kandinskii’s work to the new art. In terms of the use of line, Rodchenko said:

[T]he inaccurate, trembling line traced by the hand cannot compare with the straight and precise line drawn with the set square, reproducing the design exactly. Handcrafted work will have to try to be more industrial. Drawing as it was conceived in the past loses its value and is transformed into diagram or geometrical projection.66

64 Victor Margolin, The Struggle for Utopia: Rodchenko, Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy 1917-1946 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997) 81. 65 Christina Lodder, “The Transition to Constructivism,” The Great Utopia, 272. 66 Briony Fer, “The Language of Construction,” Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism: Art Between the Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993) 113.

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Line itself was a part of the composition/construction debate, and hand-drawn lines were now an anachronism (see Appendix, Figure 14). Lines drawn with a set square could be reproduced exactly and represented the tools which had been used to draw them, tools more closely associated with draftsmanship than with painting. The hand- drawn lines of Kandinskii were too personal and emotional, and thus too closely tied to aesthetics based on personal interpretation for them to be of use to the Constructivists.

After his display at Inkhuk’s exhibition, Rodchenko was invited to work at the

Moscow Vkhutemas (Vysshiye Khudozhestvenno-Tekhnicheskiye Masterskiye- Higher Art and Technical Studios-) as the head of the metalwork factory. He had been a teacher previously, but was promoted due to his thoughts on the new direction for revolutionary art. The Vkhutemas was a technical school/art workshop specializing in metalwork, textiles (taught by Popova and Stepanova), and more “traditional” artistic courses such as colour, volume in space, and a history of Western art.67 It was therefore unlike Inkhuk in that it was concerned with practical applications of new artistic theory, and not just debating or introducing new theories. The work of Vkhutemas came into its own in 1924 up until its closure in 1930. The work of Varvara Stepanova and Liubov’

Popova is of particular importance, and will be discussed in greater detail in the following chapter.

The one work of art from this period whose importance cannot be overstated is

Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International. Its influence and power is apparent when one considers that it is the monument which everyone seized upon as a sign that whole

67 Rodchenko, Experiments for the Future, 273, note 74.

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country was on the cusp of a historical turning point in all respects. The art world was changing, and society was changing as well. Though I have already described the basic structure in chapter one, it is worth reiterating here that Tatlin’s intent was for the monument to be the headquarters of the Comintern, and thus the epicentre of

Communism worldwide. The tower so impressed the Party that a miniature model was toured around the countryside to show how progressive the government was. Nikolai

Punin wrote:

We declare: only the might of the multimillion proletarian consciousness could throw into the world the concept of this monument-form; it must be materialized by the muscles of that might, since we have here an ideal, live and classic manifestation of the international union of the workers of the globe in a pure and creative form.68

The monument embodied more than a representation of the changing art world; it was a symbol for an entire movement. It was a symbol of such tremendous potency that the

Party embraced it thoroughly for their own didactic purposes.

The early years of Bolshevik Russia were a period of boundless potential. Despite the harshness of the Civil War and the overwhelming threat of White Victory, artistic expression enjoyed explosive growth after the Revolution. By 1921 the threat of counter-revolution supported from abroad had receded, although troubling signs such as the March revolt of the Kronstadt Garrison showed that the Bolshevik state was not yet secure. Still for the supporters of the new regime, both within the Party and without, it was clear that under Lenin’s leadership, the state was being drawn toward socialism in an unwavering trajectory. The artists knew this was so because they were

68 Nikolai Punin, “The Monument to the Third International,” Tatlin ed. Larissa Zhadova (New York: Rizzoli International Publications) 346.

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Lenin’s firmest supporters; he was never questioned because they knew any measure he took, regardless of how authoritarian (like War Communism) or how mollifying (like the NEP), was always a step toward socialism. The mood of boundless potential is encapsulated by the amount of artistic workshops, their vast productivity, and the competition between the schools which pushed artistic creativity farther than it had ever gone before. It must also be remembered that most of the artistic creativity was actually endorsed by the state. It was under the aegis of Izo Narkompros that an exhibition as avant-garde as Obmokhu’s Second Exhibition was able to be presented. It was Lunacharskii’s that kept commissions rolling in to Obmokhu as well.

Tatlin’s monument was the embodiment of this new fusion between the state and art. It was not only one of the peaks achieved by Constructivism’s hybrid of functionality and art in real space, but had it been constructed, it would have been the embodiment of state power housed within the arms of art. The administration would have been representing itself with Constructivism. The artistic freedom of 1920s Russia was absolute, and was permitted to be as audacious as it wanted. Like the forward-thinking

Party members they idolized, the Constructivists and Suprematists worked to produce something that had not been seen elsewhere in the world, and that the rest of the world could look to when their time for revolution came.

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Chapter 3: State Control Reasserted

The cooperation between art and the state continued into the mid-1920s. The continued policy of NEP left the country in need of a way to address the re-emerging consumer class in order to get them to continue buying things, but also to remind them that the NEP was only a temporary stop on the way to socialism. The work at Inkhuk and

Vkhutemas had inspired the Constructivists to stop their attempts to use traditional forms of art to inspire the masses. Instead, what the new proletariat needed was for the artists to enter factories and produce functional art. However, the relationship between the artist and politics was about to undergo a fundamental change. In 1924, Lenin died after a series of strokes which had left him greatly enfeebled and immobile. Political in- fighting, especially between the troika of Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev on the one hand, and on the other seized the party until Stalin had finally out-manoeuvred his opponents by exile from the Soviet Union or by removing them from the Politburo.

The NEP continued to exist, to the joy of some and the disgust of others, until Stalin was prompted to take further control over the country’s agriculture and industry, beginning the first of his Five Year Plans as well as his policy of collectivisation in 1927. It was in this changing and uncertain climate that the Constructivists now found themselves. The extent of Stalin’s capriciousness would not be revealed until the 1930s, but Lenin’s death signalled some very definite changes in the arts, especially in relation to the ever- present NEP, which forced some rethinking regarding the artists’ stance toward consumerism and advertising.

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After 1925, production art no longer seemed to offer all that the Constructivists had earlier hoped it would. Their attempts to enter industry to produce art of real importance for the proletariat had borne little fruit: their designs for utilitarian objects such as stoves, furniture, and clothing had not been selected for mass production and distribution. Rodchenko, one of the most enthusiastic supporters of artists entering production, abandoned the idea in 1928 and began experimenting with photomontage work instead. Not only were the Constructivists withdrawing from the idea of production art, by the late 1920s the feeling of artistic freedom was no longer as prevalent as it had once been. Once Lunacharskii was ousted in 1929, the tolerance for non-objective art diminished significantly. Realism had never really vanished from the artistic scene, even during the years that had been dominated by non-objective art -- especially in the 1917-1921 period. In fact, realism began to experience a revival, as some artists claimed that a realistic representation of life was necessary in order to best represent the everyday lives of the proletariat and the peasantry and other socialist

“heroes.”69 Following the Realist tradition of the 19th century, AKhR (“Association of

Artists of the Revolution”) rejected the non-representative art of the Suprematists and

Constructivists. The rejection of art for art’s sake and the declaration of a death of art appalled the Realists, as they thought this would lead to “Man as an automaton.”70 The emerging Realist groups sought to maintain a Marxist outlook while synthesizing it with representation and emotion. These artists were not at all on the fringe- they received

69 Briony Fer, “The Language of Construction,” Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism: Art Between the Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993) 120. 70 John E. Bowlt, “Russian Art in the Nineteen Twenties,” Soviet Studies 22.4 (1971): 585.

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many private commissions which allowed their work to continue uninterrupted.71 Most

Party members recognized art as being realistic representation (still-lives, portraits, etc) and were exasperated with the minimalist and non-representational work that was the fashion of the early 1920s. Stalin was especially tired of the avant-garde art movements: his taste was for realist art specifically. In response to the shift toward more traditional forms of painting, photomontage became increasingly popular. Rodchenko became a pioneer of photomontage after he abandoned the idea of production art. However, his photos, with their sharp lines and crisp use of black and white still contained many

Constructivist echoes. He first began to experiment with in 1923, when he worked on the magazine LEF (Left Front of the Arts) with . The magazine was sponsored by the Party and was a mouthpiece for the cultural turn away from the individual and the importance of the artist/poet/director as a “cultural worker with technical mastery of a particular medium.”72 With the likes of ,

Dziga Vertov, and contributing, the magazine was representative of some of the cultural scene’s most innovative minds. Rodchenko would go on to collaborate with all three in some way: for example, in 1923 he produced the poster for Vertov’s Kino- glaz, in 1925 he produced the movie poster for Eisenstein’s , and he was the subject of many of Brik’s formalist dissertations. The Formalists of OPOYAZ

(“Society for the Study of Poetic Language”), of which Brik was a member, and the

Constructivists had some distinct similarities in terms of their thoughts on the collective

71 Bowlt, “Russian Art in the Nineteen Twenties,” 587. 72 Victor Margolin, The Struggle for Utopia: Rodchenko, Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy 1917-1946 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997) 105.

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nature of culture73 as well as the possibility of assembling and dissembling elements; in the Constructivists’ case this was done through form and material, and in the Formalists’ case this was done with language.74 In a LEF article published in 1923, Brik describes

OPOYAZ’s contribution to proletarian culture as follows:

(1) A scientific system instead of a chaotic accumulation of facts and personal

opinions.

(2) A social evaluation of creative people instead of an idolatrous interpretation

of the ‘language of the gods.’

(3) A knowledge of the laws of production instead of a ‘mystical’ penetration

into the creation.75

The shared idea of the importance of a scientific, or at least formal, analysis of their work, as well as the shared idea of the meaninglessness of the individual is what bonded the Formalists and Constructivists together in a united “left front.” Indeed, it was this cooperation that allowed for the formation of LEF. Rodchenko used the covers of LEF much as he used canvas and paint: the letters were bold and blocky, rigid, and the colour scheme was always black and red, or some combination of black and the primary colours.76 The covers of LEF were also seen as echoes of Rodchenko’s posters, and indicative of a definite style. Margolin adds: “What he accomplished in graphic terms was to promote a new declamatory visual rhetoric that other Soviet artists picked up and employed frequently during the 1920s...Although his style was never officially

73 Best exemplified by Brik’s quote, “There are no writers and poets, there is only writing and poetry.” Fer, “The Language of Construction,” 120. 74 Fer, “The Language of Construction,” 122. 75 Fer, “The Language of Construction,” 122. 76 Margolin, The Struggle for Utopia, 106.

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adopted by the Communist party’s publishing enterprises, it was, nonetheless, found suitable for a number of state-sponsored publications.”77 One of these state-sponsored endeavours was his collaboration with Mayakovsky on the anthology of poems “About

It” which featured eight and a cover designed by Rodchenko. The titular poem, pertaining to Mayakovsky’s affair with Osip Brik’s wife, Lili, was interpreted by

Rodchenko in a theatrical way; his use of photomontage builds a mood while also setting a pace. Usually such a fan of diagonal lines in order to create the illusion of movement, Rodchenko chose to shoot the cover photo of Lili Brik from the front, straight-on (see Appendix, Figure 8). Lili Brik’s hundred-mile stare is the focal point of the photo, implying the sombre, obsessive themes of the poem. Mayakovsky and

Rodchenko were also asked to collaborate to produce advertisements for large companies which pushed consumer goods, but with a revolutionary context. With

Mayakovsky’s slogans (for example, “Protector in rain and slush. Without galoshes,

Europe can only sit down and cry.”) and Rodchenko’s bold, tongue-in-cheek graphics, companies such as Mosselprom, the state distributor of agricultural products, and

Rezinotrest, a state trust which marketed light industrial products, quickly became repeat customers (see Appendix, Figure 9). The two artists negotiated a way to advertise products without compromising their ideals. Osip Brik called this process the idea of

“social command,” meaning that art is justified when it is produced to meet a social need.78 Rodchenko was particularly proud of his collaboration with Mayakovsky, not only because he used this opportunity to expose even more masses of people to

77 Margolin, The Struggle for Utopia, 106. Emphasis original. 78 Margolin, The Struggle for Utopia, 112.

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Constructivism, but also because the art they were producing was advertising art of an entirely different form and sophistication from the flowery, prettified posters of the tsarist era. The messages tended to carry a strong revolutionary undertone. For example, the poster for Red October biscuits, featuring the disembodied head of a girl munching a series of floating biscuits, can be interpreted in a patriotic sense. The biscuits are the representation of the revolution, thus eating them as opposed to biscuits which do not carry a revolutionary title would be unpatriotic. Christina Kiaer takes this interpretation still further. She notes that point of origin of the biscuits is beyond the frame of the poster and enters the girl’s mouth in a spiral pattern. The message is that the biscuits have been brought from the past (outside the frame) into the present of Red October, with the form of the spiral representing the biscuit’s transition.79 The slogan, “I EAT cookies from the Red October factory, the former

Einem”80 further emphasizes the transition of the product from its bourgeois roots to its socialist present. Kiaer also notes that the girl’s head, the focal point of the poster, is framed by a hexagon, which may be a reference to Rodchenko’s Spatial Constructions, one of which was also a hexagon shape. Mayakovsky was less thrilled with having to produce advertising slogans, but he recognized the importance of advertising. He wrote:

Advertising is industrial, commercial agitation. Not a single business, especially not the steadiest, runs without advertising. It is the weapon that mows down the competition...But face to face with the NEP, in order to popularize the state and proletarian organizations, offices, and products, we have to put into action all the weapons, which the enemy also uses, including advertising.81

79 Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions, 180. 80 Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions, 178. Emphasis original. 81 Margolin, The Struggle for Utopia, 113.

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Just as Lenin had taken “one step back to take two steps forward” with the NEP, so too were the Constructivists when they collaborated to produce advertisements: the advertisement, which was by its very nature focused on consumerism and individual desire, was being reshaped, even subverted, along more agitational lines to conform to the economic situation of the new state.

In 1925, shortly after completing his spate of advertisements with Mayakovsky,

Rodchenko was tasked with representing the young USSR in Paris for the Exposition

Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels. The USSR was participating in this show not only to demonstrate the progress made by Lenin and the Constructivists, but also to participate heavily in the more commercial side of the Exposition.82 Rodchenko was there to exhibit one of his finest works: the interior of a workers’ club (see Appendix,

Figure 13). The Exposition showcased all of the major achievements of Constructivism up to this point: a miniature model of the Monument to the Third International had been produced by Tatlin especially for the occasion and was prominently displayed in the Soviet wing of the Grand Palais, Rodchenko-Mayakovsky ads decorated the walls, and Constructivist textiles were also framed and displayed.83 The interior of

Rodchenko’s workers’ club was everything one might expect from a Constructivist effort: spare, functional, with crisp and spare lines. It included a speaker’s platform, a newspaper rack, tables and chair (all Rodchenko’s own designs), and a picture of Lenin.

The club interior connected with Rodchenko’s philosophy about the comradely object,

82 Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions, 200. 83 Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions, 201.

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meaning an object with which a person could interact, and not simply an object that was static and enslaved. Kiaer notes the complexities emerging from this philosophy:

As opposed to the hyperstimulation of the endless commodities produced by industrial culture, the single speaker’s platform attempts to provide, within its flexible and transparent forms, an alternative kind of variety. This Constructivist object, as much as Rodchenko’s Mossel’prom ads, negotiates the different economies of the object—the traditional, often wooden, peasant object of the past, the meagre NEP commodity of the present, and the technologically advanced, mass-produced object of the socialist future.84

To add to this already schizophrenic identity, it must also be stated that Rodchenko’s club was the first and only Constructivist interior ever produced, and it was only produced for the artificial surroundings of a Western, capitalist exposition.85 There were no fully Constructivist workers’ clubs in the USSR, though much debate arose at

Vkhutemas regarding the theory behind workers’ clubs. Despite these criticisms, the significance of Rodchenko’s work at the Exposition was made possible by the financing of the state, directing its own meagre resources toward helping the Constructivists showcase their vision. In addition, the workers who entered Rodchenko’s club gave it excellent reviews. One Soviet commentator from the magazine Rabochii klub who observed the workers interacting with the environment commented that, “almost every worker...was drawn precisely to stroke one or another of the things in , and to stroke it lovingly.”86 Though the Soviet author may be exaggerating, the fact that the interior provoked such a tactile response from French workers—workers oppressed by

84 Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions, 239. Kiaer mentions the woodenness of the object because wood, being inexpensive, was one of the main components of the architecture used by the Soviet pavilion as well as by Rodchenko’s club. 85 Christina Lodder, “Constructivism and Productivism in the 1920s,” Art into Life: Russian Constructivism 1914-1932 (New York: Rizzoli, 1990) 109. 86 Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions, 240.

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capitalism, one might add—could be interpreted as a longing to experience a society in which the workers were not powerless, in which they, in theory, had some control over the direction of the government and the ideals which shaped it.

Rodchenko’s photomontage developed in his time abroad. His stint in Paris had granted him not only a sharpened artistic vision, but also renewed belief in the integrity of the proletariat and the righteousness of the cause the Soviet Union was pushing forward. Rodchenko’s vision of a workers’ club had gone over exceptionally well in a foreign, Capitalist country. If such was the case, there was nothing that could hold his vision back in a country that was supposedly being built as a workers’ paradise.

However, upon his return to the Soviet Union, he found himself lacking the commissions which had previously flowed in uninterrupted. A new artist had become the darling of

Mosselprom in Rodchenko’s absence, forcing Rodchenko to get his name out by other means. In 1927, LEF was reborn as Noyi LEF. The magazine had been redesigned to be

“more left than LEF,” therefore an even more radical, even more visionary collection of art and essays. It began in 1927, the same year Rodchenko resigned from his post at

Vkhutemas and finished with his attempts at production art. In an article run by Noyi

LEF in 1928, Rodchenko describes the power of this new form of revolutionary art:

The revolution in photography is that the fact photographed, thanks to its documentary quality, has such a strong and unexpected effect by virtue of all its specific photographic value that it can not only compete with painting but also present everybody with a perfect method of opening up the world in science and in the everyday life of modern man.87

87 Aleksandr Rodchenko as cited in Aleksandr Nikolayevich Lavrent’yev, “The Future is Our Only Goal,” The Future is Our Only Goal, 18.

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This statement was congruent with the general idea being put forward by Noyi LEF, mainly that photography and film were part of a new “factography.” If faktura, the texture/material/workmanship of a surface, had been the avant-garde’s focus in the years of LEF, then factography was the new focus. Factography and its evolution from faktura is best described by Benjamin Buchloh when he says:

[P]hotocollage and montage techniques [seem] to have functioned as a transitional phase, operating between the fully developed modernist critique of the conventions of representation...and an emerging awareness of the new need to construct iconic representations for a new mass culture.88

In essence, Rodchenko, Lissitzky, and other Constructivists had moved on from non- representational painterly art. Photomontage was the new frontier because it could capture a moment exactly. The time period (1928-1930) is of note: society was undergoing tremendous changes, and cities were undergoing vast changes before the artists’ very eyes. Photography allowed a place or a person to be frozen in transition: for example, Moscow’s changes from old tsarist stronghold to booming new capital city were captured as they happened by Rodchenko and other photographers. As can be seen in Rodchenko and Lissitzky’s contributions to USSR in Construction, photography could also conceal and reveal truths. This is especially clear in Rodchenko’s photomontage of the White Sea Canal. These pictures were published in USSR in

Construction in 1933, and show a scene of hale and capable workers pushing wheelbarrows full of dirt, conversing, and jack-hammering. The caption reads “The attack on the land took place with spades and explosives”89 indicating that what had

88 Benjamin Buchloh, “From Faktura to Factography,” October 30 (April 1984): 95. 89 Rodchenko, USSR in Construction no.12, 1933 as cited in Victor Margolin, The Struggle for Utopia, 188.

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once been uncivilised and backward was being brought forward by the skill and determination of the workers and of Stalin. The overtone of the photomontage, and of

USSR in Construction generally, is the spirit of hope and progress. The picture is touting how, from the hard work of happy and well-fed workers, the USSR was developing at an unprecedented rate, and developing into one of the most technologically and ideologically progressive countries in the world. The reality was certainly one of unprecedented growth, but it was being forged on the back of forced labour. The happy, healthy proletariat that Rodchenko portrayed as being the norm were not, in fact, at the forefront of Stalin’s calculations – indeed, they were nowhere to be found in the brutal reality of forced collectivization and industrialization – and yet the photomontage produced to represent the construction of the White Sea canal represents a propagandistic reality. Rodchenko was likely aware of the forced labour occurring behind the scenes, but he could conceal it easily enough. His journal indicates that he is aware of his moral predicament. In 1938, he wrote:

The 1930s—a shining period in the life of our country...Much was written on the Belomorstroe [White Sea Construction Project] then. Having overcome hesitations, I took up my Leitz camera and went there...At the construction site I met people stepping into the struggle for a new place in life. Trust—the basis of the wise science of correction—reformed them.90

His use of the words “correction” and “reform” imply that he knew he was at a site where people were being punished for supposedly transgressing Stalin’s laws. As for the word “trust”, Andel mentions the irony that many avant-garde artists and their critics ended up in labour camps and that “while Rodchenko ‘reeducated’ himself, Kushner

90 Jaroslav Andel, “The Constructivist Entanglement: Art Into Politics, Politics Into Art,” Art Into Life (New York: Rizzoli, 1990) 232.

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died in a labour camp, as did other Constructivist pioneers such as Gan, Klucis, and

Chuzhak.”91 Rodchenko’s obfuscation of the truth in his photography represents the emerging dilemma of the artist: they wanted to represent the USSR in a positive light to the rest of the world, but the USSR was progressing thanks to a gross violation of human rights. If they stayed true to what Stalin wanted, they were akin to collaborators. If they tried to expose the truth, they would end up in labour camps as well. Rodchenko’s wish to hide the truth was not only in accordance with Stalin’s wish to represent the USSR in the best light possible, but it was also in accordance with what citizens of the USSR and workers across the world wanted to see.

Despite Rodchenko and Mayakovsky’s collaboration in 1923 which covered the streets of Moscow with Constructivist-themed advertisements, only two artists were able to successfully bridge the gap between art and industry. Those two were Varvara

Stepanova and Liubov’ Popova, and their textile designs and dress patterns were produced in order to answer the problem of proletarian consumption. Once the lenient policies of the NEP were withdrawn, how were the two ideas of socialism and consumption to be reconciled? Popova and Stepanova attempt to address this problem through their attempt at production art: by entering an industrial setting and producing items exclusively for use with the proletariat as opposed to by the proletariat, the item was not a slave but rather a comrade. To re-emphasize, the artists were determined to enter production because, as artists, they were naturally adept at bringing their visions into life. These visions accommodated not only producing works of industrial art, but

91 Ibid.

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also producing the new state. They were applying their artistic vision to society as a whole, with the unactualized masses acting as a canvas.

Popova and Stepanova focussed their attention on textile work in order to fulfill demands for clothing once NEP was withdrawn. When people were no longer able to buy their own clothes suited to their own individual taste, they would still have the need for new clothes at some point. Popova and Stepanova’s solution was to provide options for functional, yet aesthetically pleasing clothes using textiles covered in Constructivist patterns. They recognized that consumer desire would not vanish once the NEP was eliminated. Constructivist clothing was one of the few solutions put forward to meet the problem of consumerism in the new economic climate. After Popova had died in 1924, a dedication in LEF described her contribution to production art as follows: “Day and night she sat making her for fabrics, attempting in one creative act to unite the demands of economics, the laws of exterior design, and the mysterious taste of the peasant woman from Tula.”92 Essentially, her designs fit the demands of the times, which required conforming to the new demands of a state attempting to become socialist, and of a public (the “woman from Tula”) who still wanted nice things.

The fact that Popova and Stepanova were both participating in an area of production—fashion—which was typically considered exclusively female, is not insignificant or coincidental. Though Lenin had put laws in place which granted full emancipation to women, getting women fully into the workplace and away from their

92 Christina Kiaer, “The Russian Constructivist Flapper Dress,” Critical Inquiry 28.1 (Autumn, 2001): 185- 186.

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traditional roles of wife and mother was easier said than done. Feminists such as

Aleksandra Kollontai and Nadezhda Krupskaya pushed for, and were granted, rights such as the right for women to seek divorce, the right to full education, the right to vote, but the issue of gender equality remained secondary to the issue of class equality.93 The

Politburo was also primarily run by men, and the traditional ideas which had accompanied femininity and what was “appropriate” or “inappropriate” work for women were ideas that were not shed at the stroke of a pen. It has been observed that the creative arts were one area of society where women were found in abundance: perhaps this was due to societal constraints remaining in place everywhere else. In the arts, especially during the 1920s, where audacity went with the territory, a woman artist not the same type of oddity as, for example, a woman foreman. Within the arts there were divisions as well: the bourgeois easel painter and the artist-constructor were the opposite sides of the same coin. The realist was an individualist, associated with old- world ideas of beauty and representation. The Constructivists and Suprematists were collectives, and were less interested in representing the world around them than in shaping it. The Constructivist desire to emphasize the importance of the work and not the importance of the individual was especially appealing to women who wished to do great things “in spite of” their gender. For Popova and Stepanova, their choice of working within the realm of fashion was an attempt both to critique the lingering desires of feminine materialism as well as to work within a realm of industry that was

93 Fer, “The Language of Construction,” 127.

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not seen as having the same revolutionary potential as the munitions industry or the steel industry.

The two artists were faculty members at the Moscow Vkhutemas (Higher

Artistic-Technical Workshops), a polytechnical school which taught students the skills they would need if they wanted to enter the field of production art. The school had been formed after the 1918 reform of the school system. All schools were now State

Free Art Workshops, open to anyone.94 It had eight faculties: architecture, painting, sculpture, graphics, textiles, ceramics, woodworking, and metalworking. During

Vkhutemas’ inception and the term of Efim Ravdel’ as rector (1920-23), the debate between the Productivists and Constructivists came to a head, causing the

Constructivists to start searching for work in factories. In the artists’ minds, the

Revolution had produced a new kind of consumer, one who needed functional objects and, in response to this call, the artist-constructor began to emerge. Their goal was simple: they would enter the factories in order to have control over producing the objects needed by the proletariat. The creation of these new objects and new designs would also shape the proletariat and the USSR itself, making the artist-constructor not only an artist, but a cultural leader as well. Stepanova and Popova conducted their work in the First State Cotton-Printing Factory starting in 1923. They were hired as designers by the factory director, Aleksandr Arkhangelskii, who was aware of their talent and their vision. Popova and Stepanova assumed they were qualified to work in the higher echelons of the cotton factory (in the technical laboratory where the dyeing took

94 Natal’ia Adaskina, “The Place of Vkhutemas in the Russian Avant-Garde,” The Great Utopia, 284.

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place)95 due to their experience in Inkhuk. They had been manipulating materials for years at this point, and fabric was simply another material to learn. Before her death in

1924, Popova’s main oeuvre was her Constructivist flapper dress. Its boxy silhouette and plain cut may strike the viewer today as not only odd but androgynous; however, the simplicity of the garment is precisely what makes it Constructivist. It is not excessively tailored, but given shape through a sash, nor does it have any tricks to it: the fact that one can see precisely how it was made makes it easier for the wearer to interact with it in a comradely way. The individual is not being lost in the dress, neither is the dress being enslaved by the wearer. Stepanova preferred to design clothes made for specific utilitarian functions, mainly for being worn to agitational .96 Her designs were intentionally androgynous, seeking to take attention away from whether or not the wearer was female in order to place emphasis on whatever the wearer was doing.

The designs are boxy and do not highlight any particular area of the body. The shapes of large triangles made a frequent appearance in the fabric pattern (see Appendix, Figure

10). Though Popova and Stepanova’s clothing designs were not mass produced, their textiles were. The patterns, vibrant and seemingly motile, were popular with the masses and were seen as important enough to include at the Exposition Internationale in 1925.

The fully-formed product may not have made its way on to the market, but the proliferation of textiles designed by Popova, Stepanova, and their students at

Vkhutemas meant that the designs could be produced by the proletariat.

95 Kiaer, “The Russian Constructivist Flapper Dress,” 194. 96 Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions, 113.

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In 1928, Rodchenko resigned from his post at Vkhutemas. He had predicted the institution would close, signalling an end to the artist-constructor. When Vkhutemas actually did close in 1930, Rodchenko was already exploring the possibilities of photomontage, along with El Lissitzky. The transition from realism to non-objective art to production art had ultimately led back to realism, though the ability of the camera to freeze a moment was seen by the Constructivists as far superior to realist painting. The

Politburo had recognized the galvanizing power of the avant-garde and was now attempting to wield it, reducing the artist from his grandiose post as co-enabler of the regime to a tool of the regime. Stalin’s increasing stranglehold on creative expression brought a sterility to the avant-garde; as opposed to feeling free to express the society they saw around them in their own way (occasionally bleak, but positive overall), they were forced to put a rictus grin on the face of their subjects. The policy of socialist realism, art which represented the regime the way Stalin wanted it to be seen, not the way it actually was, did not become official Party policy until 1934, but the return to realism as well as the return of easel painting signalled that the time of Constructivism was ending. Some artists fled the Soviet Union, some stayed to conform to the new artistic ideal, and some, like Rodchenko and Lissitzky, strove to represent the regime with the occasional touch of Constructivism: strong contrast, dynamic angles, and a clean, simple aesthetic. Though the vigorous, powerful movement of the 1920s had all but vanished by the time of the show trials and the Great Purges, their contribution to that era was, in my opinion, a very important one. The artists and policy makers were working side-by-side to share their vision with the people, and it was a vision of a future

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in which the “I” was no longer significant. Instead, a collective would take the place formerly occupied by the individual and the isolated, needy “I” would be replaced by the more familial-and regimented- “we.” The fact that the work of the Constructivists, their textiles, their monuments, their advertisements, were so popular with the masses and so actively supported by the Party gives some credit to the Constructivists’ belief that they were playing a major role in reshaping Soviet society. In the end, what they had created, if only for a few years, had become more than a 2-dimensional painting or a work of installation art; what the Constructivists had created was the symbiosis of the people’s needs with the people’s will, and in the end it transcended mere “art” because people had lived their lives in it.

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Conclusion

The years after NEP brought a chill to the artistic community. The political realm was becoming even more entangled with the arts, but unlike the early years of the

Revolution, when art and politics combined to help inculcate Communist sympathies among the workers and the peasants, in Stalin’s time the relationship between politics and art was becoming far more slavish. Stalin would continue to use artists to help him get messages across to the masses, but the messages no longer had a “communal” feel to them. Instead of posters which urged consumerism with a revolutionary urge, or exhibiting modern art which was on the technical edge and thus spoke for itself about how forward-thinking Lenin was, Stalin’s propaganda was far drier. He continued to keep the Constructivists close at hand since they had proven their talent for inspiring the masses. However, the wave of realists who had reasserted themselves in and after

1925 reflected more fully Stalin’s narrowly propagandistic definition of art. Propaganda in Stalin’s time was no longer designed to stimulate thought but to suppress it in favour of the single message from above. In this environment there would be no room for the critical eye of the Constructivist. The increased control being imposed on creative expression began to occur concurrently with the increased control of industry reflected by the Five Year Plans. Like every other sector of society in Stalin’s USSR, the arts were given guidelines and were closely supervised. The bureaucratization of creativity would eventually lead to sterile, stagnant art, and an end to the riotously creative period of non-objective art.

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Stalin made sure the artistic community knew who was subordinate to whom.

He monitored the arts as closely and with as much suspicion as any other sector of

Soviet society, whether defined artistically, economically, or sociologically. The artistic community needed to be kept compliant because they were responsible for representing the regime to the masses, both at home and abroad. The artists would be a cipher between Stalin and the people, representing him in whatever manner the situation, or more likely, Stalin himself required. In the years preceding the total application of socialist realism, he chose to be represented as a true follower of Lenin.

Any picture in which the two appeared together tended to picture Lenin in the role of leader, and Stalin as his loyal disciple. This was to adhere to the myth he had created when he first assumed power; namely that Lenin had unarguably chosen him as his successor. How Stalin chose to represent the various sides of himself—benevolent, wise, friendly, stern—changed from image to image, but his depiction as a follower of the cult of Lenin rarely changed. Until, that is, his power was unassailable.

In 1932, Constructivism’s days as an independent artistic movement were numbered. However, this was also the case for all artistic groups within the USSR, even the Realists. The Politburo had issued a decree, “On the restructuring of artistic and literary organizations,” stating that all artistic groups and all literary groups would combine into one.97 This was to prevent factionalism at the cultural level as well as to make sure all cultural endeavours were on the same page in terms of what they were producing. Some saw this creation of a united cultural front as a good move on Stalin’s

97 Selim O. Khan-Magomedov, Rodchenko: The Complete Works (London: Thames and Hudson, 1986) 237.

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part, because it ended the dominance of any one group over the others (for example,

RAPP98 was the dominant group in the literary sphere) as well as instituted a form of party-dominated quality control. The government was seen as wanting to put its best foot forward, culturally speaking, and wanting to gain international respect.99 The 1932 reorganization of the arts was the unofficial step towards socialist realism, which became official policy two years later.

As we have seen by Rodchenko’s photographs of the White Sea Canal, the 1930s were becoming a dangerous time for the artists. They were increasingly being restricted as to what subjects they should represent and how they should represent them, forcing the visionary artist-constructors to tamp down their creativity in order to keep themselves out of trouble. The emerging policy of socialist realism, especially when combined with photomontage, was an exercise in shaping the opinions as well as the very memories of the masses.100 It is somewhat ironic when one looks back to examine the original vision of the Constructivist artist: to construct art which would have a didactic effect on the masses, and which would guide society toward socialism. The artist’s vision of himself as a leader, as one who could reshape society by his or her example, is fulfilled, in a rather morbid way, by complicity with Stalin’s policies, and this is apparent in Rodchenko’s White Sea Canal photos: by showing people what they want to see and leaving out the truth, an artist can construct a reality which the people will

98 Russian Association of Proletarian Writers 99 Lynn Mally, “Autonomous Theatre and the Origins of Socialist Realism: The 1932 Olympiad of Autonomous Art,” Russian Review 52.2 (1993): 198. 100 Leah Dickerman, “Camera Obscura: Socialist Realism in the Shadow of Photography,” October 93 (Summer, 2000): 140.

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follow. Thus the original core of the avant-garde’s vision remained intact, although perversely warped: the artist was no longer the guide, but merely the mouthpiece.

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Appendix

Fig. 1: Kasimir Malevich: Black Square. 1913. This painting represents one of the boldest steps toward non-objective art. Its lack of colour and simple subject leaves nothing to aesthetics. The painting therefore portrays whatever the viewer wants it to portray.

Source: .

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Fig. 2: Kasimir Malevich: : . 1918.

This painting has been referred to by art historians and critics as the “high point” of Suprematism. The white square painted on a white canvas almost fools the eye into not seeing the square, but rather a blank canvas. In 1918, art was being radically redefined. Any bourgeois sensibilities of composition—excessive colour, an obvious subject, decorative flourishes—were being purged after the Revolution of 1917. As such, White on White is seen as a high point due to its determined abandonment of composition and its use of the barest minimum in terms of colour (none) and subject (barely visible).

Source: “MoMA Multimedia” .

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Fig. 3: Vladimir Tatlin: Corner Relief. 1914.

Tatlin’s corner reliefs represented his growing preoccupation with creating objects in real space. The objects were not framed per se, and were therefore free to interact with the space around them. They were not “restricted” in any way, and were created from material which the Constructivists would come to favour: wood, glass, and metal.

Source: “SHAFE- Introduction to Modern Art 1/3/04” .

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Fig. 4: Vladimir Tatlin: Monument to the Third International. 1919-1920.

Tatlin’s monument was intended to be a base of operations for the Politburo, while also being a tribute to the Revolution and Bolshevism. It was going to be 400 metres high, higher than the Eiffel Tower, perhaps symbolizing the Communists’ triumph over the cultural achievements of the West. The monument was never built, likely due to the lack of steel in post-revolutionary Russia. The photo represents a model of the monument.

Source: .

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Fig. 5: Photograph of the Second Exhibition of Obmokhu, 1921.

The Second Exhibition of Obmokhu was famous for its incredibly abstract showcase: works were displayed from the walls, from the floors, and otherwise interacting with the free space around them. Some of the artists represented at the exhibition were Karl Ioganson, Konstantin Medunetskii, Aleksandr Rodchenko, and the Stenberg brothers. The exhibition is regarded as one of the critical turning points in the development of Constructivism due to the exhibition crystallizing the necessity of focusing on “construction” as opposed to “composition,” meaning the importance of focusing on the usable and necessary as opposed to the frivolous.

Source: .

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Fig. 6: Rodchenko, Hanging Spatial Construction, c. 1923

Rodchenko’s hanging spatial constructions represent an experimentation with the interaction between real space and construction. Rodchenko and Tatlin had previously worked together creating installations for the Cafe Pittoresque in Moscow in 1915, and the creation of his own spatial constructions signifies his attempt to become as prolific as Tatlin in the field of Constructivism.

Source: .

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Fig.7: Aleksandr Rodchenko: Pure Red Color. 1921.

Pure Red Color was the first in a series of three canvasses, one red, one yellow, one blue. With these canvasses, Rodchenko declared that painting could go no further. He had reduced art to its barest minimum, like Malevich had attempted. Unlike Malevich, he excluded any type of subject. The colour itself is the subject. When painting has been reduced to the basic representation of a colour on canvas, then there is no further one can go. It was the painting of these canvasses which triggered Rodchenko’s subsequent move toward production art.

Source: .

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Fig.8: Aleksandr Rodchenko: “About It” cover. 1924.

This photo comes from Rodchenko and Mayakovsky’s collaboration, the illustration of Mayakovsky’s anthology “About It.” The subject of the photo is Lili Brik, with whom Mayakovsky was conducting an affair. What is significant about this work is how Rodchenko is setting a mood through photomontage. Lili Brik’s stare informs the viewer that the mood of the titular poem is sombre and intense.

Source: .

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Fig. 9: Aleksandr Rodchenko: Advertisement for Rezinotrest.

The advertisement is a typical example of the cooperation between Rodchenko and Mayakovsky: the slogan was created by Mayakovsky (“Without galoshes Europe can only sit down and cry”) while the image was done by Rodchenko. These advertisements were created for the NEP period when consumerism was reintroduced to the Soviet public. Rodchenko and Mayakovsky’s work was meant to inspire the masses to purchase goods while keeping the mood of the Revolution in mind.

Source: .

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Fig. 10: Varvara Stepanova, design for sportswear

Popova’s flapper dress and Stepanova’s sportswear designs represent the only successful attempts of artists entering production. The textiles and designs of both artists were very popular and were eventually produced. No other Constructivist attempt to produce usable art for the proletariat bore fruit, and the Constructivists withdrew from the emphasis on production art in 1928.

Source: .

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Fig. 11: El Lissitzky, Proun 2c.

Lissitzky’s Prouns (“Project for the Confirmation of the New,” Proekt utverzhdenya novogo) blended Suprematist and Constructivist styles. He developed the idea for his Prouns when he was in Unovis from 1919-1921. His Prouns were accepted by the Constructivists and the Suprematists due to their mix of easel painting and architectural motifs. Their exploration of 3 dimensions, seen in the use of axes and perspective, was unusual in Suprematism, but welcome among the Constructivists, as seen by the works of Rodchenko, Tatlin, and Ioganson.

Source: .

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Fig. 12: Karl Ioganson, Composition, 1921.

Ioganson’s contribution to the composition-construction debate was the use of graphs to demonstrate how composition can exist in three dimensions, exactly like construction. By creating diagrams of both, he produced a comprehensive and mathematic answer to a question which was thought to be purely artistic.

Source: .

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Fig. 13: Photograph of Rodchenko’s Workers’ Club, 1925.

The Workers’ Club was showcased at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels in Paris, 1925. The Club was exhibited along with a miniature model of Tatlin’s Tower and examples of Constructivist textiles. Rodchenko’s goal was to create a space where workers could gather to relax, socialize, and discuss any “agitational” ideas (demonstrated by Rodchenko’s inclusion of a podium, not pictured). The Club was built primarily out of wood, since it was not only a traditional Russian building material, but also due to its cheapness compared to steel.

Source: .

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Fig. 14: Vassili Kandinskii, Composition VI, 1913.

Kandinskii’s use of colour and his hand-drawn lines were seen as passé to the Constructivists. Their abandonment of the ideas of “excess” and their disdain for “composition,” the pictorial embodiment of excess and aesthetics, was due to their love of clean, ruler-drawn lines and minimal use of colour. Hand-drawn lines were not mechanical, therefore they were in the realm of the emotional, and were tied to personal taste. Kandinskii left his position at Inkhuk to work in Germany in 1921.

Source: < http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/kandinsky/kandinsky.comp-6.jpg>.

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Glossary

AKhR: “Association of Artists of the Revolution,” one of the groups of Realist painters who emerged in 1925.

Faktura: The “materiality” of a surface, which pertains to its texture and how the surface has been worked to develop its appearance.

Ideinost: “Mindfulness of ideas, oriented toward ideas”, in this case pertaining to socialist realist works which needed to include a mindfulness of the ideas of the Party.

Inkhuk: Institut Khudozhestvennoy Kultury, Institute of Artistic Culture. Active from 1919 to 1925, this institute catered to developing new theories in art. The First Working Group of Constructivists emerged in Inkhuk in 1921.

IZO Narkompros: The section of Narkompros which catered specifically to the visual arts.

Klassovost: “class content.” In the context of socialist realism this meant including the importance of class consciousness or themes of class consciousness/class struggle within the art.

LEF: Left Front of the Arts, a magazine produced between 1923-1925 and supported by the Party. The magazine was a mouthpiece for the cultural left-wing including artists, filmmakers, and writers.

MOLPOSNOVIS: “Young Followers of the New Art.” The original name of Unovis when it was under the supervision of Marc Chagall.

Narkompros: Peoples’ Commissariat of Education, an organization headed by Anatoly Lunacharskii until 1929.

Narodnost: “orientation toward the people.” In the context of socialist realism, it represented the importance of keeping the idea of “the people” or “the masses” a prominent theme in the artwork.

Novyi LEF: New Left Front of the Arts, LEF’s reincarnation in 1927. Created to be “more left than LEF,” the magazine focused on being even more radical than LEF had been.

Obmokhu: Obshchestvo molodykh khudozhnikov or “Society of Young Artists.”

OPOYAZ: Society for the Study of Poetic Language, a Formalist group of writers.

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Partiinost: “orientation toward the Party,” in the context of socialist realism it meant the importance of the author or artist bearing the importance of the Party in mind in their work.

RAPP: Russian Association of Proletarian Writers, one of the dominant groups of writers before all cultural groups were amalgamated in 1932.

Unovis: Utverditeli Novogo Iskusstva, “Champions/Affirmers of the New Art.” The Suprematist art group which originated in Vitebsk under the leadership of Kasimir Malevich. Active from 1919 to 1924.

Vkhutemas: Vysshiye Khudozhestvenno-Tekhnicheskiye Masterskiye, “Higher Art and Technical Studios.” The workshop where many prominent Constructivists (for example: Rodchenko, Tatlin, and Stepanova) served as faculty. They focused on teaching the importance of production art, and ways to apply it to a factory setting.

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