Aleksandr Rodchenko

Beskrivning

The Museum of Modern Art, New York. 1998. First edition. 336 pages. 4to (29,5 x 24,5 cm). Stiff, printed wrappers. 431 illustrations (221 colour, 114 duotone). With essays by Aleksandr Lavrent’ev and Varvara Rodchenko.

The catalogue presents for the first time a full and coherent overview of Rodchenko’s diverse achievement. An illustrated chronology outlines the story of the artist’s life.

Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko (5 December 1891–3 December 1956) was a Russian and Soviet artist, sculptor, photographer, and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design; he was married to the artist Varvara Stepanova.

Rodchenko was one of the most versatile constructivist and productivist artists to emerge after the Russian Revolution. He worked as a painter and graphic designer before turning to photomontage and photography. His photography was socially engaged, formally innovative, and opposed to a painterly aesthetic. Concerned with the need for analytical-documentary photo series, he often shot his subjects from odd angles—usually high above or down below—to shock the viewer and to postpone recognition. He wrote: ”One has to take several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round rather than looked through the same key-hole again and again.”