I'm choosing to write my essay on the Russian revolution, below are some books that should help me throughout my essay:
- Russian Graphic Design. 1880 - 1917/ Michael Anikst, Elena Chernevich (1990) Blenheim Walk Library
- Stenberg Brothers: constructing a revolution in Soviet Design./Ross, Barbara (ed) 1997 Blenheim Walk Library 709.47
- Art in Revolution: Soviet Art and Design since 1917/ Arts Council (1971) Blenheim Walk Library 709.47
- Alexander Rodchenko: revolution in Photography,/ Petrova, Anna (ed.) & Connellan, Lise (ed.) (2008) Blenheim Walk Library 779ROD
Background Information:
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th century, influencing major trends such as Bauhaus and the De Stijl movement. Its influence was pervasive, with major impacts upon architecture, graphic and industrial design, theatre, film, dance, fashion and to some extent music.
The term Construction Art was first used as a derisive term by Kazimir Malevich to describe the work of Alexander Rodchenko in 1917.[citation needed] Constructivism first appears as a positive term in Naum Gabo's Realistic Manifesto of 1920. Alexei Gan used the word as the title of his book Constructivism, which was printed in 1922.[1] Constructivism was a post-World War I development of Russian Futurism, and particularly of the 'corner-counter reliefs' of Vladimir Tatlin, which had been exhibited in 1915. The term itself would be invented by the sculptors Antoine Pevsner and Naum Gabo, who developed an industrial, angular style of work, while its geometric abstraction owed something to theSuprematism of Kasimir Malevich. IZO, the Commissariat's artistic bureau, was managed during the Russian Civil War mainly by Futurists, who published the journal Art of the Commune. Constructivism in Moscow was represented byVKhUTEMAS, the school for art and design established in 1919. Gabo later stated that teaching at the school emphasized political and ideological discussion rather than art-making. Despite this, Gabo himself designed a radio transmitter in 1920 (and would submit a design to the Palace of the Soviets competition in 1930).
Constructivism as theory and practice was derived largely from a series of debates at INKhUK (Institute of Artistic Culture) in Moscow, from 1920–22. After deposing its first chairman, Wassily Kandinsky, for his 'mysticism', The First Working Group of Constructivists (including Liubov Popova, Alexander Vesnin, Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, and the theorists Alexei Gan, Boris Arvatov and Osip Brik) would develop a definition of Constructivism as the combination of faktura: the particular material properties of an object, and tektonika, its spatial presence. Initially the Constructivists worked on three-dimensional constructions as a means of participating in industry: the OBMOKhU (Society of Young Artists) exhibition showed these three dimensional compositions, by Rodchenko, Stepanova, Karl Ioganson and the Stenberg Brothers. Later the definition would be extended to designs for two-dimensional works such as books or posters, with montage and factography becoming important concepts.
Rodchenko
Alexander Rodchenko transformed photography by his obsession with strange angles, says Benjamin Secher
'I want to take some quite incredible photographs that have never been taken before… pictures which are simple and complex at the same time, which will amaze and overwhelm people," wrote Alexander Rodchenko in his diary on March 14, 1934. "I must achieve this so that photography can begin to be considered a form of art."
These are bold words coming from a man who had picked up a camera for the first time only 10 years earlier, aged 33, and would all but give up photography just six years later. A tightly focused new exhibition of Rodchenko's photographs at the Hayward Gallery in London shows how - during that brief, passionate, turbulent period - the artist fell not only in and out of love with the medium, but also disastrously in and out of favour with the Soviet state.
The exhibition, supported by Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich, begins with Rodchenko's photomontages of 1923, those sparky hodgepodges of photography, text and graphics that inspired Franz Ferdinand's recent record covers. "At that time in Rodchenko's career, the Soviet powers and the Russian avant garde, they danced together," says the exhibition's curator, Olga Sviblova. "Both believed absolutely that they were working to change reality for the better, and that that change would arrive tomorrow. It was a big delusion, but they believed in it all the same."
In a country where 70 per cent of the population couldn't read or write, photography was a powerful medium - Lenin himself had suggested during the civil war that each of his soldiers should carry not just a weapon but a camera, too - and by 1924, having worked primarily with paint for years, Rodchenko felt ready to take it on. "It would seem," he said later, "that only the camera is capable of reflecting contemporary life." His first efforts, a handful of which feature in the exhibition, were poorly printed and unremarkable: a little wooden house in the countryside; casual portraits of his friends, all taken at eye level from a respectable distance.
The Bolsheviks, originally also[1] Bolshevists[2] (Russian: большевики, большевик (singular) Russian pronunciation: [bəlʲʂᵻˈvʲik], derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split apart from the Menshevik faction[3] at the Second Party Congress in 1903. [4]
The Bolsheviks were the majority faction in a crucial vote, hence their name. They ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[5] The Bolsheviks came to power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of theRussian Revolution of 1917, and founded the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic which would later in 1922 become the chief constituent of the Soviet Union.
The Bolsheviks, founded by Vladimir Lenin, were by 1905 a mass organization consisting primarily of workers under a democratic internal hierarchy governed by the principle of democratic centralism, who considered themselves the leaders of the revolutionary working class of Russia. Their beliefs and practices were often referred to as Bolshevism. Bolshevik revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky commonly used the terms "Bolshevism" and "Bolshevist" after his exile from the Soviet Union to differentiate between what he saw as true Leninism and the regime within the state and the party which arose under Stalin.
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