Welcome back everyone! What a time, I feel like I have written so many of these… but also not nearly enough. Isn’t life crazy like that? Now that September is well under way and Labor Day has passed, why not talk about Constructivism?
After World War I and the Russian Revolution, artists took this opportunity of government shifting and adopted a new mindset: art should be built. This artistic movement is attributed to Soviet artists Vladimir Tatlin, Alexander Rodchenko, and Alexei Gan with fellow members El Lissitzky, Varvara Stepanova, Vladimir Shukhov, and many others. The purpose of the movement was to create art that would serve the masses; industry and science took over artistic expression and influenced architecture, design, fashion, and mass-produced goods. Although it sounds very utilitarian, the movement was avant-garde and gave birth to some outright fantastical designs.
Ironically, one of the most famous Constructivist works was never built. It was designed by none other than Vladimir Tatlin and was dubbed “Tatlin’s Tower,” but the full title is “Monument to the Third International.” The tower was to be made of iron, glass, and steel with a double helix form and four suspended structures that would rotate at different speeds. If the design wasn’t already ambitious enough, the tower would also have a projector capable of projecting messages in the sky on overcast days. Although never built in its entirety, models of this building do exist and are displayed in numerous museums and galleries.
In Germany, German artist László Moholy-Nagy became interested in Constructivism while he taught at the Bauhaus. Moholy-Nagy was an advocate for integrating technology and industry into art and was overall experimental in his works. Soviet Constructivist member El Lissitzky also became affiliated with the Bauhaus, which further spread the movement through Europe. By the mid 1920’s Constructivism began its decline in Russia due to the Bolsheviks growing hostility towards avant-garde art, but in the West, it continued flourishing.
The movement gave inspiration to and influenced minimalist artists who sought to strip forms to their most basic shapes. Constructivism still persists in one form or another, and its influence can still be seen in public sculptures and consumer goods. Regardless, without the Soviet artists, modern art as we know it would look quite different!
