Russian constructivism is easily in my top five favorite art movements of all time owing to its bold experimentation coupled with the cleverest of modern graphic design, and Alexander Rodchenko and Liubov Popova were the masters of the form in a time when innovation was busting out all over. Popova is pictured here to the right of Varvara Stepanova, Rodchenko's wife and an artist in her own right whose fabric designs are referenced in the current Mai-Thu Perret show at SFMOMA. Curator Margarita Tupitsyn has paired work by Rodchenko and Popova for a new exhibit at Tate Modern entitled Defining Constructivism, and Adrian Searle found himself absolutely entranced:
They began as painters, working through the heady influences of cubism,
futurism and expressionism, and Malevich's suprematism, with its
overtones of religiosity. In Popova's earlier paintings, bars cross the
surface as though they were in a great hurry to get somewhere. Her
percussive rhomboids have all the emphasis of a hand slamming a
desktop. She mixes metal dust and sawdust into her paint, giving her
forms extra oomph and weight. Sometimes these experiments give her work
a weird, lumpy tactility. At other times, it is as bright and
unexpected as a chaffinch. You can lose yourself in her paintings'
complications. In Rodchenko's works, lines take decisive turns,
ricocheting back from the edges. There are flat, eclipsed discs, with
penumbras of light. His shading is insistent, as if daring you to
doubt. Rodchenko could turn his hand to anything, and would adopt
whatever artistic position was necessary at the time. I wonder if the
two artists, working at the service of the new state, knew how good
they were, and how prophetic their paintings now seem to be.
Besides their paintings the show includes an entire section on the artists' design projects, from awesome posters by Rodchenko to Popova's sketches of dresses Tilda Swinton might still be inclined to wear today. You can see some highlights from the exhibition here, and then click here for an excellent interview with Rodchenko's grandson Alexander Lavrentiev in which he talks about his grandpa's prankster side.