Gan, Aleksei. Christina Lodder. (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 361 and journals such as The Cornfield (Niva), the cover of which is reproduced in a striking illustration (p. 277). But even to extend the author’s stated time frame to the next logical staging post of 1917 would be a separate and major undertaking. Yet these concerns with the later sections of the book are minor when set against the overall picture of a broad-reaching, synthesizing history that is a mine of detail and an impressive feat of scholarship, witnessed not least by copious footnotes and an extensive bibliography. Dianina’s skill in successfully weaving together the strands of, among other things, art history, literature, museum studies and cultural history, while writing in a style which is both scholarly and eminently readable shines out from the pages of her text. This book will prove useful and interesting to a wide audience, from those who seek new material to explain this complex period to students, to those who are researching the deeper themes of national identity and cultural tradition with which its rich content engages. Department of History of Art Louise Hardiman University of Cambridge Gan,Aleksei.Constructivism.TranslatedandwithanintroductionbyChristina Lodder. Editorial Tenov, Barcelona, 2013. xciii + 77 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $32.50: €29.00: £23.00 (paperback). The truly modern artist in early 1920s Russia was one who abandoned ‘high art’ forms such as easel painting, seeking in its place socially useful art which would transform all aspects of everyday life. Such were the goals of the Constructivists, who by 1921 committed themselves to reshaping the conditions of daily existence by creating objects based on the principles of formal and material integrity and utilitarian function (Christina Lodder, ‘Constructivism and Productivism in the 1920s’, in Art into Life: Russian Constructivism, 1914–1932, Seattle, WA, 1990, pp. 100–01). The Constructivist ethos was encapsulated by Nikolai Chuzhak, a literary critic and theoretician of Production Art, who described the goal of creating a new art that, rather than ‘being an individualistic form of decorating life’, would instead become ‘a form of production’ (N. F. Chuzhak, ‘Pod znakom zhiznestroeniia [opyt osoznaniia iskusstva dnia]’, Lef, Moscow-Petrograd, no. 1, March 1923, p. 22). Aleksei Gan’s 1922 book, Constructivism, was the first theoretical treatise of the movement, ‘an attempt to explain, clarify, justify and promote the new creative approach’ (pp. ix, xxxiii). In the words of John Bowlt, the text ‘acted as a declaration of industrial constructivism and marked the rapid transition from a purist conception of a constructive art to an applied, mechanical one’ SEER, 93, 2, APRIL 2015 362 (John E. Bowlt, Russian Art of the Avant-Garde: Theory and Criticism 1902–1934, New York, 1976, p. 215). Appropriately, the book was designed in accordance with the principles of Constructivist graphic design, ‘with its bold use of lines, different typefaces, innovative spacing, and presentation of slogans slung diagonally across the page’ (p. xxxv). Lodder’s introduction to the current volume represents a significant contribution to the scholarly understanding of Constructivism, while making Gan’s text accessible to those even with little background in Russian art history. The introduction also provides a fascinating, well-researched overview of the life and career of this foremost theoretician of Moscow’s Working Group of Constructivists, as the artists of the movement were initially known. Gan’s book was stimulated by the many debates on construction and production that took place at INKhUK (Institute of Artistic Culture) during 1921 (Bowlt, p. 215). Gan characterizes his treatise on Constructivism as ‘an agitational book, with which the constructivists are beginning the fight against the supporters of traditional art’ (p. 1). He places the emergence of Constructivism into a historical context. Citing the three concepts (tectonics, faktura and construction) that lay at the basis of this new type of art, often described as ‘material and intellectual production’, Gan defines these terms’ cultural meanings and their importance in the movement. While the terms faktura and construction had already been utilized in contemporary artistic discourse, the term tectonics had been coined by Gan to encapsulate Constructivism’sideologicalandindustrialethos(pp.xxvi,xxxiii).Throughout thetext,Gan emphasizesConstructivism’s relationship to Marxism, suggesting that it represented the only truly revolutionary creative trend, and that...