The Art of the Day

Abstract

Between 1921 and 1928 the Russian art historian and critic Nikolai Tarabukin, best known today for his Productivist tract Ot mol'berta k mashine [From Easel to Machine], published over a hundred articles and four short books. The following text comprises the first English translation of the preface and final chapter of his Iskusstvo dnia [The Art of the Day], a collection of essays on the practical, ephemeral arts of everyday life: graphic design and photography. The collection was published in 1925 by Proletkul't, the association of proletarian cultural organizations. Since 1922, and thus contemporaneously with his position as academic secretary of the Institute of Artistic Culture (INKhUK), Tarabukin had been an instructor in the visual arts studio of the Moscow Proletkul't. Such studios were intended as the basic units in which the building of a pure proletarian culture was to be accomplished through encouraging the creative talents of young workerstudents, and enabling them to acquire the appropriate skills and training. According to Proletkul't policy, only the proletariat could participate in the creation of proletarian culture; admission to studios was thus restricted, at least in theory, to those who could demonstrate working-class origins or credentials such as party membership. The ranks of the instructors, however, included such bourgeois specialists as Tarabukin, who was also a regular contributor to the Proletkul't journals Gorn [Furnace] and Rabochii zhurnal [The Worker's Journal]. While without the prognostic and rhetorical ambition of the author's earlier Productivist tract, The Art of the Day nevertheless attests to the strengthening of the Productivist agenda within the Proletkul't after the INKhUK's rejection of the fine arts in late 1921. It also reveals much about how the Productivists sought to disseminate their platform to a broader audience. As suggested by its rather loose organization, didactic prose style, and frequent repetition of key ideas and phrases, the book was based upon lectures presented by its author in the studio. Its first six chapters explicate the general principles of advertising, poster and placard design, popular and agitational prints [lubki], and book and newspaper production. The final chapter, translated here, comprises the author's examination of photography's previously unexplored potential, namely, photo-mechanics.