Page 21 - Studio International - April 1966

father sent me a substantial sum and told me to look after with our five senses. What we are trying to do is something
Alexei and not return to Russia until the war was over so deeper inside the reality.'
that Alexei would avoid military service. Russian students Though Malevich used an involved phraseology, he was
abroad were exempt from military service. a serious person with a great devotion to an idea, and
This freed me from my last exams. I knew I wasn't going by 1917 and 1918 I was doing work with which he agreed.
to be an engineer; I thought the teaching methods were But he never agreed with my heads. In fact, both Male-
idiotic—all those stupid bridge designs and so on. vich and Tatlin also did naturalistic work first, as you can
Now I was released and wandering, trying to find a see by looking at the catalogue of the Russian exhibition
place to work, just like a hen wanting to lay an egg. We held in Berlin in 1922.
went to Copenhagen, and then to Sweden, where Alexei My period of testing ended in Norway. When I arrived
wanted to study physics. We went to Christiana (Oslo) in Russia at the beginning of 1917 I already knew I
in the autumn, going through the fiords. It was there that wasn't going to do any more heads. But I had many
I clearly knew what I wanted to do. Already I was con- drawings with me, mostly architectural drawings. I had
centrating on the stereometric system. Because I had an known that this system of mine was very very close to
engineering background I was interested in economy of architecture.
structure and materials. The stereometric cube has so Then I began making constructions which were archi-
much economy with its four planes. Here you have the tectonic in character.
block, in a way the block the sculptor works with all the Someone has asked me whether the Eiffel Tower was
time. And what I asked myself was this : 'How can I bring the first Constructive work of art. The achievements of
this new outlook, these new materials, into sculpture?' the Eiffel Tower were of enormous significance. But it is
I was after an architectonic projection, with movement an engineering work. I would say it is a Constructive
in depth, a certain kind of elation, even heroism. It was work, but not a Constructive sculpture. It was not done
then that I did my heads. I wanted to prove to myself in order to express an experience. It was done in order to
that with the stereometric system I could make a natural- see what could be done in its day.
istic image. I knew I could do abstracts, of course, but What was it I tried to do in these constructions ? I trans-
I wanted also to make naturalistic images. I think these ferred myself to the middle of the construction, to be in
heads are among the most satisfying things I have done. the middle of space, so to speak. Space is in me, it comes
Because of this desire I never agreed with Malevich out of me. There are ways in which the artist can make
when he attacked nature. He was evangelical, intolerant the spectator feel that he, the spectator, is within the
of everything naturalistic. Once I told him, 'One thing sculpture or painting.
does not deny the other thing. It is a normal reaction to I was preoccupied with space and time (and by 'time' I
nature to be naturalistic. Whether what comes out will also mean `movement'), and I wanted to create an image
be art—whether films and photography take over—is of the times I was living in and project it into the future.
quite another matter. But you cannot eliminate human In those years we were filled with elation. When I left
beings from the image of nature as we conceive it only Moscow in 1922 and went to Germany I found a some-

Drawing for a constructed head 1916 A costume sketch for La Chatte 1926 Sketch for a square in Moscow 1919
Pencil Crayon Pencil
19x 17 in. 11 x 9 in. x 14 in.