Page 34 - Studio International - April 1966

Left
Bill
Construction in thirty equal
elements 1938-9

Right
Bill
White Square Painting 1946

Lohse Horizontal rhythm of two themes 1964. Mural designed fora square in the Wier housing estate, Viera Moveable circular discs in spherical space
Ebnat-Kappel, Switzerland. Architect Thomas Schmid, Zurich. Height 10 ft length 48 ft. Paint on concrete. 1953-8 Aluminium

outlines of this schism are well known and by 1923 or so 1. Ideological contentions, which may include dialectics
constructivism applied to plastic art is identified with the giving an historicist account of the evolution of art as well
activities of artists who were mainly concerned in laying as the opposing view based on the idea of discontinuity.
the foundation of a new plastic art. These activities tended 2. A programmatic approach, arising out of an ideologi-
to merge with those of other artists, principally the neo- cal basis, concerned with technical and conceptual aspects
plasticists (the De Stijl and its aftermath) having the same in the making of art works.
concerns—that is, being preoccupied with an all embrac- 3. An overall scientific orientation.
ing philosophy of modern art. 4. A social ethic that could be described as 'abstract art
After the war, against the background of an intense plus social conscience' —a revolutionary art for a revolu-
interest and feeling of solidarity towards much of the tionary concept of society.
ethos of pre-war constructivism, artists were again taking Since the publication on Gabo (Lund Humphries 1957)
up basically the same programmes. and Camilla Gray's The Great Experiment (Thames and
Out of this situation a confusing number of directions Hudson 1962) we have been able to read some of the
have crystalized, most of which while rejecting the term manifestos printed in Russia around 1920, in particular
constructivist show evidence of what we might call the the programme of the Productivist Group led by Tatlin, and
constructivist syndrome. By this term I do not refer to extracts from other similar manifestos. From these docu-
stylistic features (rigorous geometric art), or even tech- ments we see a militant programme, vague and extremely
niques and materials used, but an attitude of mind ex- abrupt, by the activists in constructivism (the term given to
pressed through a variety of physical propositions (kinds Tatlin's art by Punin ( ?) in 1920) and by one of the non-
of art works). The components of the constructivist syn- artist intellectuals (viz Constructivism by Alexei Gann—
drome as I see them are: Moscow 1920, published Tver 1922).