Page 31 - Studio International - April 1971

of the natural sciences'. He was a visionary who 2 N. Altman
believed that art had a realm of its own, distinct Decoration of Alexander Column,
from the 'world of things' (his most famous Winter Palace, 1st Anniversary of the
October Revolution
manifesto, of course, is titled The Non-Objective
3 Unovis Group Vitebsk, 192o
World, Die Gegenstandslose Welt). Art must pass Malevich at blackboard, Suetin on chair
beyond Futurism, in fact the art of the present, in foreground
to Suprematism, in reality the art of the future. 4, 5 and 6 The environment (`reality')
In Malevich's mind this was connected with an which stimulates the Suprematist,
illustrations from 'The Non-Objective
extra-terrestrial migration, a movement into World' by Kasimir Malevich
space. The white of his suprematist canvas
White on White was the colourless white of
space, when the sky was no longer blue. The
new forms created by the artist would
necessarily prove appropriate to the new world
and the new age which would be inaugurated
after the revolution. There was no need to be
obsessed by 'utilitarianism' which, in any case,
could only be transitory.
At the beginning of the NEP period,
Malevich moved to Petrograd where he worked,
with his pupils, in the GUINKHUK, the
Petrograd branch of the INKHUK. At the
same time, following the re-organization of the
NARKOMPROS and of education in general, The Stirner quotation, which is typical, reads revolutionary intellectuals of the twenties,
the Moscow School of Art and Design, the `As a basis for my work I put nothing'. One of there was a cult of Americanism. This can be
VKHUTEMAS, was itself re-organized. the paintings, the centrepiece, was Black on seen in the Arvatov quotation above, it runs
Rodchenko, no longer in charge of exhibition Black, a reply to Malevich's White on White. throughout Mayakovsky (consider, for example,
policy, became the moving spirit of the new In retrospect, it is possible to see that, at this his hymn of praise to Brooklyn Bridge), it is
school and the head of its metal-work time, the prevailing ideology for Rodchenko sloganized by Gastev : 'Let us take the storm of
department, the METFAK. The history of the was nihilism. For him, abstract painting was the the Revolution in the Soviet Union, unite it to
VKHUTEMAS remains to be written. It was, painting of nothing, the suicide of himself as the pulse of American life and do our work like
roughly speaking, the Russian equivalent of an artist. This is in contrast to Malevich's a chronometer!' What they admired was the
the Bauhaus. One of the exhibits at the current programmatic vision of Suprematism, which mass-production of Ford cars, the technological
exhibition of Russian art at the Hayward was a further move forward towards absorption symbolism of the skyscrapers, the high
Gallery suggests that the atmosphere was much into art. It is possible too to see how productivity of American labour. Taylorism,.
the same—costume designs for a pantomime, Rodchenko's nihilism was the logical prelude the 'scientific' study of work habits and the
The Trials of a VKHUTEMAS Student. to his later functionalism. Once the 'artist' possibilities of greater efficiency and speed-up,
As at the Bauhaus, there was a strong had committed suicide, he was reborn as the was officially supported. (To his credit,
visionary streak in the teaching, but the bias `technician' and the 'engineer'. Kershentsev was one of the few to attack this
grew increasingly towards what would now be Paradoxically enough, it now seems that tendency). The end results of this trend, of
thought of as functionalism. The aim was to Malevich's choice has turned out to be the more course, were the Stalinist institutions of the
design articles (furniture, clothing, chinaware, political, though he himself saw it as made for shock brigade and Stakhanovism, an unalleviated
etc.) suitable for factory production on a mass reasons indifferent to politics in any direct work ethic and a repugnant machismo. This
scale. Stepanova and Popova, two artists in the sense. At the Hayward Gallery exhibition it is cult of Americanism had its roots, quite
same constructivist circle as Rodchenko, in fact Malevich's canvases which are totally absent, understandably, in the need to industrialize
went to work in the Tsindel factory as fabric banned by the present Russian government. backward, agricultural Russia. But the particular
designers. This experiment was not a great Even today, fifty years later, they are politically form of the ideology also made possible a
success and they had difficulty in getting their explosive. This is not true of Rodchenko's de-politicization of the working-class, whose
designs accepted. In 1924 Popova died, from metal chairs which, though pioneering, are by efforts it celebrated so highly. The period of
scarlet fever, and Stepanova left the factory to now commonplace. It is clear that there was industrialization was marked by the introduction
take up a post as head of the textile workshop an element of truth in Malevich's belief that of piece-rates, make-or-break work schedules
in the VKHUTEMAS. This retreat from the choice of 'utilitarianism' was a choice of and, in reality, an intense exploitation of the
industry was representative. Most of the transience. The easel painting, regarded by Russian proletariat, which was compensated
VKHUTEMAS designs remained unrealized. the Constructivists as a derisory backwater, for by the rhetoric of targets heroically reached.
For instance, the furniture Rodchenko designed still has a dynamic, contains a threat of change, Functionalism and production-mania,
for a worker's club was actually used for the which constructivist design now lacks. One of scientism and technolatry were integral to this
Paris Exhibition of 1925 and never installed in the main elements in the promulgation of rhetoric.
Russia at all. `socialist realism' was the suppression of It is often said that artists like Rodchenko
In a curious sense, the path taken by Utopianism. Soviet science-fiction, for example, were condemned to spend much of their life
Rodchenko, perhaps the most politically is technicist in emphasis. The Soviet space sidetracked into fields like exhibition design or
committed of the avant-garde artists, was in programme is presented pragmatically without photographic layout. Evidently, there is an
the last resort de-politicizing. It is interesting any of the mythological and rhetorical element of truth in this. Every sign of
to read the programmatic statement Rodchenko overtones of the American programme. It is `formalism' was brutally suppressed and artists
used to present his last public exhibition of not the space programme of a power which can like Meyerhold, who spoke out openly against
abstract paintings, at the beginning of 1919. harness dreams of Utopia. `socialist realism' were simply killed. But there
This consisted of quotations from writers such Functionalism, moreover, is de-politicizing was also an element of choice in this destiny.
as Kruchenikh, Weininger and Max Stirner. in itself. It is significant that for many Russian From the beginning of the twenties, many