Page 16 - Studio International - April 1972

Constructivism: artists, without calling their drawings and programme 'Unovis'. Malevich understood
pictures Constructivism. his Suprematism as 'a coherent system' which
an historical and In other words, at certain stages of general, `is constructed ... in time and space, without
as well as personal development, the results of any dependence upon aesthetic beauty,
artistic appraisal certain trialsand experiments could be shown experiences or moods', that is to say, is
at exhibitions. But it is important not to `non-objective'. This is 'a coherent system,
I. Matsa systematize these, and not to lay claim to a which is cooly and solemnly activated by
fixed 'style of the time'. philosophical thought', in which 'the object as
In our country Constructivism as a pictorial art will be annulled' and will thus
particular movement of art emerged with this reach its two 'stages'. Through colour one
title in the years following the Revolution. It `stage' has a purely philosophical and cognitive
[This article first appeared in the August was at about this time too that the conception `movement', and arrives at 'pure' colour, which
1971 issue of Iskusstvo, Moscow, and is of 'industrial art' was formulated in the West. achieves perfection in the whiteness of infinity.
published here in edited form as an example Its followers rapidly formed themselves into a In the second 'stage', colour Suprematism is
of present official Soviet interpretation general group of artists fighting for the manifested 'as a form which can be applied,
of the work of constructivists. Spaces implementation of the principles of having created a new style of suprematist
between sections indicate where the constructionism in art. Thus from the very ornamentation'.2 Alt this was formulated in the
original text has been shortened.] beginning Constructivism in its polemics and years prior to the Revolution. In 1919, in his
its contradictions split into two streams. In article 'On Poetry' CO Poezzii'), Malevich
The fifty-year history of the development of one there were people who correctly understood went still further. He wrote that 'There is
socialist art has demonstrated and proved that in the principle of constructionism, and took a poetry in which the poet describes a corner of
certain areas the constructive principle is not practical view of its implementation in aesthetics. nature', but also poetry 'in which the poet
only justified, but has provided a real basis for In the other were those who had misunderstood destroys the object for the sake of rhythm,
the search for a new stylistic system. (One has the principle and began to formalize it, leaving torn scraps of unexpected
only to think of the positive results of the abstract it and turn it into a dogma. Tatlin called configurations'.3 Here 'economy', as a vital
experiments in architecture, in the building of the latter 'Constructivists in inverted commas'. `measure of the present', as 'a key to unity',
towns, and in various areas of industrial At the moment we shall not deal with the emerges as one of the basic prerequisites.
building.) Yet at the same time there flourished theory and practice of this group. We need only It is quite clear from these theoretical
types of 'innovation' which were called mention the group of poets and writers who formulations of Malevich that although he did
`Constructivism' without any real justification. I called themselves constructivists : Il'ya not regard himself as a constructivist, he was
am referring here not only to the imitators and Sel'vinsky, Aleksei Chicherin, Vera Inber, hailed as a source of ideas by all these
ccontinuers' of Malevich and Mondrian, some of Boris Agapov, Kornely Zelinsky and others, or pseudo-constructivists who in their own work
whom thought up the dadaistic-sounding term Aleksei Gan's totally confused opus followed a line of non-objective art, arbitrary
`Bildarchitektue -- 'picture architecture' as a `Constructivism' (1922), which on almost every abstractions, dematerialized forms, and the
conceptualization of their constructivism. I have page declared 'the death of art'. Mayakovsky correlation of geometrical planes and technical
in mind Doesburg's compositions, Gabo's non- gave a warning to these 'constructivists' in the forms devoid of any function. Such
objective volumes, Gert Caden's 'constructions', first edition of the magazine Let poet-'constructivists' as A. Chicherin
N. Bayer's 'frescoes' in Weimar, the 'mechanical `Constructivists ! Mind you don't become formulated their poetical views in the spirit of
ballet' by Kurt Schmidt of the Bauhaus, and M. just another aesthetic school. Constructivism Malevich's understanding of poetry. In the
Shchuka's and-Moholy-Nagy's 'constructions' as art alone is a nonentity. Constructivism must hands of these figures 'Constructivism' was
of the past as well as the more modern become the supreme formal engineering of the turned, as Mayakovsky had warned, into 'just
creations of Op art and mobile art. whole of life. It is nonsense to think of another aesthetic school'.
Constructivism as the frolics of some pastorale. It is true that the arguments of Malevich
Constructive ideas do not become Our ideas must develop in the modern world !'l were more reasonable than those of his followers
`constructivist' by miracles and sensations, To examine the initial attempts to come to a when he maintained that the system of
but are rather the posing of yet unanswered true understanding of the significance of suprematism has two `stages'—the abstract
questions. They are explorations, or modern industrial-technical development, and (philosophical), and the applied, in which
experiments, in which the final aim is often not the scientific basis of this significance for non-objective art becomes a new aspect of
quite clear even to the artist himself. The artistic-aesthetic creativity, let us look at some decorative art. When Malevich said this it was
important thing is that explorations and of the most outstanding examples of that time : as if he foresaw the possibility of the practical
experiments do not become an end in themselves, Tatlin, Lissitsky, Rodchenko, the brothers application of abstract forms, as came later in
or aspire to perfection. For example, in contrast Vesnin and their groups, and in the West Op art. Malevich himself; however, did not
to such an artist as Malevich, who never moved Corbusier and Gropius. The question of the take this direction.
beyond his own experiments and made them constructive principle was touched upon during El Lissitsky approached the complex
into a 'school' of Suprematism, Tatlin, having the great three-day debate about Soviet art in problem of the renewal of creative methods
experimented with the use of various materials the Communist Academy in the spring of 1928. rather differently.
and textures and produced his 'Counter-reliefs', The texts of the arguments were published that At the beginning of the Revolution he was
in 1922 publicly rejected them and struggled to same year in 'Art in the USSR and the Tasks close to Malevich and Chagall. Later Lissitsky
solve the practical problems of construction. of the Artist'. As a question of supreme became acquainted with the work of Mondrian,
Lissitsky, who in his 'PROUNS' (Projects for importance the problem of Constructivism which he said was concerned with 'the problem
the Assertion of the New') posed questions of occupied a great deal of space in the pages of the of the equilibrium of pure colour on a plane
abstract spatial interrelationships, later magazine S.A. (`Contemporary Architecture'). surface'. But if this 'two-dimensional problem
abandoned these in order to solve practical Let us begin, however, with Malevich. He is transferred to a three-dimensional one, then
spatial problems connected with the constructive never called himself a constructivist, and never decorative art is born'.4 At this time Lissitsky
design of the interiors of Soviet exhibitions. regarded himself as such, but he touched upon maintained that Doesburg, who was considered
Tatlin, Lissitsky and Rodchenko all continued the concept of the construction process with to be one of the leading constructivists of the
to work simultaneously as constructors and his ideas about Suprematism in his 1921 West, had 'already betrayed architecture', and

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