Page 35 - Studio International - February 1973

the Bottle Rack when I first saw it as sculpture, don't you think Letatlin gives an impression
however it came into existence and whatever its of aesthetic perfection ?'2
history and exploitation, and I find that I still Tatlin's aesthetic, his 'culture of materials'
am. The same holds true for the Urinal, the Snow also derives from cubist collage, from the period
Shovel, the Hat Rack. The rest of Duchamp's of his stay with Picasso in Paris (1913). The
work, before and after, seems contrived, straight and curved lines and planes representing
over-elaborate, clever, whimsical, mechanical the elements of cubist still-life are transformed
and boring. The Bottle Rack and the other in Tatlin's reliefs of 1914-17 into the
pieces I mentioned are inspired : they do not `functional' forms of real materials. Steel and
work simply on their incongruity as useful aluminium sheet, flat, rolled, or profile cut:
objects, in an art context: in fact their sawn, planed, drilled sections of wood: wire
detachment from the original context, except bent in curves, cables under tension: with other
with the Snow Shovel, makes them virtually materials, glass, string, and so on, tautly and
unrecognizable except as sculpture, i.e. in terms dynamically organized in structures which
of their abstract properties — image, proportion, appear to thrust into the spectator's own space.
structure and use of material — which is the Until the Soviet authorities are prepared to
inversion of Duchamp's professed intention: to release Tatlin's surviving work, one can only
make art unnecessary by substituting common, guess at the quality of these reliefs : but my
mass-produced objects for art objects. However guess is that they will prove to be very good
the whole enterprise depended on the general indeed.
cultural structure built around the making and Tatlin's monument to the Third International
appreciation of art, the needs it satisfies and the was his first fully three-dimensional structure. In
expectations it creates. Duchamp could not spite of its grandiose intention (the final version
escape being part of this structure and while in was to be 400 metres high) its form seems to
the short term his betrayal of his own talent may have largely resulted from the materials — wood
have diminished art, I am convinced that the with steel brackets — from which he constructed
effect of his best work will in the end be seen to the original model. Disregarding its total
have enlarged it. The ready-mades witness impracticability as engineering structure, and
how Duchamp, his taste and sensibility considering the model purely on aesthetic
sharpened by the competitiveness of cubist grounds, it is undoubtedly an impressive object,
Paris, where he had arrived too late for his wild, generous, and energetic, with a surprising
contribution to be anything but academic, found variety of views. But it has the faults of these
in exile in New York mechanically fabricated virtues — there is much in it that seems
objects whose completeness, simplicity and redundant, capricious or merely confused. It is a
order must have seemed but a step from the flawed structure because Tatlin seems to have
stripped and dismembered bottles, glasses and been unable to decide whether he was making a
guitars of Braque and Picasso's collages of model or the real thing. Its character, like that of
1912-15. The formal integrity which these so much Russian constructivist work, is closer to
objects possess is typical of a great number of stage design than to sculpture, or architectural
useful objects in general circulation in the engineering.
nineteenth century where function, economy During the 20S Tatlin moved from the design
and efficiency had been the only determinants of of prototype use objects — a chair, a stove, a suit
design. It was Duchamp's achievement in spite of clothes, etc. — to the design of a glider, or air
of himself, to bring this whole area of form and bicycle. What led him to this was, typically, an
use of materials into sculpture, where aesthetic motive — the desire to find an ordered
subsequently it has been untapped, except in the and rational structure based entirely on curves.
work of David Smith, who was the first to A flying machine would at once give form and
incorporate tools and machine parts into purpose to his aesthetic beliefs, while realizing
sculpture for their abstract rather than image the fantasies of dynamism and release from the
quality. However the abstract formal power of earth merely symbolized in the Tower. The
the Bottle Rack as a total configuration has not skeleton of the glider is indeed a beautiful
yet been equalled in sculpture, in which even structure, so far as one can gather from
now total form is still largely dependent on photographs. In contrast to the Tower, the
vestigial memories of the figure, or the materials for the glider were selected and worked
extrapolation of the rectangle from painting. with the greatest care and precision — steamed (From top to bottom)
Tatlin's career offers a strange parallel to and bent wood — 'ash, linden, willow, cork, silk (Left)
Duchamp's, and as with Duchamp his most ropes, aluminium and even white-tanned Duchamp
important work is not available except in leather . . .'3 The aesthetics were perfect, but the Urinal 1917
photographs or reconstructions. As with dream of an air bicycle for the masses was (Right)
Duchamp, this is largely due to the artist's desire unrealized. However the fruits of Tatlin's work, Duchamp
Hat Rack 1917
to move the object beyond the context where it especially in his investigation of the form-giving
could be received and appreciated as art. In properties of materials not previously considered Tatlin
Corner Relief
contrast to Duchamp, however, Tatlin always worthy of sculpture, remain available to us. Published by Camilla Gray in 1962
affirmed the primacy of aesthetic considerations `The so-called Red-BlueChair, the chair made Tatlin
in all his projects, even the glider. 'I have made of two boards and a number of laths, that chair Drawing of Letalin
it as an artist. Look at the bent wings. We was made to the end of showing that a thing of Tatlin
believe them to be aesthetically perfect. Or beauty, i.e., a spatial object, could be made of Drawing of Tower model 1922