Alexander Rodchenko
07 Feb - 27 Apr 2008
ALEXANDER RODCHENKO
"Revolution in Photography"
Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956) was one of the great figures of early 20th-century avant-garde art, and also one of its most versatile practitioners. After gaining an international reputation as a painter, sculptor and graphic artist, Rodchenko turned to photography in the early 1920s, convinced that it would become the artistic medium of his era.
Featuring approximately 120 original prints and photomontages, this exhibition traces the development of Rodchenko's photography over a period of two decades when he created many classic works of Russian and world photography. Pioneering a new vocabulary of bold and unusual camera positions, severe foreshortenings of perspective, and close-up views of surprising details, Rodchenko's photography balanced formal concerns with an interest in the social and political life of the Soviet Union. Whether making individual portraits, studies of modern architecture and industry, or pictures of mass demonstrations and entertainments, Rodchenko infused his images with a startlingly dynamic point of view that influenced the growth of an experimental aesthetic in European photography of the late 1920s and 1930s.
"Revolution in Photography"
Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956) was one of the great figures of early 20th-century avant-garde art, and also one of its most versatile practitioners. After gaining an international reputation as a painter, sculptor and graphic artist, Rodchenko turned to photography in the early 1920s, convinced that it would become the artistic medium of his era.
Featuring approximately 120 original prints and photomontages, this exhibition traces the development of Rodchenko's photography over a period of two decades when he created many classic works of Russian and world photography. Pioneering a new vocabulary of bold and unusual camera positions, severe foreshortenings of perspective, and close-up views of surprising details, Rodchenko's photography balanced formal concerns with an interest in the social and political life of the Soviet Union. Whether making individual portraits, studies of modern architecture and industry, or pictures of mass demonstrations and entertainments, Rodchenko infused his images with a startlingly dynamic point of view that influenced the growth of an experimental aesthetic in European photography of the late 1920s and 1930s.