Tuesday 16th October 2012
"Revolutionary Design in Russia (Modernism)" Seminar Notes
Richard Miles
November 17th- Petrograd
- Bolsheviks led by Lenin storming the Winter Palace
- Poor Workers overthrowing the Government
- Lenin- "Peace, Bread and Land"
- "The Aurora" means "New Dawn"
- 'Soviet Union' takes over
Film commissioned by Lenin
Director- created the Montage shot
1917-1922- 8 million die in the Civil War
Illiteracy means visual communication spreads the message of the revolution
"The Bolshevik" by Custodia- Propaganda
- The Large Everyman worker shows collective power
- Red Flag- used to wrap up the martyr dead- connotes blood and energy
- White connotes the Anti- Revolution- all over property
- Song: 'The Red Flag'
1917- mid 1920's- Russia is the most progressive nation of the world
- Site of the workers experience
- Mechanical, Urbanisation and Industrialisation
1922- Experimentation of layout and of producing own art and design
1924- Lenin dies and Stalin takes power
- Bans all designers and art unless its socialist realism style
- Massive Lenin Image- Big Brother figure
- Same height and weight, men and women unite
- Becomes backwards
Focus on 1917- 1924
- Picasso and Matisse
- Lenin encourages people to look to the west
- Abstraction- geometry, Industrial and Mechanical
- El Lissitzky- Red revolutionary class penetrating the white elite class
- Triangle- Military Attack Formation
- Represents the storming of the Winter Palace
Rodchenko- Designed to have a purpose or particular agenda
- Looks radical and fresh
- Poster that can get outside libraries to get the illiterate to read
- Better gender balance and equality- leftist revolution 'ups' the status of women
- Photography is real and objective which is new and revolutionary
Lenin is building the revolution through industrialisation and modernisation and urbanisation
- Superimposing of negatives on drawings is aesthetically experimental- early photo montage
Purpose of the art- applied
Distinctly Russian common aesthetic
Experiment at designs in architectural forms- attempts to find universal forms
Vladimir Tatlin- Monument to the Third international
- Alliance of 3rd World countries
- Repost to the Eiffel Tower- Ambition of the Communists
- Investing to become Hyper- Industrialised
- Functioning Buildings- 3 Floors on a tilt which reflects the world axis
- 1st floor, Educational Facilities
- 2nd floor, State Bureaucracy
- 3rd floor, Radio and Communications
The Constructivists
- Multi-disciplinarians
- Removal of hierarchy
- Building the new world- Progressive
Textile and Wallpaper aesthetic
- Spreads the message
- Emancipation of women and their crafts
- Fashion showcases this- "Form Following Function" with asexualised and no gender specific
Art school opened during the Revolution Progression
- Teaching the philosophy to younger generations
- Opened at the same time as the Bauhaus, with progressive education
- Shut by Stalin
- Not known much about- Britain's 'enemies' don't want to admit that Russia is better
Stephanova- Female Architect
- Designs for workers professional suit
- Highlighing the flaws in Modernism
- How to have equality whilst having individualism- forcing it shows social engineering
1932- Stalin decrees that only 'Social Realism' art is permitted
- Old fashioned
- Working class, old sexist roles and peasantry
Conclusion:
- After 30 years of Stalin, Russia realised that it had no more creatives
- Revolution saw new opportunity for art to progress
- Constructivists- Desire to make art useful which will help construct a new society
- New teachings and abstract aesthetic
- 1920's- Art and Freedom curtailed
- 1934- Stalin decrees 'Social Realism' only
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