Gabo and Pevsner

Originally issued as a poster in Moscow, to accompany an open-air exhibition on Tverskoie Boulevard.

"No new artistic system will withstand the pressure of a growing new culture until the very foundations of Art will be erected on the real laws of Life." "Space and time are the only forms on which life is built and hence art must be constructed." "The realization of our perceptions of the world in the forms of space and time is the only aim of our pictorial and plastic art" "the plumb-line in our hand, eyes as precise as a ruler, in a spirit as taut as a compass" “everything has its own essential image”="reality of the constant rhythm of forces [in things]"

5 FOUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES: 1) Renounce colour --> "light-absorbing material body" 2) there are no descriptive lines --> line as direction of static forces 3) renounce volume as form of space --> depth 4) renounce mass as sculptural element --> planes used to construct depth 5) renounce static rhythms as only element of plastic art --> new element: kinetic rhythms are 'the basic forms of our perception of real time."

"Programme of the First Working Group of Constructivists" by Alexandr Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova

Task of the Group of Constructivists: “finding the communistic expression of material structures.”“need to synthesize the ideological aspect with the formal for the real transference of laboratory work on to the rails of practical activity.”

1. “our sole ideology is scientific communism”2. turn away from “experimental activity” towards “real experimentation.”3. Three disciplines established to create practical structures “in a really scientific

and disciplined way”: Tektonics, Faktura and Constructiona. Tectonics is formed by: 1. “properties of communism” 2. “expedient use

of industrial material”. - It comprises the “relationship between the ideological and the formal” which “gives unity to the practical design.”

b. Faktura is the “material consciously worked and expediently used.” – the material

c. Construction is the “organisational function” of Constructivism. - It is the “process of structuring” of design and material.

Material is matter; time, space, plane, colour, line and light are materials.

Immediate Tasks:1. Ideological sphere: “The real participation of intellectual and material production as an equal element in the creation of communist culture.”2. Practical sphere: weekly paper/brochures/construct designs/organise exhibitions. 3. Agitational sphere: declare “uncompromising war on art,” unacceptable for the “Communistic forms of Constructivist structures.”

Book 'Constructivism' (Konstruktivizm) by Alexei Gan.

Tectonic: 1. “properties of communism” 2. “expedient use of industrial material”. It “unites the ideological and the formal.”The term is taken from geology: “organic, explosion from an inner being.”It is the “guiding star” of “the Constructivist” who “must be a Marxist educated man who has once and for all outlived art and really advanced on industrial material.”

Factura:Is the “working of material as a whole and not the working of one side.” It is to “select material and use it expediently without halting the movement of the construction or limiting its tectonic.”“In so far as we transform or work over [materials], we are engaged in factura.”

Construction:“co-ordinating function of constructivism.” The “actual process of putting together.”

[Death of Art]: “unconditional war on art.” “Art is dead! There is no room for it in the human work apparatus.”[New Goal of art]: is to “really build and express the systematic tasks of the new class, the proletariat.” [New Artist]: “The master of colour and line, the builder of space-volume forms and the organiser of mass productions must all become constructors in the general work of the arming and moving of the many-millioned human masses.”[Artistic Work]: “Everything must be technically and functionally directed.” “From the speculative activity of art to socially directed artistic work…” Yet the new artistic work will become “capable of opening new means of artistic expression.” [Object:] “A time of social expediency has begun. An object of only utilitarian significance will be introduced in a form acceptable to all.”

Osip Brik, 'From Picture to Calico-Print'

New Conditions Painting is ‘the entire aggregate of the pictorial designing of life.’ Calico-print=picture. ‘calico, and work on it, are now the peaks of art work.’ ‘Our cultural creative work is not entirely purpose-orientated.’ ‘We are practicians’ Easel Painting VS Agit Picture Easel painting cannot be turned into agit-pictures, because paintings are intended for

prolonged existence, but no agit-theme can exist for long, and agit-pictures have no value once the currency of their agit-theme is lost.

Monkish Reasoning of Easel Artists: The making pure pictures saves creative freedom for the whole society. ‘But it is not true. The easel-painting is not only unnecessary to our present day art

culture, but is one of the most powerful brakes to its development’ This is because ‘monkish dogmas’ are turned into productional and pedagogical

principles: the idea that artists need to be artistically educated to make good calico-prints, and that painting is a basic universal method.

But this is not true. It can be disproved theoretically and with everyday examples. Production Artists/Art ‘Only the artists who have broken once and for all with easel-artistry, who have in

fact recognised production…as the only one possible [aspect of art work], only these artists can undertake the solving of problems of present-day art culture productively and successfully’

Among these are the members of INKHUK: Rodchenko, Lavinsky, Vesnin, Stepanova, Johanson, Senkin, Klutsis, late Liubov Popova.

Basic idea of production art: ‘the external appearance of a thing is determined by its economic purpose and not my abstract, aesthetic considerations.’

Problem The artist is still an alien in the factory. ‘Forward! – to the overcoming of this alienation.

Forward! – to the union of artist and factory.’ The ‘entire mass of young artists’ must understand that this is the only ‘true road.’ ‘The

art culture of the future is being made in the factories and workshops.’

New Russian Art: A Lecture El Lissitzky, 1922

He wants to offer a Russian theory of life – not one the West creates on Russian art. In 1917 ‘it became clear to us that the world was only just coming into existence, and

everything must be recreated from scratch.’ Is art really necessary? ‘In the new order of society, in which work will cease to be

slavery…where work is being done by everyone for everyone, in such a society work is given free scope and everything which is produced is art.’

The ‘October Revolution’ in art originated earlier than October 1917. History: Before the revolution: icons St Petersburg Academy/top down imposition of westernised art Revolts: Wanderers; World of Art; new culture of painting in Moscow Knave of Diamonds group ‘overthrown of the object’ begins. ‘The analytical period was the first illuminating example of the internationalisation of the new art.’ Malevich, Morgunov in 1912: Alogism works as a campaign against public inertia. Rayonnism (Larionov); musical painting (Kandinsky ) and Suprematism.New definition of the painter: he is a worker who creates a particular product according to a definite plan and a uniform system. Outbreak of war: relationship between Russia and the West is severed. Village colour suprematism; Americanised town material Proun Absolute painting: properties of the material determine colour; technical material.

Three-dimensional painting. Painting for eyes and touch: Tatlin. ‘the plastic art of our time is not created by the artist, but by the engineer. …vitality,

…uniformity, …monumental quality, …accuracy and perhaps …beauty of the machine …an exhortation to the artist.’

1913 Malevich, Black Square [myth]:’zero’ (not art goes towards positive). Suprematism: unequivocal geometrical forms. System of universal validity. Infinity.

Both static and dynamic compositions. Reality only apprehended through the eye. Not beauty but economy. Style applied to metalwork, woodwork, posters… Suprematism begun to appreciate the city: ‘arranging flat, geometric planes’ ‘as ground plans for further spatial construction’: White on White (Malevich) and Proun.

Revolution. ‘what role does art play in the new society, in which the field of creative activity becomes common property?’ The role of taking new things into existence.

Two groups claim Constructivism: o OBMOKHU. Material and space. o UNOVIS. Material and plane. The artists organise themselves as a party.

Other groups also existed: unity built out of fragmentation. Programme of the Commissariat of Mass Education: 1. War on academies. 2.

Directorate of Innovators. 3. Art-collective to deal with affairs of art. 4. Art Ambassadors. 5. State Art Collections. 6. Dynamic (touring) art collections. 7. Central Museum for painting in Moscow. 7. Commissars for artistic affairs in all provincial towns. 8. International Press Agency. 10. Mass circulation art journal.

Expressions of new art: City decorations. Open exhibitions of paintings, where artists explain their work. Theoretical architectural work – paralysis of building -Tatlin’s Monument is the first work of the new generation. Theatre and open-air plays.

Vkhutemas (Higher State Technical Art Workshops): new method of art study. End of barricade: ‘Only now do we realise that the same problems were arising at

the same [time] as in our country.’ De Stijl, Hungarian movement, Germany. ‘But

those things which in the West remained as studio and laboratory projects were made to materialise on a large scale in Russia, by the design of history.’

Naum Gabo, ‘The Constructive Idea in Art,’ from Circle

‘Our century appears in history under the sign of revolutions…[they] have spared nothing in the edifice of culture…built up by the past ages.’ But not new period of reconstruction in the field of ideas.

‘Cubistic school’ as summit of the ‘revolutionary process.’ Immediate source of the Constructive idea, but almost ‘repulsion’ between Cubism and Constructivism.

‘The basis of the Constructive idea in Art lies in an entirely new approach to the nature of art and its functions in life.’ Complete ‘reconstruction’ of the means in the different domains of art + relations between them, methods and aims.

‘It does not separate Content from Form – on the contrary, it does not see as possible their separated and independent existence.’ They have to act as a unit towards the same direction and effect.

Yet historically, one has always predominated upon the other, as art could not be conceived without illusion and mimesis.

The ‘constructive idea’ has ‘revealed a universal law that the elements of visual art such as lines, colours, shapes possess their own forces of expression independent of any association from external aspects of the world’ – they are ‘self conditioned psychological phenomena rooted in human nature.’

‘The Constructive idea sees and values art only as a creative act. By a creative act it means every material or spiritual work which is destined to stimulate or perfect the substance of material or spiritual life.’ ‘creative genius of Mankind.’

‘Life without creative effort is unthinkable, and the whole course of human history is one continuous effort of the creative will of Man.’

Differences between Art and Science: Science aims for knowledge, it teaches in accord with nature. Art asserts. Its force is in its immediate influence on human psychology. ‘Art derives from the necessity to communicate and to announce.’ ‘Art sees and foresees.’ ‘Nothing is unreal in Art.’

’This does not mean that this idea consequently compels Art to an immediate construction of material values in life; it is sufficient when Art prepares a state of mind which will be able only to construct co-ordinate and perfect…’

Art should not critique what is bad but create what is good. Task: perfecting the human world – is what ‘we constructive artists’ are doing and hope

future generations will continue to do.

El Lissitzky: Proun Room

A room is to be lived in. ‘The six sufaces (floor, four walls, ceiling) are the given factors, they are to be

designed.’ It is not a living-room. ‘One keeps on moving round in an exhibition. Therefore the room should be so

organised that of itself it provides an inducement to walk around in it.’ Material reasons kept him from realising plan for the floor. ‘The room (as an exhibition room) is designed with elementary forms and

materials…surfaces which are spread flat on to the wall (colour) and surfaces which are placed perpendicular to the wall (wood).’

The reliefs provide a ‘problem-situation.’ ‘In this already-given room I am attempting to clarify these principles [essential

principles of the fundamental organisation of room space in itself] with special regard for the fact that I am designing an exhibition show-room, therefore to my mind a demonstration room.’

‘The new room neither needs nor desires pictures.’ Hostility of picture-painters: ‘we are destroying the wall as a resting-place.’

Periscopic device, not painting, should give the illusion of life within an enclosed space.

Equilibrium within the room: ‘elementary and capable of change’ –cannot be disturbed by furniture.

‘The room is there for the human being…We no longer want the room to be like a painted coffin for our living body.’

Exhibition Rooms, El Lissitzky

International Art Exhibition in Dresden, 1926 Great picture review is like a zoo. Viewer is lulled to passivity. Constructivist room should make the viewer active. The material for the design of the new painting is colour, epidermis over skeleton. The room must create the ‘best optics’ for the reception of the different epidermis. Problems: One can simply paint the wall. But then ‘there stands the wall itself as a picture

before in front of me.’ You pin a painting on the other – nonsensical. The four walls are optical backgrounds for the paintings, not simple

support/protection. (c) Avoid crowded impression. Control light. ‘[The room] should present a standard for rooms in which new art is shown to the

public.’ Solution to (a) and (b): grey wall, thin laths painted white on left side, black on right

side. Threefold life given to the pictures when seen on three different backgrounds.

Solution to (c): sliding frames in corners: half of a painting is visible; the other half is covered by a lattice.

Solution to (d): the whole ceiling is a skylight: stretched unbleached calico. The wall next to the calico is painted half blue, half yellow: cold and warm light.

Effect of a changing rhythm modified by every stride. Pushing frames: ‘[the viewer] is physically compelled to come to terms with the exhibited objects.’

Abstract Cabinet in the Hanover Museum, 1927-28 Wall-long window – ‘my aim was to transform the lighting area into a tectonic lighting

agent’ Revolving table show-cases; horizontal moving showcase. White-grey-black lathes – lighting from corner requires different disposition. Lathes

should be made of Nirosta (Krupp’s stainless steel). Ideally the electric lighting should change periodically.

‘Russia: an Architecture for World Revolution’ by El Lissitzky, ‘New Construction in the World Series’ published by Joseph Gantner

Basic Premises: Basic elements of Russian architecture are tied to the social revolution rather than the technological. No longer private client but ‘social commission’: from inidividual to public and universal. Destruction of industry – ‘we must not only build, but rebuild.’‘…responsive building design can actively partecipate in the full realisation of the new world.’Interrelationship between the Arts Revolution ‘offered the radical artist such enormous scope for his activities that it will require the work of generations to fulfil these possibilities.’ New concept of ‘art as cultural labour.’Two views (developed through unhindered experimentation in painting) on what the basic elements of three-dimensional design are: 1) Vision – leading to purely abstract, b/w/ volumetric forms. 2) Visual and tactile perception. Tatlin: intuitive and artistic mastery of materials will lead to realisable constructions. Tower: first synthesis of artistic and technical; looseing up of volumes. First act is rupture -need to develop new schools/train new architects. ‘Youth set itself the task of acheving the synthesis between utilitarian tasks and architectural concepts of space.’No possibilities to build: theorical constructions and their risks. Only in Russia is technology not a given. Architecture is therefore radical: ‘We want to introduce the most modern methods of building and constrution into our country.’(First Projects)Housing Communes ‘The Soviet architect was given the task of establishing a new standard of housing by devising a new type of housing unit, not intended for single individuals in conflict with each other as in the West, but for the masses.’Log cabin: historical example of uniformity, standardisation and collective push.New building types stimulate economy/new form elements/new possibilities for community formation. research of Building Committee of the Economic Council of the R.S.F.S.R. Development of building types A, E, F. Leningrad Building Institute. Economy: reduction of corridors and stairwells.‘The important thing is that the housing block, which up to now has merely represented the algebraic sum of self-contained private apartments, has now been transformed into a synthetic complex for total communal living.’ Club as Social Force ‘new power sources belonging to our new order’ instead of palace/church. Recreational space after work – ‘here each child, each adolescent, each adult, as well as the older people, could be educated into becoming collective human beings outside the circle of their families…’ aim is to liberate man.Gathering place where the individual becomes one with the collective and stores up new energy. University of culture. Maximum luxury for all. ‘Here, both internal and external form must become the conscrete expression of out concept of the spiritual condition and the aesthetic life of social man.’

The architect is not a genius. ‘What we demand from the Soviet architect is that…he will fully comprehend and amplify the faintest ripple of developing energies much sooner than the masses –who tend to be shortsighted as far as their own growth is concerned- and that he will transform this energy into tangible architectural form.’

Sports Physculture. Korshev’s grandstand for sports complex on Moskva River. Steambaths. National recreational area on Black Sea.

Old Cities, new buildings Need to introduce new building types reflecting new modes of life into the old cities. Sky-hook concept: on main thoroughfares. Horizontal/vertical axis: necessary/useful.

Reconstruction of Industrial architecture Importance of the factory as new university/palace of labour. ‘Crucible of Socialisation for the urban population.’

The New City ‘Everything must be conceived on the basis of broad concepts [rather than specialist discipline] and unshakeable confidence in the future.’ New city must be based on existing level of technology and social structure of society. The cities will be realized in the final state of the transition to Socialization. Free competition rather than competitive struggle. State of continuous motion. Geometry or organic development? General debate.

Future and utopia We must be objective, yet utopian ideals wanting to conquer the earthbound should guide/request technological development. Design for Lenin Institute.

Schools of architecture Need to overcome the technical/liberal arts division. Concerned with real problems, the school continuously works for its own reconstruction. Architectural faculty of the Vkhutein is place for educational experimentation.

Ideological Superstructure ‘The value of a work of art in our community is determined by its relationship to the community.’ Architecture/life is striving to ‘raise the instinctive to conscious level.’ Dialectics: ‘melting down old iron and forging it into new steel.’

Editorial Statement from the Editors of Block

Art must be the result of collective effort. Relentless discipline and ‘continuity of work based on the canons’ must replace individualistic experiments.‘Aesthetic contemplation’=’conscious formative will demanding clear and rigorous forms’ must replace inspiration. Principle of economy: great simplification of means/mechanization and technology giving complete objectivity to form.‘Utilitarian considerations in production technology achieve results similar to those of aesthetic considerations. We confront the problem of the aesthetics of maximum economy.’

Untitled Statements on Constructivism and Painting, Henryk Stażewski, Block no. 1.

Post-Suprematism1. Complete rejection of Suprematism’s dynamism.2. Absolute union of background and shapes (rejection of Suprematism’s figure/ground division).3. Anti-geometricism – for Suprematism’s geometricism cannot be applied to painterly ends (creates dynamism, links forms and painting’s boundaries).

Criticism of Suprematism’s technique and of its ‘literary character’ (cosmic metaphysic). ‘The bankruptcy of Suprematism is the proof that dynamism is not a purely plastic phenomenon.’

Towards Flatness in Painting

Human eye accommodates reality as flat images (Impressionism). Cubism: 3D is brought to 2D. ‘Suprematism finally breaks away from the deformation of nature. Flatness.’

Applied art stops existing: ‘a new notion of beauty is born – the beauty of utilitarianism.’

Photography, cinema, radiophone, gramophone fulfill the old demands for art.

Theses on New Art, Władisław Strzemiński, originally published in Block no. 2 (1924)

The artist’s disinterested work is potentially pedagogical – it shapes the style of the moment.Artists can either create disinterestedly (museum art) or move away from art to practical life bringing life to artistic achievements.The artist must not spoil the beauty of industrial products. ‘In this way he cleanses the technology of the remnants of traditional aesthetics and reveals the beauty of utilitarian objects – a new, universal type of beauty.’12 Theses on New Art1) New art strives for perfection of plastic form.2) Difference between various spheres of activity.3) Perfection of work of art must be the end in itself.’ Not telling of a narrative. ‘Let the degree of its [the artwork’s] modernity be measured by the degree of its perfection, only attainable today.’5. ‘The work of plastic art is to be build according to its own laws.’6. ‘The work of art is not a sign of anything. It is (it exists) in itself.’7. Work of art = ‘organic, spatial phenomenon.’8. No dynamism. 11. ‘The laws of art cannot be reconciled with the laws of nature. Either the logic of art, or the logic of the object.’12. ‘Deriving the work of art from modern technology, the artist is closer to his goal, since both are the product of human hands.’ ‘The machine is an organic whole, having as its purpose perfect production process. The machine is an organic whole, having as its purpose perfect production process. The work of art is an organic visual whole. As a whole it can be beautiful, although it also does not strive to be.’

What Constructivism Is, editors of Block, Block 6-7, 1924.

Constructivism does not aspire to create a style – continual changes and improvement under life’s demands.

1. Constructivism is art as a whole.2. Search for practical application of creative impulse. 3. Practical efficacy.4. ‘It does not mean that the program of Constructivism would

eliminate disinterested creative activity in art.’ ‘It is a system of methodological collective work regulated by a conscious will; its aim is inventiveness an the perfection of the results of collective achievements in work.’

5. Mechanisation.6. Economy.7. Dependence of the created object on the material used.

Colour, not painting. – quotes from Theo van Doesburg. 8. Construction of an object according to its own principles.

Simplicity and logic of the machine, not imitation of the machine.

9. Discipline of harmony and order.10. Construction stipulates form. 11. Technology expands the area of potentiality. Building, cinema,

printing, world of fashion. Hygiene and comfort. Dependence on the changes arising in other branches of human creation.

12. ‘INSEPARABILITY OF THE PROBLEMS OF ART AND THE PROBLEMS OF SOCIETY.’

Toward Constructivism, Hans Richter, G no. 3 (June 1924)

Word originated in Russia: art that uses modern construction materials/constructional goals.

1920, Congress in Düsseldorf: Hand Richter, Doesburg, Lissitzky use the name ‘as the watchword of those who sought rules for artistic expression and tasks that make sense for our time.’

Term has become fashionable – but perhaps already passé? Moholy-Nagy now defines himself as Suprematist.

Declaration of the International Fraction of Constructivists of the First International Congress of Progressive Artists' El Lissitzky, Theo van Doesburg, Hans Richter, 1930

Criticism of Union/Congress + rebate from the faction.

1. Programme should not be based on good will2. There must first be the establishment of ‘a specific outlook concerning the

problems of art,’ then eventually economic considerations.3. There must be a definition of the progressive artist: ‘the progressive artists are

those who deny and contest the priority of the subjective in art, who construct their works not on the basis of lyrical caprice, but in accordance with the new formative principle: the systematic organization of means in the service of universally comprehensible expression.’

4. The union is a means for ‘entrepreneurial politics of colonization’ through exhibitions furthering the international art business. The Union repudiates the art exhibition. ‘We stand today between a society that does not need us and a society which does not yet exist….the only exhibitions acceptable to us are those which demonstrate what we still wish to accomplish…or what we have already accomplished.’

Art is a method for ‘organizing our shared life in general.’ ‘..art is a tool of the universal process of labour.’ Collective human energy can only be liberated though struggle, and artists must

be organized to succeed.

Sculpture and Solid' by Katarzyna Kobro, Europa no. 2 1929

‘There are very few modern sculptors. Are there material reasons? Or is it because sculpture is nowadays too directly involved in architecture, so that each truly modern architect must be a good modern sculptor?’

Reviews developments of contemporary sculptors: Boccioni, Archipenko, Vantongerloo, Van Doesburg, Malevich.

‘Sculpture is the shaping of space.’ We should only consider the achievement of ‘those who clear the road,’ not of middling artists. We should become definitively aware that ‘sculpture is neither literature, nor symbolism, nor individual psychology or emotion. Sculpture is exclusively the shaping of form in space. Sculpture appeals to all men and it speaks to all of them alike.’

‘Sculpture enters space and space enters sculpture.’ ‘The solid is a lie to the essence of sculpture…At present the solid belong to history and is just another beautiful tale from the past.’ Sculpture should be the most ‘condensed and appealing part of space.’ Rhythm of its parts. Harmony of units as result of number.

Walter Gropius, ‘The Theory and the Organisation of the Bauhaus’

‘Only work which is the product of inner compulsion can have spiritual meaning. Mechanised work is lifeless…the solution depends on a change in the individual’s attitude toward his work…’

Academy: isolation of the artist from the community. Schooling can never alone produce art – only ‘art-proletariat.’ Rejection of the academy by arts and crafts movements of the second half of the 19th c – but not broad/strong enough.

Analysis of the designing processGiving form to space is the objective of creative activity. The artist need to master the laws of the psychical world – ‘In a work of art the laws of the physical world, the intellectual world and the world of the spirit function and are expressed simultaneously.’

The Bauhaus at Weimar Attempt to create ‘actively creative human beings.’ Arts and crafts for gifted students. ‘The ultimate, if distant, goal of the Bauhaus is the collective work of art - the Building – in which no barriers exist between the structural and the decorative arts.’

The Curriculum Preliminary Course (Vorlehre) Observation and representation: showing identity of form and content. Liberating individual creativity, and assessing it. Instruction in Form ProblemsApprentice is acquainted with his ‘stock-in-trade – the elements of form and colour and the laws to which they are subject.’ Collective work only become possible when every individual understand and can coordinate his contribution to the idea of the whole. Theory offers a common basis. Man must learn the elements of form and colour to communicate and make visible his creative idea. ‘The Bauhaus is consciously formulating a new coordination of the means of construction and expression.’Form and colours must be related to our own inner selves (psychological impact). ‘Art wants to triumph over nature and to resolve the opposition in a new unity…fight of the spirit against the material world. The spirit creates for itself a new life other than the life of nature.’

The goal of the Bauhaus curriculum The culminating point of the Bauhaus…is a demand for a new and powerful working correlation of all the processes of creation.’ Artist will be able to ‘compel industry to serve their idea and industry will seek out and utilize their comprehensive training.’

Theo van Doesburg, Principles of Neo-Plastic Art, begun 1915, first published 1919, issued in German in the Bauhaus books series vol. 6, 1925.

‘XXI When the aesthetic experience is expressed directly through the creative means of the branch of art in question, the mode of expression will be exact.’

‘The aim of the formative artist is…to give form to his aesthetic experience of reality or, one might also say, his creative experience of the fundamental essence of things.’ Thought the ‘formative means’ of colours, forms, lines, planes. In previous art his experience of reality was represented through the accidental appearance of natural objects – readjusted through abstract laws, which however were not fully revealed.All the various currents tend to ‘the conquest of an exact expressional form of the aesthetic experience of reality.’ Cancellation is the essence of the formative idea: one element cancels out/balances the other creating harmony.

Everything in the universe is subordinated to the laws of harmony. The artist’s business must discover and give form to the harmony, demonstrating the conformity of the universe to its own laws. ‘The (truly exact) work of art is a metaphor of the universe obtained through artistic means.’ It must be expressed though ‘pure artistic means and by these alone.’

‘The work of art becomes an independent, aesthetically alive (plastic) organism in which everything balances everything else.’

Herbert Read, ‘What is revolutionary art?’ first published in B. Rea, ‘Five on Revolutionary Art,’ London, 1935.

‘Revolutionary art should be revolutionary.’ – polemic against realism favored by Communists.

Architecture is necessary art – only modern architecture of e.g. Gropius can have connection with the city of the future.

Corresponding to the new architecture is the art known as ‘abstract.’ Makeshift title, too wide. Yet the ‘abstract artist’ are the best of our times, they are those ‘whom every Communist should learn to respect and encourage.’

Problem: apparent independence and isolation of abstract artist.All art has 2 elements: formal element=appeals for psychological reasons, unexplainable. It does not change during history; arbitrary/accidental clothing (expressed in style and mannerism). Abstract artists concentrate on the importance of the formal, becoming indifferent to the phenomenal- yet only rarely can artists only consider pure form. ‘The artist cannot in any effective way avoid the economic conditions of his time.’Two modern movements that are intentionally revolutionary:1. Mondrian, Hélion, Nicholson, Moholy-Nagy, Brancusi, Gabo, Hepworth. Positive function: ‘It keeps inviolate, until such time as society will once more be ready to make use of them, the universal qualities of art – those elements which survive all changes and revolutions.’2. Surrealists (he calls them Superrealists): Ernst, Dali, Miro, Tanguy, Arp. This movement is only negative and destructive.

Link between these artists and architecture points to the society of the future. ‘But you cannot build such a new society – and you must build such a society, with bricks and mortar, steel and glass –you cannot build such a society without artists.’

Necessity for something more difficult, more elevated than propaganda art.

‘REVOLUTIONARY ART IS CONSTRUCTIVEREVOLUTIONARY ART IS INTERNATIONALREVOLUTIONARY ART IS REVOLUTIONARY’

Viktor Shklovsky, from ‘Art as Tecnique,’ Sborniki II Petrograd, 1917.

Art is not ‘thinking in images.’ In his vision of art, ‘ an image is not a permanent referent for those mutable complexities of life which are revealed through it; its purpose is not to make us perceive meaning, but to create a special perception of the object –it creates a ‘vision’ of the object instead of serving as means for knowing it.’

‘The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar,’ to make forms difficult to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object; the object is not important.’

Poetic language is ‘difficult, roughened, impeded language.’

Viktor Shklovsky, ‘On Faktura and counter reliefs,’ 20 October 1920

The external world is perceived as objects possessing volume, but not material aspect/faktura. Instead, ‘Faktura is the main distinguishing feature of that specific world of specially constructed objects the totality of which we are used to call art.’ We are flying on a ‘cannon ball without windows’ (like in Julius Verne’s novel): ‘The whole effort of a poet and a painter is aimed first and foremost at creating a continuous and thoroughly palpable object, an object with a faktura.’ Artistic forms change, do not improve- improvement is anthropomorphic. Suprematist school postulates rather than executes – demonstrates purely artistic problems symbolically rather than solving them.

Tatlin and Al’tman have ‘approached closer than anyone else the problem of creating constructed and continuous objects in art.’ Ultimate goal: creation of a new palpable world.

‘A counter-relief, a pencil study, bits and pieces of a new paradise where there are no names and no empty spaces, where life does not resemble our current ‘flight in a cannon-ball…I do not know whether Tatlin is right or wrong…I do not believe in miracles, but that is why I am not an artist.’