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Written by James Whitehead:

Alexander Rodchenko bid farewell to painting in 1921 with Pure Red Colour, Pure Blue Colour, Pure Yellow Colour, predating Douglas Crimp’s 1981 article, ‘The End of Painting’. And like many postmodern art critics in the 1980s, it seems that the logical step after stripping painting bare was to move onto photography. The concept of photography as the socially progressive medium, and painting as the realm of the bourgeois, individual artist-genius, can therefore be seen as an echo of twentieth-century Russian art. The West is recast as culturally immature in the light of Soviet progress, clutching the remains of painting long after the funeral.

The Rodchenko and Popova exhibition at the Tate Modern in 2009 demonstrated the value of new media in a Soviet future. Rodchenko and his circle utilized the medium of photography in a practical, almost commercial fashion in his graphic works. However, one feels the need to strip away the embellishments, like he did in 5 x 5 = 25, and to concentrate on the raw medium. Rodchenko combines a compositional acumen through astonishing vantage points and the expression of socialist duty by its cultural relevance. He maintains an aesthetic eye without succumbing to art for art’s sake.

Photography’s means of production through digital cameras and facebook has to an extent diluted its impact on the modern art market. One has to bear in mind that every photograph on display has witnessed its subject first hand.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 17th, 2011 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Rodchenko. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.