Russia and Constructivism

Vladimir Lenin was the first head of Soviet Russia after the October revolution. Lenin believed Russian culture was at the heart of a strong nation. From 1919 to 1929 artists in Russia received relative freedom to experiment with art in order to conceive a distinct Soviet style. Lenin wanted art to be ‘accessible’ to the proletariat.
Productivism and Constructivism were new forms and ideas in visual art in post revolution Russia. Constructivism questioned the role of art in society. Working along side the principles of communism, the constructivists aimed to work as a collective. They believed in equality of the sexes making it one of the first times female artists were valued as highly as men. They took a scientific and very rational approach to art, wanting to contribute to every day life through design, architecture etc. (similar Bauhaus principles – see post).
Alexander Rodchenko and Liubov Popova were two of the founders of the constructivism movement. They worked across a number of fields including graphic design, advertising and theatre. Rodchenko was a very experimental artist. Much of his work is abstract, he experimented widely with texture, surface and colour. His experimentation with colour lead to a series of works which eliminated colour and focused solely on the textures and surface used.

Alexander RodchenkoBlack on Black from the series 'Black on Black' 1918

References
Russian formalism By Victor Erlich
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/lenin_vladimir.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletkult
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/rodchenkopopova/