This thesis focuses on sociality of Russian Constructivism. Russian constructivism is thought to be important because it socialized Art which was new to the existing aesthetics: It was completely opposite to the definition of autonomy of Art in terms ...
This thesis focuses on sociality of Russian Constructivism. Russian constructivism is thought to be important because it socialized Art which was new to the existing aesthetics: It was completely opposite to the definition of autonomy of Art in terms of traditional aesthetics. The socialization of Art is a novel aesthetics based on the historical avant-garde activities pertaining to the roles of Art and Artistsin the socio-economic productivity and the ideology of Karl Marx, "Art as a form of production". Russian constructivism was the first major experiment to socialize Art, andin this context, it tried to establish the concept of "the Artist as a producer - the leader of a new society" through the artistic works by harmonious combination of Art, industry and technology.
In his book Theorie der Avant-garde, Peter B'rger considered Russian constructivism as an artistic movement contradicting autonomy of Art of bourgeois. The term 'autonomy of Art of bourgeois' used by B'rger was adopted to criticize the improper relationship between the capitalist society and system of Art. The Art in Capitalist society, which is not free from the political system justifying the repression, is isolated from the society and prevented from expressing truths under the idea of Autonomy of Art. Therefore, B'rger argues that this modernistic thesis or "Autonomy of Art" is proven to be false. According to his argument, the purpose of the artistic movement of anti-aesthetics in 1913, was to refute against Autonomy of Art claimed that the historical avant-garde artists emerged after Cubism attempted to integrate Life and Art together and challenged the Artistic system enforcing Autonomy of Art. He considered this Anti-aesthetic movement as the core of Russian Constructivism. Russian Constructivism tried to realize the relationships between Art and society through a new form of Art and their will and effort developed dialectically during Russian avant-garde movement.
In the period of Russian avant-garde movement, especially from 1913 to 1922, the Socialist Realism was not started yet. Also, it was the time when Russia was under the strong influence of bourgeois Autonomy of Art and, at the same time, the stage that the Russian Constructivism was to prepare and realize its active propagation. The early Russian avant-garde Art was the period that both sociality and autonomy were utilized. Studying this period of Art is very important to know how sociality of Art developed through Russian avant-garde. On December 1921, Russian avant-garde artists found a new form of Art by officially employing the term "Constructivism". The term "Construction", which is the basis of the Constructivism, was chosen to represent the new form of Art. The terminolgy was chosen through numerous debates and experiments. The debates and experiments were about the artistic definitions of 'Composition' and 'Construction'.They interpreted the 'Composition' asthe term representing the existing Bourgeos Art and aesthetics and the 'Construction' as the socialistic and materialistic ideas which socialized Art as opposed to the 'Composition'.To achieve this conclusion, it appears that the Russian artists developed the basic concept of Art dialectally throughout the Russian avant-garde movement. A close investigation of this process provides an insight to characterize Russian avant-garde artists into two distinct groups.
The first group which included Malevich, Kandinsky, and Naum Gabo, recognized Art based on the traditional aesthetics and the second group did on the concept of the Socialization of Art, who were Tatlin, Ioganson, Rodchenko and Stepanova. The first group of artists, who considered Art as products of spiritual activities of human being, had fundamental differencesin their concepts from the Constructivism artists who recognized Art from the view point of Materialism. Even though Malevich and Tatlinhad basically different viewpoints on Art, both of them accomplished epoch-making changes in the Artistic form, which was a way to compose through "the absence of object" instead of merely reproducing the object. However, there was anessential difference: the first was metaphysical composition and the second was composition of real materials. In thesimilar context, it is of note that there has been a long time misconception that Naum gabo and Tatlin were the representative artists of the Constructivism sharing the same Artistic viewpoint. The only common issue between the two artists was "the construction of space", which contributed a significant advance to the way of sculptural expression by including "space" as one of the elements of sculpture while the traditional sculpture valued mostly the mass and volume. However, the space of each artist was different: the space of Naum gabo was still a ideologic metaphysical composition of illusive space but that of Tatlin was a real space of real materials. With many artistic experiments and discussions, Russian Constructivists interpreted these differences as two completely opposite concepts: Composition and Construction. They denied the Composition on the idea that it was the Artistic style grounded on the traditional aesthetics while they accepted the Construction and developed it into a new Artistic concept that could represent their ideal society.
Since the word "Construction" can be used in many different contexts with awide range of different meanings, it is hard to define "Construction" as a single concept. At the time of Russian revolution, Shklovsky used "Construction" to describe the influence of the third international monumentof Tatlin, which was a huge steel structure outstretched into the sky spirally, representing liberation. However, to the young artists in 1950s and 1960s, the word "Construction" was perceived as an index that was limited in semiological arbitrariness. Conclusively, "Construction" is not a word that bears one and only meaning but a word that changes depending on the times and contexts, meaning "Constructing" the metaphoricalvisual language that is representative of the time period. It is not an independent visual language based on the absolute autonomy but a non-fixed visual language reflecting the society. From this point of view, Russian Constructivism produced a visual language reflecting their society. At the same time, it was born again as an Art that breathes with people and exists in the lives of people.