Photographer – Alexander Rodchenko Bio

Photographer – Alexander Rodchenko Bio

            Alexander Rodchenko is a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer, and graphic designer. He is one of the founders of constructivism. He was born in St. Petersburg in 1891, and created his works through the early-mid 20^th century. One of the most versatile constructivist and productivist artists to emerge after the Russian Revolution. He created photomontages based on poetry by Mayakovski which created constructivist form. His most used element of design was lines. He likes using lines such as stairs, grids, or wires in his compositions creating an abstract constructivism line structure. He used unusual camera positions, severe foreshortenings of perspective and views of surprising details.

            One of the most significant and first constructivists of his time. Constructivism was created by him, it had a major impact on architecture, graphic and industrial design, theatre, film, dance, fashion, and even music. Honoured for his pioneering work as a photographer. Constructivism is a form of literal photography – it has no meaning, he did not believe in abstracts, it was more of concrete and tangible ideas. Rodchenko was important because he showed that not all art has to have an inner meaning, it can also be literal. He thought that literal art could also make someone feel something without a meaning behind it. He created a trend to the arts which was linked to industry, architecture, and manufacturing. He was inspired by Vladimir Tatin who was inspired by Picasso’s work. Constructivism was formed from and a part of the progression from Russian Futurism. Futurism is the opposite of constructivism, the art being abstract with emphasis on geometric shapes. He led photography in to more of a modern subject. Now in the modern days, Constructivism has also extended to two dimensional art such as graphic art posters and books. He gave people something “nice” to look at, not something to deeply think about.