Alexander Rodchenko
Pioneered photomontage
Worked among diverse media, including design, painting and photography
Embraced dramatic angles and bold perspectives
Alexander Rodchenko began his career in the visual arts as a painter, but politice steeres hin down a commercial design path. He joined El Lissitzky and Vladimir Tatlin in founding the Constructivist movement, but then he quit painting to serve the Russian Revolution in a practical manner. Putting his avant-garde ideals to use in promoting the msaages of the revolution became much more importnat to him than what he called "easel painting."
Like other Constructivists, Rodchenko's work was characterized by strong diagonals, asymmerty, sans serif type, heavy rules, white space, and bold photography. He pioneered the use of photomontage, combining different photography into one composition, Juxtapositions in scale, perspective, and subject matter aimed to surprise viewers, awakening them to the new medium's revolutionary power.
In 1923, Rodchenko began collaborating with poet and activist Vladimir Mayakovsky. They started an advertising agency together and worked for several state organizations. This work also promoted the ideals of the revolution and brought modern design into advertising. Around the same time, Rodchenko created the visuals to accompany Mayakovsky's poems in his book Pro Eto (About This). Interpreting abstract poetry was a good fit for Rodchenko's artwork.
His work often has a cinemativ quality to it, and de deisgned film posters for Sergi Einstein's Battleship Potemkin and Dziga Vertov's Kino Glaz (Cinema Eye), as well as the latter's title sequence.
Rodchenko's sense of humor and diverse interests probably helped him survive under Josef Stalin's dictatorship. His versatility meant he was always beginning something new, which helped him stay optimistic. He found most of his success as a photographer, using radical composition and experimenting with dramatic angles and perspectives. He later worked as a photojournalist and returned to painting.
