Artists in the young Soviet Union saw abstraction and collage as a means of changing both art and society.
1918 - 1941
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Kazimir Malevich, Black Square (1915)
Malevich's Black Square represents the paradigm shift which changed the direction of contemporary art
Alexander Rodchenko, At the Telephone
Rodchenko depicted the rapidly changing world of newspapers, cameras, and telephones in new and unexpected ways.
Constructivism, Part I
The Constructivists worked to establish a new social role for art and the artist in the communist society of 1920s Soviet Russia.
Constructivism, Part II
Constructivist Kiosks, rubber overshoes, textile designs and posters — all aligned with the ideology of communism and contributing to the creation of a new society.
Kazimir Malevich and Cubo-Futurism
The Russian avant-garde adapted European modernist techniques to depict specifically Russian subjects.
Russian Neo-Primitivism: Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov
Early 20th century Russian modernism is filled with contradictions—it engages with some of the most radical trends of European modern art, but reflects on traditional Russian subjects and themes.
Suprematism, Part I: Kazimir Malevich
“I transformed myself in the zero of form . . . I destroyed the ring of the horizon and escaped from the circle of things, from the horizon-ring that confines the artist and the forms of nature.”
Suprematism, Part II: El Lissitzky
Malevich believed art would help to usher in a new spiritual era of immateriality.
Tatlin’s Tower
Tatlin’s Tower symbolizes the utopian aspirations of the communist leaders of Russia’s 1917 October Revolution.
A new world after the Russian Revolution: Malevich’s Suprematist Composition: White on White
Malevich believed that artists, and art, could pave the way to a better future. But would they?
Varvara Stepanova, The Results of the First Five-Year Plan
Stepanova lent her artistic talents to the cause of promoting the ideals of the Soviet Union.
