Taken from what looks to be the perspective of an abseiler part way through his drop Alexander Rodchenko’s photo of the Museum of the Revolution in Moscow shows a line of fluted Greco-Roman style columns, the perspective angled so the spaces between the columns are lost and the vertical bands of light and shade fuse together. A small group of people gather at the columns’ base, dwarfed by their size. This dramatic, semi-abstract composition in which human life is subsumed within a larger pattern/purpose is in many ways a perfect curtain raiser for Rodchenko and His Circle, an extensive collection of photos now showing at Art Sensus.
The pictures in this exhibition document life – well certain aspects of life – in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s with a few images from the early 40s too. It was the period when the drive to create a new society, even a new type of person, was at its height , moulded by a Communist ideology that was viewed more as an exact science than a theory which may be contingent upon factors like the environment and the sheer variety and contrariness of human beings. Rodchenko (see above), a human dynamo who probably would have led an extraordinary life in any circumstances, seized upon the new ideas and energies released by the Russian revolution. Starting out as a painter he moved into design, photography and photomontage, creating posters, books, stage sets and even ‘propaganda kiosks’ that reflected and directed a ‘workers’ culture’ where the artist himself was required to be a worker, a constructor like the builders of roads and factories.
Photography, a relatively new process with a strong mechanistic element was an ideal medium for recording the changes demanded by the Soviet state. Its speed and capacity to produce multiple images gave it the credentials of a mass art accessible to everyone. The significance of photography as a revolutionary art form and the status of photographers as figures in the vanguard of revolution are summed up in a picture of Max Alpert who worked as a photojournalist for Pravda. Dressed as an aviator in goggles and leather coat and cap he holds his camera in one hand and uses the other to support a large rucksack which presumably contains a parachute. It’s an image of adventure and modernity that also emphasises the photographer’s mobility and willingness to go anywhere to take pictures – an important attribute given the size of the Soviet Union.
The construction of a new physique for the Soviet Union is a major theme in these pictures, both in the portrayal of mass sporting events designed to hone people’s bodies and in the documenting of new infrastructure – factories, canals and power plants. There’s a wonderful photo by Max Alpert of the Dneiper Dam, its arc bisecting the photo from corner to corner. Some of the most interesting images record new, experimental architecture in Moscow; an interior view of sunshine pouring through tall windows in the Narkomfin House which was designed for communal living by Moisei Ginzburg in the late 1920s and an ‘up and underneath’ shot by Rodchenko of Konstantin Melnikov’s Rusakov Workers’ Club that emphasises the segmented, almost tank-like projections on the top storey. Many of these buildings are now threatened by neglect, demolition or redevelopments that obliterate their distinctive character – problems that have been meticulously recorded and analysed by the Moscow Architectural Preservation Society.
Photos of new buildings, radio masts and electricity pylons advertise the successes of Soviet modernisation schemes yet these images actually stand as a stark contrast to the working conditions recorded in other pictures. This is especially striking in the case of several Max Alpert photos of the construction of the Fergana Canal in Uzbekistan. In a dusty, semi-desert landscape hundreds of men hack at the ground with adzes in scenes that seem to hark back to the building of the pyramids. Similar construction methods in a very different landscape were recorded by Rodchenko when he was sent by the government to photograph the digging of the Belomor Canal in Russia’s far north; working in Arctic rather than desert conditions gangs of forced labourers pile up embankments and craft lock chambers using nothing but human muscle power and the most basic equipment. The ideological and cultural role of these vast waterworks is explored in Frank Westerman’s Engineers of the Soul, a fascinating book published last year. Westerman describes how, along with photographers like Rodchenko, the government dispatched a delegation of 120 writers to record the triumphant building of Belomor.
The power and ubiquity of the Soviet government permeates these photos whether they depict labourers or athletes, soldiers or schoolchildren. This sense of state control slips in only a few images, most memorably in pictures of a shamanic ceremony taken in Siberia by Georgii Zelma. The shaman carries a short stick and shield and wears a fringed cloak. He circles a sick woman lying on the ground who is watched over by two other women kneeling at her head. A man rests his hand on the shoulder of one of the kneeling women. No-one looks directly at the shaman who appears more as shadow than substance thanks to the angle of the camera and the sun. It’s still an image of power and control but one based on social and spiritual connections that evade the dreams of the ministries in Moscow.
Rodchenko and His Circle is on at Art Sensus 7 Howick Place London SW1P 1BB until 19th March. All the photos are for sale so this is a last chance to see this collection together.
Image: Portrait of Alexander Rodchenko, 20th century, period gelatin silver print, courtesy of Art Sensus and Tosca Fund.
