Unit 2 Lecture 2

Important topics of the lecture:

• Russian Constructivism
• Approaching design as cultural force
• Pure form becomes content
• Suprematism uses only pure form and color.
• Suprematism evolves into constructivism.
• Suprematism was the theoretical model for an abstract visual language.
• Collaboration increased.
• The emergence of the Constructivist movement lasted 5 years between 1917 and 1922
• The role of art in the revolution was to oppose old orders.
• Photography was much more powerful than illustration.
• Influence on film.
• The goals of constructivism were the unification of Communist ideology with a visual form. As well as forming a new world of objects for a new social order.
• Style was indigenous to revolutionary Russia.
• Rodchenko
• Architectonic
• Photomontage innovations
• Constructivists enhanced rhetorical power through hyperbole.
• Rodchenko turned his energy into commercial art.
• El Lissitzky remained idealistic to goals of Suprematism.
• Art meant the creation of new 'objects'
• Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge
• Visual forms represent a set of abstract forces to serve the utopian cause.
• Cinematic power
• Pictorial spreads
• The 'Isms' of Art book
• The Steinberg Brothers

Much like the posters of WWI, the Russian Constructivist posters featured some propaganda. It was interesting to see how graphic design and film were so influential on one another. They started experimenting more and more with text and objects, and photo montage. This brought around abstraction in graphic design, which expanded the overall flexibility of design.