Kiaer, Christina, author.

Imagine no possessions : the socialist objects of Russian constructivism / Christina Kiaer.

Cambridge, MA ; London : MIT Press, [2005]
©2005

xvii, 326 pages : illustrations (some color), portraits, facsimiles ; 24 cm

"In Imagine No Possessions, Christina Kiaer investigates the Russian Constructivist conceptions of objects as being more than commodities. "Our things in our hands must be equals, comrades," wrote Aleksandr Rodchenko in 1925. Kiaer analyzes this Constructivist counterproposal to capitalism's commodity fetish by examining objects produced by Constructivist artists between 1923 and 1925: Vladimir Tatlin's prototype designs for pots and pans and other everyday objects, Liubov' Popova's and Varvara Stepanova's fashion designs and textiles, Rodchenko's packaging and advertisements for state-owned businesses (made in collaboration with revolutionary poet Vladimir Mayakovsky), and Rodchenko's famous design for the interior of a workers' club.
These artists, heeding the call of Constructivist manifestos to abandon the nonobjective painting and sculpture of the early Russian avant-garde and enter into Soviet industrial production, aimed to work as "artist-engineers" to produce useful objects for everyday life in the new socialist collective." "Kiaer shows how these artists elaborated on the theory of the socialist object-as-comrade in the practice of their art. They broke with the traditional model of the autonomous avant-garde, Kiaer argues, in order to participate more fully in the political project of the Soviet state. She analyzes Constructivism's attempt to develop modernist forms to forge a new comradely relationship between human subjects and the mass-produced objects of modernity." --Jacket.

0262112892 (hc ; alk. paper)
9780262112895 (hc ; alk. paper)
9780262612210
0262612216

INKhUK (Art school)
INKhUK (École des Beaux-Arts)
Constructivism (Art) Russia (Federation)
Socialism and art Russia (Federation)
Productivism (Art) Russia (Federation)
Avant-garde (Aesthetics) Russia (Federation) History 20th century.
Constructivisme (Art) Russie.
Socialisme et art Russie.
Productivisme (Art) Russie.
Avant-garde (Art) Russie Histoire 20e siècle.
Avant-garde (Aesthetics)
Constructivism (Art)
Productivism (Art)
Socialism and art
Constructivisme.
Avant-garde.
Avant-garde (Art)
Constructivisme (Art)
Productivisme (Art)
Socialisme.
Russia (Federation)
Russie.

History
Books.

Location: Library main 243484
Call No.: BIB 173233
Status: Available