A New Vision of Alexander Rodchenko

Gallery: A New Vision of Alexander Rodchenko.

Russian and Soviet painter, sculptor, photographer, theatre and film artist Alexander Mikhailovich Rodchenko was one of the founders of constructivism, the founder of design and advertising in the USSR, and one of the representatives of the New Vision photography.

Rodchenko was one of the most versatile constructivist and productivist artists to emerge after the Russian Revolution. He worked as a painter and graphic designer before turning to photo montage and photography. His photography was socially engaged, formally innovative, and opposed to a painterly aesthetic. Concerned with the need for analytical-documentary photo series, he often shot his subjects from odd angles – usually high above or down below – to shock the viewer and to postpone recognition.

He wrote: “One has to take several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round rather than looked through the same key-hole again and again.”