Tuesday, 28 April 2009

Notes from Exhibition 21 March 2009

Constructivism is the move away from scientific objectivity-the artist can take control of the form (agency)

Art should play a role in the world-it should combine theory and practice. They upheld that art should be produced 'rationally'. Which, although employs terminology of the enlighenment should be seen as rejecting personal expession as seen in Bourgeois representation towards a scientific objectivity. Bourgeois representation, in line with what we have been studying in this course, will always have a class interest at heart. It expresses the personal experiences of the ruling clas-one that aims to present a view of the world by arranging objects into a false vision of the world in order
'Russia has', they said, 'given birth to it's own art and it's name is objectivity' (Rodchenko: 1918)
By stating that painting is, in their words, Useless as a church, they are playing with metaphors which seem to me rather ultra-left. It seems to dismiss the role of art and in this case painting in upholding and maintaining ideological positions. By understanding religious art, for example, as a glorification of God through the aesthetic form we can demonstrate that art isn't purely useless but could be used to challenge pre-existing inequalities in society.


Rodchenko and Popova






Monday, 27 April 2009

Message to Clare

Clare; can you turn my words into links for the top post too? Half the title seems to have been chopped off. Thanks. Should really learn to do links. Bye.
Greg

Reviews of the Tate Show

Reviews of the show.

Just came across these reviews of the show. Might we talk about art as a ripe site for contestation, both historically as well as contemporarily? Why is art particularly suitable for the creation/narration of identities and ideologies?

Socialist Worker review:
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=17130

Guardian Review:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/feb/10/rodchenko-popova-tate

Telegraph Review: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/4928225/Rodchenko-and-Popova-at-Tate-Modern---review.html

Daily Mail (No Results Found):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?searchPhrase=rodchenko

Meeting time tmrw

So, we agreed 10am Tuesday 28 April outside on SOAS steps. i will book us a room (i get to have private study rooms because of my ADHD!)

Key ideas:

  • Knowledge production and reproduction through discursive practices
  • and how knowledge of the past is represented in the present and how this shapes our view of the future.
  • How we as producers of knowledge are aware of our own identity and how this shapes what we put  in the presentation
  • The revolutionary art form
  • Useless as a church stuff and then straight back to a capitalist mode of production which itself then shapes a less egalitarian art form. 
  • Gender formationn-what does the Tate's deliberate choice to use a woman artist to present this movement as egalitarian do to shape the narrqative of the exhibition? Does Constructivism reinscribe gender roles?
  • Panopticon-the museum as a controller of knowledge and behaviour

willl add more a bit later...

Clare.x

Jstor articles of interest

Hello both,

Found these articles on Jstor, might be of use.

1/ Birnholz 'The Russian Avant-Garde and the Russian Tradition' Art Journal 32:2 (1972-1973)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/775725

2/ Briony Fer 'Metaphor and Modernity: Russian Constructivist.' Oxford Art Journal 12:1 (1989)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1360263

3/ Patricia Railing 'The idea of Construction as the Creative Principle in Russian Avant-Garde Art' Leonardo 28:3 (1995)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576074

greg.