Antliff Allan. Anarchy and Art: From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall (ENG)
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Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xc.
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/dominicanuc/Doc?id=10308829&ppg=90
90 ANARCHY AND ART
The fo llowing accompa1lied the exhibition of Rodchenko's Black on Black
pailltings i11 1919:
Rodchcnko's System
At the basis of 1y ense 1 have placed nothing.
-M. Stirner, The Ego mId Its um
COI01·S disnppen1·-evny,hillg merges i11fo bIn.
-A. Kruchenykh, Gly-G
e I1nd plck fO "eve1'!
Whl1t invigomtes life ivigomtes deneb,
AnA the del la' (H 11 � living A:e.
-lt hitman.
Leaves of Gmss
Il7"dn" se1"Ves I1S
sejstilf.iol1 fi)1" the 1ll1"dere1"; he thereby
spins to p,-ove 'hT nOlhing exists.
-Otto We ininger, Apl1'isls
"." I evour it the Ioment I ntlfUce the thesis, ml I nm the "/"
o111y when I devom· it .... The fn ct thnt I devour myself sbows mere
tht I exist.
-M. Stirner
Gliding o'er . through ,
Through ltll1'e, Time, nud Sp ace.
As
ship 011 the wters advnncing,
The voynge of the soul-uot life aloue,
Dentb, IallY (h ath
ll sig.
-Wa lt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xci.
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Tr ur Cml/ors 91
The downfall of all the "isms" of painting marked the begin
ning of my ascent.
To the sound of the funeral bells of color painting, the last
"ism" is accompanied on its way to eternal peace, the last
l
ove and hope collapse, and I leave the house of dead truths.
The motive power is not synthesis but invention (analysis).
Painting is the body, creativity, the spirit. My business is to
create something new from painting, to examine what
I prac
tice practically. Literature and philosophy are for the special
ists in these areas, but I am the inventor of new discoveries in
painting.
Christopher Columbus was neither a writer nor a philosopher,
h W rdy th. i."cv.rr f)f n.w cf)n ntri.s.
-Aleksandr Rodchenko, "Rodchenko's System," Te nth
State Exhibition: Non-objective Creation and Suprematism,
Moscow, 1919
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xcii.
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92
ANARCH Y AN D ART
"That Day"
Shots.
Shots.
A crackling machine gun.
Again.
Guns!
God! What is it? Why?
October; its the same as then.
5 a.m.
Morning.
Jump out of bed.
Devils. Don't know. hat they crushed.
The
Clubs.
Pf)plt, fll1l1 nl mel.
Don't know
who
they
killed.
They're bandits-they say.-Criminal dirt,
gathered at midnight.
People.
Can't [see]
their
faces.
-published in Aorkhiia (April 23, 1918)
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xciii.
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Trlle Creators 93
NOTES TO CHAPTER 4
All citations from Afrk bii a: (rO the New York Public Library holding unless oth
erwise
noted.
Aleksandr Rchenko, "0 !uZei orozo
v
a, II," Alll·kbii, n.d. This was the
second se
ction of a two-part article. April 12, 1918 saw the rst wave of raids on
anarchist centers throughout J loscow. he raid on the Morozov mansion fits that
pattern; the artists were awakened at night by umed detachments, rounded up
with the anarchists occupying the building, and shipped
off for interrogation.
2
With the notable exception of the German art historian Hubertus Gassner.
See Hubertus Gassner, "The Constructivists: Modernism on the al'
Modernization," The Grent Utopia: Tbe Rllss;all alld Soviet Avam-Garde, 1915-1932,
exh. cat. (New York: Solomon
R. Guggenheim Museum, 1992): 298-319.
3 P:lUl Avrich, The Russiull Allnh ists (Princeton: Princeton Univer�ity Press, 1967),
1H2.
4
Ronald I. Kowalski, The Bolsbevik Party ill Conflict: The Left Oppositioll of 1918
(Pittsburgh: Uniersity ofPittsburgh Press, 1991): 146-154.
5
Avrich, The Rlusiml rhlllrchists, 182.
6
Ibid.
7 Ibid., 183.
8
Gregorii Maximov, Tht Guillotillt nt lrk (Chicago: Alexander Berkman
Memorial Fund, 1940): 406.
9
Ihid., 408.
10
Maximov, Tbt Guillotillt at Wo rk, 40; Aleksandr Rodchenko, "0 Muzei
M
oro7ova," Allarkhii, n.d.
11
Avrich, The Rssiml Allrchists, 184.
12 "The April Pogrom in Moscow" in Maximov, Tbe Guillotillt at Wo rk, 383-393.
13
"Release of the Extraordinary Committee to Struggle Against the Counter-
Revolmion (Cheb),"
2l1amia Truda (April 13, 1918) in Maximov, The GillOTille aT
Wo rk, 383.
14
"An Ofcial Communication," 2tl",i Tr If (April 13, 1918) in aximov, Thr
Gllillotillt 1 , 384-385.
15
Avrich, Tbe Rlfiull Anurchist, 184.
16
Maximo\', Tht Gllillotint at rk, 357.
17 I bid., 356.
18
"Pogroms Follow in Petrograd and in the Provinces," in Maximov, Tht Gllillotine
aT Wo rk,
396-404.
19 Maximov,
Tbt Gii/otillt lit ork, 410.
20 "1()[' Den'," Allflrkbiill, (April 13, 1918). The arti�t and poet arc not identied.
Avrich wrires rhat the cycle of arrests, executions, and imprisonmenrs intensi
c{l
in 1919, and that by 1920 "the Cheb dgm:t had swpt the ntire countf}',"
effectively �nufng out [he anarchist movement.
Tht Allnhists ill the Russillll
RevollfTioll,
Paul
Av
ri ch, ed. (Ithaca: Cornell University Paperbacks, 1973): 138.
n Avrich, The Rill Anarchists, 189-195.
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xciv.
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94 ANARCHY AND ART
n Ibid., 188-189.
13
Arich, The Rfliml Anarchists, 100-203. In November 1921, the Moscow
headquuters of the Soviet-Anarchists W3S raided and it's leaders jailed. "The
Pcrsecution of thc Anarchist Univcrsalists" in Maximov,
Th Guioti1l t I o rk,
5(13-505.
24 Anarchist collaborations with the Bobheviks are discussed in Avrich,
Tb Ruin1l
Allrrhists,
196-203. For a history of the Ukrainian anarchist insurrection and
it� subscqucnl repression, sce Peter Arshinov,
Histo ofth lakhllovist 0V111/1
9/8-/92/), Lorraine and Freddy Perlman, trans. (Detroit: Black and Red, 1974);
passim.
25 Gassner, "The Constructivists," The Great Utopia, 303. I have gleaned Gan's
adivities from the pages of Allarkbii. One issue ad\'ertised a lccture series to
take placc at the "House of Anarchy" beginningon March 25, 1918 in which
Gan would lecture on "Art and Proletarian Theatre." Among the other speakers
were Lev Chernyi, whose topics werc thc "i�tory of Culture. Soci31 listory.
Sociology. Associational Anarchism," an<1 one of the Conlin hrothers, who <lis
cussed the "Ethical Basis of Anarchism;" "Bezplathye kursy po anarkhizmy,"
Allarkhiia, n.d. Gan's anicle on "comrade Lukashin" includes a self-ponrait by
the young artist and an example
of one of his paintings for the proletar
i
an theater
production of Leonid Amlreyva's play (1906). The pl3Y's anarchist hero
sought to annihilate everything because the world was so corrupt no rchabilita
tion
of the social order was possible-an interesting commentary on the attitude
of the Feder3tion of Anuchists 3t tbis juncture. Lubshin 31so belonged to the
anarchist " I niti:ory Croup" whose mcmbers inciude<l R()(1cbcnko and
Tallin;
A[lcxei].Glan].,
"Tovarishch' Lukashin'," Aarhiia, n.d. The mcmbcrship of
Rodchenko and
T�tlin is documented in an und�ted letter ro the �Federal Council
of An�rchist Groups" signed by V. Ta tlin,
A. Rodchenko, and A. Morgunov in
Grman Karginov,
Rodehwko (London; Thames ami Hudson, 1979); 60.
26
Gassner, "Constructivists," The Great Utopia, 303.
27 Ibid.
28 "Decree No. 1 on the DemonatiZat
'
ion of Art,"
Gela ftrirto (March 15, 1918)
in Cassner, "Constructivists," 303.
29 Avrich,
The Rssia Al/archisl5, 177. Chcrnyi's book on "Associational Anarchism"
includes two chapters dealing with anarchist egoism and collectivism; Lev
Chemyi, Nowe Nap mvltie v Anarkhizme: Asosisiollii Anarkhis1ll (Moscow:
1907; 2nd ed., New York, 1923); pa�silil.
30 AHich,
The Ria Anarchisls, 177.
31
Stimer, The Ego atl Its Dum, 148-149.
32 Stimer, 152.
33
Stirner,
Th Ego {ld His Dum, 361.
34 A.A. Strigalev and L.A. Zhadova, "Noles on Baian Plamcn [pseudonym], 'Open
Letter to the Futurists'," Allarkbiia (March 25, 1918) in Ta llin, Larissa Alcksee\'na
Zhado\'a, ed." (New York: Rizzoli, 1988); 185.
35
Karginol', Rodehtllko, 91.
36
John Miller, Vladim ir To tli'l ad the Russial/ vaI-Garde (New Haven; Yale
University Press,
1983): 127-28.
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xcv.
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Tril Crfators 95
J7 Kuginov, Rodchtllko, 92.
38
Vladimir Tadin, "My Answer 'Letter to the Futurists,'" Allarkbiia (March 29,
1918)
in Ta tli, Zhauova, cd., 185.
39 A.A. Strigalev, "From Painting to the Construction of Matter," in Ta tlill,
Zhauova, cd., 19.
40
Aleksandr Rodchenko, "The Dynamism of Planes," Allarkbiia (April 28, 1918)
in Scli O. Khan-Magome(lov, Rocheuko; The Complete 1-k, Vieri Quillici, cd.
(Cabri(lge,
MA: MIT Press, 1987): 32, note .
41
In suprematist theory, the passage of time as experienced in the third dimen
sion was actually mo\'emelH in the founh, hence time was a ction. Evoking the
idea oftwo-dimensional forms moving into three dimensions alluded to our own
Illovement in fourth-(Iiensional "hyperspace." Linua Dalrymple Henderson,
The Fourth l)il1sio ali NO-Edidif Gromet' i Nlodenl A,·t (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1983): 274�299.
42
Charlotte Douglas, "Views from the New \orld: or A. Kruchenykh ami K.
Malevieh: Theory ami Painting,"
The Ardis Al1thology of Rssia FI/tllrim/,
Ellendea Proffer and Carl R. Proffer, cds. (Ann Arbor: Ardis Press, 1980):
361�362.
43
Kazimir Malevieh, "To the New Limit," hlaiia 28 (March 27, 1918) in K.S.
Malevich, Essays 011 Art: 1915�/9J]: Vo l. I, Trods Andersn, e. (London: Rapp
and Whitling,
1968): 56.
44
Kazimir Malevieh, "Reply," Allabiia 29 (Much 29, 1918) in Maleieh, says Oil
Art: Vo
I, 52�54.
45
Kazimir Malevich, "Supremati�m," Stafe1ll"ts fr om fbe Cataloglle of fh "Tenth
Statf £"hibitio: NOllobjclitx Cn:alioll alld Suprematinn " in Ruiall Art of the AVallf
Gnrdt: Theo
ry alld CriticisI, 1902�/934
,
John E. Bowlt, ed. (New York: Vik
ing
Press,
1976): 143�145.
46
Ibid., 144.
47
Ibid.
48 Ibid.
49 Ahhalldr Rodcbwko: Tptriments for tbe FI/tlll?: Di(frifs, Ess(fYs, Letters, ad Othtr
itill,
Alexander N. Larcntiev, C (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2002):
134,
notc 27.
50
V3v3r Step3m'3, "Notes from the Di3ry on the Prepu3tion 3nd Management of
the Tenth and Nineteenth State Exhibitions." cntry April 10. 1919 in Thf Fllture is
Ow Ollly Gonl,
Peler Noeer, ed. (Nlunich: P:�tel-Verbg, 1991): 124.
51
Step:mo"a, "Nolcs," entf April 10, ]919, 114.
52
Alehandr Rodchenko. "Rodchenko's System," Te ntb State hibition in Bowlt, ed ..
Russia,! .1,'1 Qf tbt AVt-Gr, 149-151.
53 Tr anslated as "All things arc nothing to me" in Stimer, The mill Its OW, 3.
54
Ibid., 453.
55
Ibid., 482�483.
56
John Bowlt ed., Russin" Art oflh Avnllf-Gard, 305, note 2.
57
Stepano\,a, "Notes." entry April 10, 1919 in Noever, 125.
58
Stcpanova, "Notcs," cntry April 29, 1919 in Noc"cr, 126.
59
Alehandr Rodchenko, "0 doklad' Zalevskago \' Proletkult'," JlInrkhiia, n.d.
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xcvi.
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96 ANARCHY D ART
60 "First Program of the 'orking Group of Constructivists" manifesto cited in
Christina Lodder,
Ruiall C01/structivism (New Haven; Yale University Press,
1983): 94.
61
Avrich, h AIln1rhiJfJ ill fh RlIssiall Rwoilltioll, 156.
62
Avrich, 'fh Rssian Ilrchists, 230-231.
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xcvii.
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CHAPTER 5
DEATH TO ART!
The Post-A{wchist Aermath
The o bflrealicTUtisI has been smashed,
bllt bun:llIctJ still n:lllliu.
-J
oseph Stalin (April
1919)'
What do revolutionary artists do after they renounce anarchism?
In the Soviet Union, the newly minted constructivists numbered
amongst the most militant pro-Communist groups in the spectrum
of post-revolution culture. The Higher State Artistic and Te chnical
Wo rkshops (Vkhutcmas), fo unded in
1921, served as their base of op
erations through the
19205 (the workshops were closed in 1930).2 The
Communist Party was rmly in control of the state apparatus; and
from this point forward, artistic affairs were monitored through me
cultural institutions of the government, which channelled money into
art schools and served as the major patron for art commissions.
What distinguished the constructivists from others in the cultural
scene was their outspoken rejection of traditional art-making.; Va vara
Stepanova's lecture on "The General Theory of Constructivism"
(December 22, 1921) pinpoints the salient fe atures, and the ways
in which the artistic politics of anarchism were reworked accord
with the group's Marxism. Constructivism was codied as an anti-art
movement which rejected the creation of art objects such as paintings
and sculpture, as well as any role for aesthetics in "intellectual produc
tion."� Traditionally, art was a product of "the illusions of individual
97
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xcviii.
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98
ANARCHY AND ART
consciousness" and served no social role apart from establishing "an
ideal of beauty for a given epoch.'" In the pre-revolutionary era, how
ever, not all artists were caught up in the snare of aesthetics and ideal
ism. Stepanova singled out the rise of an "analytical method" among
certain avant-garde artists which revealed, for the rst time, the art
medium's materialistic fo undations. "Art stopped being represen
tational" thanks to the artists' "revolutionary-destructive activity,
which stripped art down to its basic elements," thus causing "changes
in the consciollsness of those who work in art by confronting them
with the problem of construction as a practical necessity.'
In sum,
Tatlin's relief sculptures and Rodchenko's
Blnck 0 Blnck canvases were
"cleansed" of their anarchist content by way of theoretical omission.
"Once art has been purgJ of its aestiltial, philosophical, anJ rdi
gious tumours," wrote Stepanova, "we are left with its material bases,
which will h.ncefon-h be orgni7.ed
hy
in[elle[\ll proch1tion.'"
In
his capacity as chief theoretician of the nascent movement, Alexei
Gan took the same tack in his major statement,
C0stnlctivis (1922).8
Dating constructivism's rise to the Communist coup-"October 25,
1917"-Gan roundly condemned art-making, past and present. "All
so-called art," he wrote, "is permeated with the most reactionary ide
alism, is the product of extreme individualism" and "the hypocrisy
of
bourgeois culture." Declaiming "DEATH TO ART!" in
capital
letters, he banished painting
and sculpture, along with capitalism and
individualism, to the pre-October era.9 Of course, the history of art in
the pOst-October anarchist movement problematized this maneuver,
but no matter. In the era of the revolution, Gan argued, there had been
"tendencies" amongst the avant-garde toward "the pure mastery of ar
tistic labor of intellectual-material production." Those who instigated
them, however, had never managed " sev
e
r the umbilical cord that
still held and joined them to the traditional art of the Old Believers
[a reactionary sect of Russian Orthodoxy] . Constructivism has played
the role of midwife."
lo
Midwife to what? "The practical reality ofthe
Soviet system" that was the constructivist's "school, in which they
carry out endless experiments tirelessly and uninchingly.""
In the early years, constructivism's baby steps consisted of solving
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p xcix.
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Dth t Art.' 99
hypothetical problems. Rodchenko's Oval Hanging Sp atial C0l1st1-lIction
110. 12
(ca 1920), for example, was an exercise in design which exploited
the object's materials to realize a given problem with the maximum
of economy. Rodchenko created this work using a single sheet of ply
wood, out of which he cut a series of concentric circles. Economy
of construction was matched by the ease with which the three-di
mensional object could be collapsed down into two-dimensions and
stored.
I! The constructivists later referred to this period of experi
mentation as their "laboratory" phaseY The next step was to merge
constructivist activity with industry so that technology and the real
demands of the factory floor would dictate the design and purpose of
the product. This phase got underway in the mid-1920s at the Higher
Stat Artistic anti Tchnical Wo rkshops. For xampl, Rodchnko
and his students worked on designs for mass-produced, multipur
pose f\l rnit\lre th mximi7.ed sp;lce \lsge. in llltr-efcient workers'
apartments and clubs.H For her part, Stepanova taught in the textile
faculty of the school, designed sports and factory uniforms, and took
on a commission to design fabrics in a local factory in order to master
the technologies of clothes production and dyeing. Throughout the
1920s, constructivist activity branched out into graphic design, archi
tecture, and many other endeavors.'
In Communist theory, industrialism was the materialist base from
which Russia's working class had emerged and upon which Soviet so
cialism would be built under the Party's disciplining guidance.16 It
fo llowed that during the 1920s, the drive to reorganize society in the
mirror image of industry, "socialized" and regimented, was enthusi
astically embraced by the constructivists. In this regard, no better ex
ample exists than constructivist theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold's
s
ta
g
in
g
ofTbe lng1llmiol Cuckold in 1922.
Meyerhold was a well-known radical who had joined the Communist
Party in 1918 and produced plays for the Red Army during the revo
lution. Recalled to Moscow in 1920 to help administer state theater
programs, he was appointed director, in autumn 1921, of the newly
fo rmed State Higher Theater Wo rkshops, sister organi1tion to the
Higher Artistic and Technical WorkshopsY Hundreds of students