Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism

The catalogue of the Tate Modern exhibition that set Alexander Rodchenko and Liubov Popova side by side as the two artists who defined Constructivism between the October Revolution and Popova's death in 1924.

Edited by Margarita Tupitsyn, the book follows both artists from abstract painting through the 5x5=25 exhibition of 1921, where Rodchenko showed the three monochromes Pure Red, Pure Yellow and Pure Blue and Popova her Space-Force Constructions, into the work in production that followed: Rodchenko's posters, advertising with Mayakovsky, book covers and the Workers' Club of 1925; Popova's textile designs for the First State Cotton-Printing Factory, theatre sets for Meyerhold and typography. More than 200 works are reproduced. Tupitsyn's essay reads the Constructivist code of production, and Christina Kiaer's "His and Hers Constructivism" takes up the question of gender in the movement. Texts by Rodchenko and Popova, including Rodchenko's "The Line", are reprinted. The exhibition ran at Tate Modern from 12 February to 17 May 2009.

Tupitsyn is a curator and historian of Russian avant-garde art and photography, author of Malevich and Film; Kiaer teaches at Northwestern and wrote Imagine No Possessions on Constructivist objects.