RODCHENKO AND STEPANOVA. FOOTBALL Automatic translate

Dates: June 5 - July 15, 2018
Venue: Main Building, White Floor

Exhibition curator: Inna Voitova, researcher at the Department of Personal Collections of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin

On the eve of the 2018 World Cup, the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin presents the exhibition “RODCHENKO AND STEPANOVA. FOOTBALL". As part of the chamber exhibition, nine graphic, pictorial and photo works on the theme of football and sports from the Rodchenko-Stepanova Foundation in the Department of Personal Collections will be shown.

Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova are a personal union and a creative union. When they first met in 1914, they lived and worked together for over 40 years. Leading masters of the Russian avant-garde and the founders of constructivism, they participated in landmark exhibitions and creative associations, taught at the unique university of VKHUTEMAS, forming a new vision for a generation of young artists. Looking only to the future, Rodchenko and Stepanova, through numerous creative experiments, went to the development of new forms and ideas, striving for minimalism and logic in the use of artistic means.

The theme of sport, physical culture has become one of the brightest pages in the works of Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova. The creators of new art and the designers of the modern everyday environment - Rodchenko and Stepanova - reacted vividly to the development of sports in the nascent Soviet society and promoted the cult of athleticism in their works of the late 1920s and early 1940s.

Sports motifs were embodied in numerous pictorial and graphic compositions depicting athletes, games and competitions, as well as Rodchenko’s unique photo reports from athletic parades, which became a characteristic feature of Moscow in the 1930s. The favorite sports game of Alexander Rodchenko was football. His work on football is always filled with expression, they convey the sports excitement of players during the match. Costumes for football players designed by Varvara Stepanova differ in laconic forms and contrasting color combinations.

Director of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin Marina Loshak: “The Pushkin Museum, while remaining faithful to tradition, always keeps up to date and follows the events of the present and future. The museum is also preparing for such a major event as the World Cup 2018: in June, a very small but substantial exhibition of the works of Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova, united by the theme of football, opens. After all, who, if not them, the revolutionaries of art, should represent such an alliance of the museum and sport. ”

Exhibition curator Inna Voitova: “Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova became one of the pioneers of the topic of sports in Soviet art, their enthusiasm was supported by the socialist realists A. A. Deineka, A. N. Samokhvalov, D. D. Zhilinsky and many others. Popular in 1920-1940, the theme of sports in art remains relevant to this day. ”

In the Department of personal collections of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin kept the legacy of Rodchenko and Stepanova, donated in 1992 by Varvara Alexandrovna Rodchenko and Alexander Nikolaevich Lavrentiev. This is the largest collection of works of artists in the world: it has more than 500 storage units, represents the main periods of creativity and the entire spectrum of their activities: painting, original and printed graphics, works for the theater, advertising posters, production design, collages, photographs, spatial designs.

Alexander Mikhailovich Rodchenko (1891 - 1956) - Soviet artist, graphic artist, photographer, designer, sculptor and poster artist. Born in St. Petersburg in a family of theatrical props and laundresses. After the family moved to Kazan, he graduated from the Kazan Art School, where he met his future wife and creative associate, Varvara Stepanova. In 1916 he moved to Moscow and entered the Stroganov School. He was one of the organizers of the union of artists-painters. From 1918 to 1921 he worked in the department of fine arts of the People’s Commissariat for Education, simultaneously creating the first series of his works related to the line and plane. In 1921 he took part in the famous exhibition "5x5 = 25", showing a triptych of three monochrome paintings: red, yellow, blue. In the same year, he replaced V. Kandinsky as chairman of the Institute of Artistic Culture. In 1920-1921, Rodchenko, together with Stepanova and Alexei Gan, created the First Working Group of Constructivists. Since 1922, he began to try himself in the field of font and graphic design. One of Rodchenko’s first large orders was the order of Rezinotrest, which resulted in the famous poster “Nipples” with the words of V. Mayakovsky. In 1923, together with his wife, he became a member of the literary and creative group LEF, and since 1924 he was actively engaged in photography. In the future he worked a lot for cinema, designed furniture, costumes and sets for films and performances, made photo reports. In 1941-1942, Rodchenko and Stepanova were evacuated to the Molotov region (now Perm Territory), where they worked in the propaganda poster workshop. After returning from evacuation, he was the chief artist of the House of Technology, together with his wife he created a series of monographic posters. Alexander Rodchenko died in Moscow on December 3, 1956.

Varvara Fedorovna Stepanova (1894 - 1958) - Soviet artist, designer and poetess. Born in the family of an official in Kovno (now - Kaunas, Lithuania). She studied at the Kazan Art School, but did not finish it. In 1913 she married Mikhail Fedorov. This marriage was officially dissolved in 1923, but she met her second husband, Alexander Rodchenko, in Kazan in 1914, and in 1916 moved with him to Moscow. In the second marriage, the daughter of Barbara was born. At first she worked as an accountant and secretary, while working in the art studio of C. Yuon. In 1921, together with Rodchenko took part in the exhibition "5x5 = 25". She worked at the College of Fine Arts of the People’s Commissariat for Education, was a member and academic secretary of the Institute of Artistic Culture, and taught at the Izo Studio of the N.K. Krupskaya Academy of Communist Education. She painted illustrations for books, worked on theatrical scenery, in cinema and printing, together with her husband she was a member of many creative groups, including LEF and the First Working Group of Constructivists. Varvara Stepanova died in Moscow on May 20, 1958.