History sticks to your feet

- April 5 -

Constructivism

“The optimistic, non-representational relief construction, sculpture, kinetics and painting. The artists did not believe in abstract ideas, rather they tried to link art with concrete and tangible ideas.”

Dedicated for social purposes, “art for art’s sake.”

Vladimir Mayakovsky

Artipop Poster by Mayakovsky

Poetry

“The rain sobbed all over the sidewalks;

the scoundrel, condensed into puddles,

all wet, licks the cobblestone-beaten corpse of streets.

And on this gray eyelashes—

yes!—

tears flow from eyes—

yes!—

on his icicle eyelashes

from the sagging eyes of drainpipes.

The snout of the rain drooled on all the pedestrians,

but flabby athlete after athlete flashed by in carriages:

stuffed to the eyeballs,

they burst,

grease dribbled through the cracks,

and together with chewed-over rolls

and the cud of old ground meat

it flowed down in a turbid river from the carriages.”

—From “Sleeping on the Wing”

Ilya Bolotowsky

  born in St. Petersburg, Russia on July 1, 1907. (My birthday!)

Untitled Ilya Bolotowsky, silk screen print, 20th century

Ella Bergmann-Michel

Botanik - Construction 3 B132 Ella Bergmann-Michel, Ink and Graphite with chalk c. 1922

Thin, perfect lines and arrows jut this way and that mechanically instructing the eye throughout the piece. A teetering high-contrast form vertically stands in the center. A perfect circle of dust radiates out of the center sending tentacles vertically up through space. Like soldiers they stiffen out suddenly, forming a brilliant white commanding arrow that instructs us off the page again. Despite the chaos of arrows pointing every which direction, the composition seems balanced. The focal point is in high contrast, while circles begin to fuzz into the background around it and thin hollow shapes reenforce the teetering figure in the focal point. The piece speaks to me as a mechanical dancer, drifting up, up, up, and out. 

THEN

NOW

Shepard Fairey