CONSTRUCTIVISM

Constructivism in Russia developed during WW1 and continued until its suppression by Stalin at the end of the 1920s. Its roots were in the Russian Cubo-Futurist movement, but it also owes much to the absract work of Malevich and the relief forms of of Dada. Painters like Tatin and Rodchenko started to create non-objective paintings and developed those ideas into reliefs and constructions in which they explored the material properties of the objects and the objects spatial presence, this then developed an industrial art and design style.

Constructivist eventually reached the point were traditional painting no longer held any relevance to the artistic process. The period of the Constuctivist style goes hand in hand with the period of revolution and civil war in Russia, these elements embraced each other, they both held the principle of out with the old and in with the new. The St Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts was dibanded in 1918 and replaced by the Commissariat of Enlightenment, many of the Constructivist artists produced work to promote the new revolutionary ideals in many different fields of the cultural landscape, we see new and exciting art and design ideas in, graphics, book design, posters, film and theatre. Lenins New Economic Policy of 1921 created new opportunities for artists to extend their commercial work alongside individual co-operatives and state run retailing.

By the end of the 1920s Stalin had become supreme leader of what was now known as the Soviet Union, he implemented a reversal of the N.E.P and began to supress modern artistic ideas, which were replaced by a tightly, state, controlled Socialist Realism. How ever the ideas of the Constuctivists had a huge impact on the modern world of the 20th century, Constructivism can be seen as the original template for modern design and has a relationship to the every day life of us all.

Duchamp. V Banksy.

In 1919, Marcel Duchamp, one the the greatest artists of modern times, produced a piece of work titled L.H.O.O.Q. He combined the idea of a "ready made" (take a mass produced image or object and display it as a work of art)with the idea of transformation (take a ready made image or object make changes to it, thus transforming it into a work of art). These ideas are more complex than the basic description given here and have had a major influence on 20th century art, Picasso's goat, Licthenstien's comics, Warhol's soup cans and Tracey's bed, to name a few.
L.H.O.O.Q is a postcard from the Louvre, it shows the Mona Lisa by Leonardo daVinci, the most famous work of art in the world. The title should be sounded out in French, Elle a chaud au cul, when translated it becomes, She's got a hot arse,(Dada word play) this can imply that Mona is in a state of sexual excitement and availability. By drawing on a moustache and beard Duchamp becomes an iconoclast by vandalising a great work of art, he also jokingly questions daVinci's alleged homosexuality and references his own habit of cross dressing. Duchamp had a female alter ego,Rrose Salavy (more word play)
For Mooner Lisa, Banksy chooses the same subject, the iconic Mona Lisa. The reuse of an image is something we see repeated through out the history of visual language. This time we see Mona from behind giving us the obvious pun from the title (yet more word play) A woman showing her backside can have a double meaning, sexual awareness and possible flirtatious sexuality but also doing a mooner is generally regarded as an insult and a rejection, perhaps Banksy is showing us her "enigmatic smile".
Like all of his work the immediate impact is one of humour, but there maybe more to it. Does Banksy show an awareness of Duchamp's picture, she knows she has a hot arse and wants us to see it!
We could describe Banksy as an iconoclast, a merry prankster who's work is filled with provocation and social comment, a description that fits neatly if applied to Duchamp.

Still Life on a Pedestal Table, Pablo Picasso, 1931, Oil on Canvas, Musse Picasso, Paris

Picasso's images of the women in his life can be seen as a diary, where he recorded the highs and lows of his romantic encounters. At the time this picture was produced (1931) his relationship with Olga Koklova, a Russian ballerina to whom he had been married to since 1918, was coming to an end. Picasso had met and deeply fallen in love with Marie-Therese Walter, he tried to keep their relationship a secret from his wife. This picture is a consequence of that situation.

Picasso wanted to paint portraits of Marie-Therese, to be able to express his passions and to portray the beauty and sexuality he saw in his new muse. Because their relationship was a clandestine affair, Picasso set about producing a picture that is on the surface a still life, the idea is enhanced by the title. The viewer can see the arrangement of objects on the table, the stripped table cloth, yellow jug and white fruit bowl containing purple plums, the tripod legs of the table sit on the squared patterned rug,the whole composition is in a corner of a room.

But if we look beyond the surface we can reveal a second, completely different picture, the painter expresses his feelings of beauty, passion and sexual desire, the elements of the still life take on a new meaning. The jug becomes the female form, it's curves evoke the shapely form of the female figure, the three purple plums represent the breasts and buttocks. The two green apples on the centre of the table become the piercing eyes of his lover as well as being representative of female breasts. A more Freudian aspect can be seen in the way his sexual desires are represented, the white table leg becomes a phallus symbol (complete with testicles) which is placed between the two legs that straddle the bottom of the picture. Picasso also uses colour to symbolise his emotions, the use of red evokes the dangerous passions of this affair the yellow of the jug and the shadow on the wall relate to the long blonde hair of Marie-Therese.

Once this secondary picture starts to reveal its self we see that Picasso fills the whole composition with symbolic images that express his feelings of passion, beauty and sexual desire