Wendy Bark: Constructivist Costume, Textile & Theatrical Design, 1917-1934 (1995)

This thesis follows the life of the art movement known as Constructivism through the turbulent post-revolutionary years, up to the onset of Socialist Realism, a doctrine imposed on the Arts by governmental directives. It focuses on the areas of fashion, textile and theatrical design, which themselves are strongly influenced by extra-artistic factors – economics, sociology and the historical era – as was the ethos of Constructivism.

After a brief introduction giving some background information on the art world and the main artist-designers of the study, the chapters go on to discuss the factors affecting the rise and then the waning popularity of the constructivist ideology, explaining the focal tenets of Constructivism, particularly in relation to fashion, textile and theatrical design. Since the majority of constructivist works were completed during the time span covered by NEP, those chapters relating to NEP have thus been given emphasis. Some biographical details about the main artists of the study are given at the end, and the Glossary lists the most common acronyms and abbreviations used in the text. The illustrations are intended as a companion to the text, since often the artistic effects of designers cannot be described adequately by language alone.

The study focuses on six artist/designers: Vladimir Tatlin, Alexander Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, Liubov Popova, Alexandra Exter, and Nadezhda Lamanova.

Full title: Constructivist Costume, Textile & Theatrical Design, 1917-1934: A Study of Constructivism Set in the Socio-cultural, Political and Historical Context of Post-Revolutionary Russia
Masters thesis
Durham University
285 pages

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From VKhUTEMAS to MARKhI, 1920-36 (2005) [English/Russian]

This album contains exercises, diploma works and projects of graduates and professors of the Moscow schools that graduated architects in the 1920s and 1930s: VKhUTEMAS-VKhUTEIN, MPI-MIGI, MVTU, and ASI-MAI. The book includes both original works and photos of projects and models gathered by the MARKhI Museum in 1989-2004. Most materials are published for the first time.

From VKhUTEMAS to MARKhI, 1920-1936: Architectural projects from the collection of the MARKhI Museum
Editors A.P. Kudryavtsev, N.O. Dushkina
Authors L.I.Ivanova-Veen, E.B. Ovsiannikova
Publisher A-Fond Publishers, Moscow, 2005
ISBN 9077344098, 9789077344095
231 pages

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Andrei Smirnov, Liubov Pchelkina: Generation Z: Russian Pioneers of Sound Art and Musical Technology in 1910-1930 (2011) [English/Hungarian]

Variophone, theremin terpsitone, rhythmicon, emiriton, ekvodin, graphical sound – just to mention a few of the amazing innovations of the beginning of the 20th century in Soviet Russia, a country and time turbulent with revolutions, wars and totalitarian dictatorship.

While the history of Russian post-revolutionary avant-garde art and music is fairly well documented, the inventions and discoveries, names and fates of researchers of sound, creators of musical machines and noise orchestras, founders of new musical technologies have been largely forgotten except, perhaps, Leon Theremin, inventor of the first electronic musical instrument, the theremin.

This community of creators, however, was inherently incompatible with the totalitarian state. By the late 1930s it became effectively written out of histories, wiped out from text books.

Many of their ideas and inventions, considered as utopian at that time, were decades later rein¬vented abroad. We still use them today not knowing their origin.

This booklet was produced for the Budapest edition of a traveling exhibition curated by Andrei Smirnov of the Theremin Center and Liubov Pchelkina of the State Tretyakov Gallery.

Publisher OSA Archivum, Budapest, 2011
ISBN 9789638853820
20 pages

exhibition (from the curators)
exhibition (gallery website)

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