Talk:Varvara Stepanova

References which support that anti-art be mentioned in the article

 * Varvara Stepanova: Lecture on Constructivism, 22 December 1921.In: Peter Noever: Aleksandr M. Rodchenko - Varvara F. Stepanova. The Future Is Our Only Goal. Munich: Prestel, 1991, pp. 174-178. "From here, Constructivism proceeds to the negation of all art in its entirety, and calls into question the necessity of a specific activity of art as creator of a universal aesthetic."
 * Rodchenko, A. and V. Stepanova (1975) [1920] 'The Programme of the Productivist Group', in Benton and Benton (eds), pp. 91-2. "1. Down with art, long live technical science. 2. Religion is a lie. Art is a lie. 3. Destroy the last remaining attachment of human thought to art. . . . 6. The collective art of today is constructive life."
 * Larry Shiner. “The Invention of Art: A Cultural History”. University of Chicago Press, 2003, p. 256.“If the provocations of Tzara seem merely naughty and those of Breton overly esoteric, the anti-art declarations of the Russian constructivists were potentially of greater social importance, given constructivism's roots in marxist theory and its opportunity to help build a new society.” (...) ""The spell of painting was broken and ""construction"" had taken its place for artists such as Aleksandr Rodchenko, Vavara Stepanova, and Lyubov Popova, who combined it with socialist commitment to become leaders of the First Working Group of Constructivists. One of their early manifestos declared: 1. Down with art, long live technical science. 2. Religion is a lie. Art is a lie. 3. Destroy the last remaining attachment of human thought to art.... 6. The collective art of today is constructive life. (Elliot 1979,130; Lodder 1983,94-99) And what should take the place of "art"? Construction. One should simply participate in producing a useful object."

Armando Navarro (talk) 01:00, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Constructivism isn't an anti-art movement; rather, it seeks to engineer a dialectical overcoming of art to integrate the aesthetic with wider social reality, much as, in a different way, the surrealists hoped to. That isn't anti-art, it's art's transcendence. It is misleading to group this project together with the negativity of Dada. If you were to follow the logic you're offering through, ALL modernist art would be categorised in this way, at which point the categorisation clearly becomes nonsensical. DionysosProteus (talk) 11:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Armando Navarro (talk) 12:55, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * James Stevens Curl. "A dictionary of architecture". Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 162 : "Constructivism. Anti-aesthetic, anti-art, supposedly pro-technology (in that it favoured the apparently logical use of man-made industrial materials and processes such as welding), Left-wing movement originating in the USSR from c.1920, later promoted in the West, notably at the Bauhaus."
 * Pam Meecham and Julie Sheldon. "Modern art: a critical introduction". Routledge, 2005, p 148 : "Rodchenko was disillusioned with easel painting which he in fact 'gave up' in 1921 to concentrate upon the relatively mechanised processes of photography, photomontage and graphic design. For him 'art has no place in modern life', but photography, particularly experimental photography as opposed to 'connoisseurial photographs', was the ultimate anti-bourgeois, anti-art practice."
 * J. M. Bernstein. "Against voluptuous bodies: late modernism and the meaning of painting". Stanford University Press, 2006, p. 247 :"The anti-art moment of modernist works, the moment that Duchamp and Rodchenko attempt to make complete, enacts art's desire to be world and not art; but only as art, as semblance, can art evince that desire, perform it."


 * Yes, of course it is possible to isolate quotations out of context and thereby to identify modernist art as anti-art. But you fail to address the specific point raised above. Following your method, we could add the anti-art category to all modernists on the basis, say, of Adorno's definition. But that would be a little silly, wouldn't it. DionysosProteus (talk) 13:54, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

What seems silly is to conclude that I "identify modernist art as anti-art". If you read carefully the quotations I propose, they only "identify" some apects of constructivism as anti-art. I am not proposing that we "identify modernist art as anti-art" on the basis of one quotation (your example of Adorno), I have proposed 4 secondary sources which "identify" some apects of constructivism as anti-art. Armando Navarro (talk) 15:03, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Armando Navarro (talk) 15:58, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Guy Julier. "The Thames and Hudson Encyclopaedia of 20th Century Design and Designers". Thames and Hudson, 1993. "Given its anti-art standpoint, Russian Constructivism avoided the traditional use of art materials (e.g., oil and canvas) or pre-revolutionary iconography. Thus, art objects might be constructed out of ready-made materials (e.g., woods, metals, photographs or paper). The artists' work is often viewed as a system of reduction or abstraction, yet in all areas of cultural activity, from graphic design to film and theater, their aim was to construct a reality by bringing different elements together."


 * Gerard Conio. “Le Constructivisme Russe”. L'age D'homme, 1987, p. 68. Gerard Conio states that Rodtchenko shared the "anti-art" conception of the Inkhouk in Moscow. In French : A la revue Vechtch/L'objet, publiée en trois langues (russe, allemand, francais) à Berlin par Lissitzky et Ehrenbourg, Alexis Gan répondra par son livre Le Constructivisme, dans lequel il exposait le point de vue productiviste et récusait l’idéologie du vechtchisme (théorie de l'art comme production d’objets, de modèles). Rodtchenko partageait cette conception “anti-art” qui régnait a l’Inkhouk de Moscou et renoncera à toute activité artistique pour entrer or dans la production », pour se mettre au service de la vie. Armando Navarro (talk) 16:25, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The inclusion of a link to another article does not imply some kind of equivalence. It only implies that further reading may be of interest. Therefore I don't think there is that much harm done by linking some articles in the "See also" section to "Anti-art." But to make it more clear, maybe a note could be put after the link, stating that there is no implied equivalence or even a necessarily strong connection. Or perhaps that such linkage is disputed. The point I am trying to make is that the way out of our dilemma lies in nuanced language, carefully placed. Anyone agree? Bus stop (talk) 18:42, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

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