Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko was a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design.
Rodchenko was one of the most versatile Constructivist and Productivist artists to emerge after the Russian Revolution. He worked as a painter and graphic designer before turning to photomontage and photography. His photography was socially engaged, formally innovative, and opposed to a painterly aesthetic. Concerned with the need for analytical-documentary photo series, he often shot his subjects from odd angles—usually high above or below—to shock the viewer and to postpone recognition. He wrote: “One has to take several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round rather than looked through the same key-hole again and again.”
Much of 20th century graphic design stems from the work of Alexsander Rodchenko. His influence on modern graphic design is so pervasive that to pick out particular designers he has influenced would largely be a pointless endeavour.
His 1924 portrait of Lilya Brik has inspired a number of subsequent works, including the cover art for a number of music albums. Among them are influential Dutch punk band The Ex, which published a series of 7″ vinyl albums, each with a variation on the Lilya Brik portrait theme, and the cover of the Franz Ferdinand album, You Could Have It So Much Better. The poster for One-Sixth Part of the World was the basis for the cover of “Take Me Out”, also by Franz Ferdinand.
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For those you lives in Paris there is a Alexander Rodchenko exhibition on his photographic work till september 16th at Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris.
