Lot Description
ALEXANDER RODCHENKO (1891-1956)
Assembling for a Demonstration, 1928
gelatin silver print
credit stamp, titled in Russian, dated '1935' and variously numbered in an unknown hand in pencil/ink
11 1/8 x 7½in. (28.2 x 19.1cm.)
Special Notice
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium
Provenance
With Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco;
acquired by present owner, c.1988.
Pre-Lot Text
PROPERTY FROM THE THOMAS WALTHER COLLECTION
Literature
Quilici (ed.), Rodchenko: The Complete Work, Thames & Hudson, 1986, p.266; Szarkowski, Photography Until Now, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1989, p.210; Lavrentiev, Alexander Rodchenko: Photography 1924-1954, Köneman, 1995, p.112, for a hand-coloured variant, there titled 'Gathering for a Demonstration'.
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Lot Notes
A subject with a strong social-political content rendered in a dynamic composition, this photo-image by Rodchenko well expresses the multiple constituents of artist's eye, sharp intellect and focused energy that situated him as the defining photographer of Russia's post-revolutionary avant-garde.
In a Russian street, figures gather for a demonstration. They are seen from above, from a vertiginous angle, on the diagonal, and become elements in a spontaneously, yet most effectively envisioned structure. The photographer's perspective is not that of reportage; he is, rather, representing his subject as a concept as opposed to a purely factual document. Rodchenko has made a Constructivist picture that assumes a broader symbolic dimension and is also, incidentally, filled with enigmatic detail. The dark shapes that splash the street -- shadows and other random forms -- call to mind the ambiguous configurations of another, widely-published image from around this time -- Moholy-Nagy's 1929 view looking down on the Pont Transbordeur in Marseille.
The present study exemplifies Rodchenko's authority in defining a heroic new language of photographic picture-making.
Another print of this image is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
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