still in Eastern Europe...

...this time with Russian artist Alexander Rodchenko. I studied Rodchenko many years ago at high school, but only in the context of constructivism. It wasn't until I watched an episode of BBC series, The Genius of Photography that I learnt that he is as much a photographer as he is a sculptor. And not just any photographer, either. Rodchenko worked to create photographic propaganda and collages for the Bolshevik government during the 1920s. Effectively, he wrote the book on Soviet photomontage. 

Sadly, these small and somewhat grainy images were all I could find online of the work Rodchenko did for Soviet propaganda magazine USSR in Construction. Moreover, the tactile nature of the magazine and the way the pages are designed to fold out to show more photographs are both lost in a visual reproduction. My best advice would be to watch the BBC docco itself. Other gems (which may well warrant a post themselves) include Eugene Atget's chronicling of the disappearing medieval streets of Paris, and August Sander's catalogue of all the people of pre-Nazi Germany. 

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