diagonal lines and graphic design: rodchenko part 2

 Stairs//Young Pioneer

image credit: Artadox

“I want to take some quite incredible photographs that have never been taken before… pictures which are simple and complex at the same time, which will amaze and overwhelm people... I must achieve this so that photography can begin to be considered a form of art.”  

-- Alexander Rodchenko's diary, March 14, 1934 

[from Artadox]

Rodchenko's talents are not restricted to the photo-montages I posted about earlier in the month. No, that wouldn't be enough. The prodigious Russian artist was also a master photographer and graphic designer. I love his command of composition, his use of strong diagonals, almost to the point of geometric abstraction in a few of the photographs shown below. I could say more, but really, I think the work speaks for itself.

Part A: Photography

 image credits: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 

Part B: Graphic Design

image credits: 1-3, 4

PWNED BY ART

image from third drawer down's online store

I'd spotted this poster by Parisian-based artist Vuk Vidor online in a few places, and then, after picking up my Risographica prints from Lamington Drive gallery last weekend, I wandered into the seriously awesome Third Drawer Down only to see it in all its framed, lifesize glory, oh-so-close and yet still out of my pricerange. Maybe a completed-thesis present to self, somewhere down the track...?

NB: Someone commented on one of the design blogs that this was featured on, that the poster is "the ultimate expression of retarded name dropping"...somthing tells me they just don't get it. Vidor is making fun of the very idea of name dropping, rather than indulging in it himself. Homage, yes, but probably the most fun and light hearted homage I've seen in a long time. The only issue that I do have with it is the lack of female artists on the list. Yet the more I think about this I am left wondering whether this is an omission on Vidor's part, or just an inherent flaw in twentieth century western art history. 

 

 images via art milk