Photography begins the 1891th century as revolutionary art. No wonder it was embraced by the avant-garde, who saw in its way of representing the world a way to renew the look. The various avant-gardes have appropriated photography as a way of breaking canons. And so it also happens with the Russian constructivist artist Aleksandr Ródchenko (1956-XNUMX) who takes photography to the artistic ideology of the time in one of its greatest exponents.
The creative energy of the time is astounding. Like his colleagues in Germany, France and the United States, Ródtckenko abuses – in a good way – the possibilities of experimenting: multiple exposures, diagonal compositions, breaking the rules, photomontages, advertising posters.
Part of his photographic thinking can be seen for the first time in Brazil in a very didactic way. The exhibition, organized by the Moscow House of Photography, curated by Olga Sviblova (museum director), features 170 works including photographs, posters, photomontages, book and magazine covers, made between 1924 and 1954, two years before her death.
Rodchenko was born when photography was already popular around the world and chose it as a form of expression when it began to be seen as an expression of art, an autonomous language, and when, in the 1920s, many artists discussed the importance of photography for society. of the time.
Experimenting is the motto for all of them. Small format cameras present the possibility of greater movement of photographers. The camera becomes an extension of the eye, the hand, and new angles, compositions, are possible. Everyday life and banality become the subject of the images. Rodchenko writes: “I'll summarize: to get people used to seeing from new points of view, it is essential to take pictures of familiar, everyday objects from completely unexpected perspectives and positions. New subjects have to be photographed from various points in order to represent the subject fully.” This was in 1928. And their different perspectives are ways of distorting the horizon, shooting diagonally – a questioning of the static rules of composition. A stylistic because that, in recent years, has reappeared in contemporary photography much more as a fad than as a language.
At the same time, he also reflects: “The most interesting points today are the top-down and bottom-up ones, and we must work on them. Who invented them I don't know. I would like to affirm these views, expand them and get people used to them.” Who invented them is really not known. But it is known that at the same time, in Germany, more precisely at the Bauhaus, the Hungarian photographer Moholy-Nagy was writing a text about the new vision and pointing out these same angles. Some critics even claimed that Rodchenko had plagiarized his colleague. His answer was the text above. Restless and curious, he transforms documentary photography into art. He redefines concepts such as portraiture, registering, in addition to his family members, his circle of artist friends. Unforgettable photos of Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. His photographs are influenced by all forms of art that proliferate at the beginning of the XNUMXth century, not only because of geometric abstractionism, but also by the influence of cinema, the new photojournalism and the innovative possibilities of photographic making – as a result of the technological development of photography. .
Undoubtedly, it helps us to understand the communicative importance of photography and its power as a driving force for a new way of thinking. Annoying, at the end of his life, he is abandoned and betrayed by his friends, prevented from working and from participating in exhibitions. His first show is organized a year after his death. Even so, they could not silence him: his photograph, which is presently current and more contemporary than many images that are seen around, is still an example to be followed, or at least known.
