Gathering for a Demonstration

1920–1930

Professor at VKhUTEMAS/VKhUTEIN

For ten years Rodchenko teaches in the woodworking and metalworking faculties (merged into the Dermetfak in 1928), training students to design multifunctional objects for everyday life and public buildings, expressive through construction rather than ornament.

1923–1928

LEF and Novy LEF with Mayakovsky

From 1923 to 1928 Rodchenko works closely with Mayakovsky — photographing him several times and designing and laying out LEF and Novy LEF, the Constructivists' publications; many of his photographs serve as their covers.

1926

First angled shots published in Sovetskoe Kino

The magazine Sovetskoe Kino publishes his first angled shots of buildings — the series “The Building on Myasnitskaya” (1925) and “The Mosselprom Building” (1926). Rodchenko champions high and low viewpoints and a dynamic, documentary-precise view of the world.

1928

First accused of formalism

The charge of “formalism” that would dog Rodchenko is first raised in 1928 in the pages of Sovetskoe Foto. By some accounts, that same year he joins the October group.

1928

Polemical articles in Novy LEF

Novy LEF publishes his articles “Gross Illiteracy or Petty Filth?” (No. 6) and “A Warning” (No. 11). In the first, as in the articles “The Paths of Modern Photography” and “Against the Synthetic Portrait, for the Snapshot”, he champions a dynamic, documentary-precise vision and shooting from high and low viewpoints.

18 May 1929 – 7 July 1929

Took part in: Film und Foto