Study for Perpetuum Mobile

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.

1921

Turns to Productivism

With Stepanova and Aleksei Gan, Rodchenko joins the Productivist group, which advocated bringing art into everyday life, and gives up painting for graphic design — posters, books and films. He also created the early corporate identity of the airline Dobrolyot (later Aeroflot), with its “Winged Hammer and Sickle” logo.

1921

“5×5=25”: three monochrome canvases

At the “5×5=25” exhibition in Moscow Rodchenko shows the first true monochrome paintings — red, blue and yellow. He later proclaimed that he had reduced painting to its logical conclusion: “I affirmed: it's all over.”

1921

Succeeds Kandinsky as head of Inkhuk

In 1921 Rodchenko succeeds Wassily Kandinsky as chairman of the Institute of Artistic Culture (Inkhuk), where he works until 1924.

1922

Works with Dziga Vertov

Rodchenko works intensively with the filmmaker Dziga Vertov, whose ideas and practice deeply influenced him.

1924

Takes up photography

From 1924 Rodchenko takes his own photographs, becoming famous for his experiments with angles and viewpoints. His credo: “I want to teach people to see extraordinarily ordinary things.”