Taking place in Moscow in September 1921, 5x5=25 was a perfectly logical title for an exhibition. It included five works each by five artists, including Aleksandr Rodchenko and his wife Varvara Stepanova, and being the first Constructivist exhibition, was in tune with the egalitarian philosophy that had grown out of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia (see Constructivism: How It Began).
Aiming to mark the "death of painting" – to quote Arifa Akbar in The Independent on 27th January 2009 – 5x5=25 featured key works that highlighted the distinction between "composition" and "construction" – a subject of much debate that split the Russian avant-garde and eventually begat the Constructivists – and raised questions about both.
Pure Red Colour, Pure Yellow Colour, Pure Blue Colour
The triptych Pure Red Colour, Pure Yellow Colour, Pure Blue Colour - made by Rodchenko that year - reduced painting to the basics: three canvas of the same dimensions, each one covered all over in a single colour and lined up accordingly.
Fine art could not get any plainer than this. This was painting and colour at its purest, completely devoid of all meaning or personality. Said Rodchenko some years later, "I reduced painting to its logical conclusion and exhibited three canvases: red, blue and yellow. I affirmed: it's all over."
So how come, over 35 years down the line, Yves Klein was making his name by painting everything in monochromatic hues? How did his series differ from Rodchenko's triptych? Did it matter to Rodchenko which colours he used? What meaning did Klein impregnate his canvas with that his 1920s Russian counterpart didn't?
Contrasting Artistic Ethos
The secret lay in the ethos that mobilised each artist's oeuvre. Rodchenko deliberately used colours that meant absolutely nothing to him, and didn't care if the red, yellow and blue he picked were exact primary shades or not. All that mattered was their clear definition as red, yellow and blue.
In contrast, Klein chose a specific shade of blue - ultramarine - as the colour most evocative of the void. Obsessed with infinite space, he went on to create works that explored his theories about the immaterial, including constructing an exhibition about nothing and producing monogolds and monopinks.
Klein turned nothingness into a theatrical extravaganza - a move that would have repulsed the anti-art Constructivists. For them and for Rodchenko, art had to serve a purpose: it had to be useful. 5x5=25 was designed to reveal painting as a pointless and self-indulgent exercise that had no benefits whatsoever for anyone.
Dancing Forms On A White Background
If 5x5=25 intended to herald a new, non-objective mode of production, then Varvara Stepanova's Dancing Forms on a White Background - which also showed in the exhibition - posed an interesting question.
Dancing Forms...colourfully depicted a group of angular, vaguely human shapes collaborating in what looked like a ballet. Although true to its title, it also tended towards a figurative style-surely tantamount to representation. Given the apparent behaviour of those figures - as if they were dancing in celebration of the event - some critics would doubt whether that signified 'the death of painting' too.
They might compare it with fellow exhibitor Liubov Popova's Space-Force Constructions and consider whether Stepanova was simply applying the same 'half-done' feel in a slightly different context. Conclusions notwithstanding, Constructivism has ensured that both Dancing Forms... and Pure Red Colour, Pure Yellow Colour, Pure Blue Colour still test notions of what art is.
Sources:
- Tupitgsyn, Margarita. Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism. London: Tate Publishing, 2009.
- Akbar, Arifa. 'Drawing a blank: Russian constructivist makes late Tate debut,' in The Independent, Tuesday 27th January, 2009.
