The original
by Aleksandr Rodchenko, “Lengiz. Books on all the branches of knowledge,” advertising poster for the Leningrad Department of Gosizdat (State Publishing House), 1924, gouaches and cut paper on photographic paper, mounted on cardboard
the remixes
and my absolute "favorite", the piece de resistance -- the cover i saw in an airport bookstore that set off the whole El Rippitovsky / Rodchenko-remix obsession, so contrary to the original spirit of Bolshevik modernism it beggars belief, and it looks really shitty too:
there are countless other examples of graphic designers ripping off Suprematist and Constructivist design - Elizabeth Guffey has a whole chapter in her book Retro on the Soviet Chic thing of the Eighties, Swatch using all that Bolshevik modernism design etc etc
3 comments:
My favourite is of course the cat one.
Where is Jim Fetus album cover art????
"El Rippitovsky". Heh.
Yeah, I remember there being a big Russo Constructivist trend among designers in the mid-Eighties -- stuff was everywhere for a spell. Fashion spreads of garments modeled after early 20th-c. Soviet "utilitarian" clothing in iD magazine and the like, and I remember MTV even had a 10-second top-of-the-hour video bumper in the Constructivist graphic style at one point. (I was once asked to make a record sleeve in the same style at one point late in the decade.) But that particular Rodchenko spread has always been a fave for plundering, recycling, etc.
Ubiquitous. The artwork of Barbara Kruger in the Eighties was slightly modeled after it -- with its quasi-agitprop format and red-black-white scheme. And there was a Test Dept video that was heavily modeled on Rodchenko's photography...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUxoughdYto
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