With the Rodchenko. Personal exhibition, the Zotov Centre has launched a series of solo exhibitions exploring how artists interpret everyday life and space. The first project in the series is dedicated to Alexander Rodchenko, an innovator in photography, painting, object design and graphic design.
The exhibition project was developed in collaboration with the Still Art Foundation, the MIRA Collection, and the Archive of Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova.
The exhibition features 58 iconic photographs from the 1920s and 1930s, along with Alexander Rodchenko’s personal belongings, periodicals, diary entries, and letters. These materials show him not only as an avant-garde artist and ‘the great experimenter’, but also as a deeply sensitive and perceptive individual.
The exhibition is split into five thematic sections: City, Reportage, VKhUTEMAS, Workshop, and Family. Rodchenko’s photographs, personal items, and diary excerpts work together to offer visitors a walk through the city with the artist, as he selecting images and framing subjects. Visitors encounter his friends and collaborators at the workshop, including film director Lev Kuleshov, constructivist Alexei Gan, and poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. The exhibition also shows Rodchenko’s affection for his wife and creative partner Varvara Stepanova, his appreciation for time spent with his parents, his preference for a cap over a French hat, who the ‘mulki’ were, and which colours ‘do not and will not exist’.
Photographs, letters, and personal items form a kind of ‘impression’ of a moment, allowing us to view the many facets of Alexander Rodchenko’s personality. His feelings, thoughts, and dreams are reflected in his creative approach to photography. The artist’s famous ‘Rodchenko angles’ are nothing less than the visual expression of his heartfelt desire ‘to see extraordinarily ordinary things’.
Curators: Anna Zamriy and Dmitry Nikishov.
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