Rodchenko, Stepanova, & Cigarettes (was Re: How far do we go?...)

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Colin Danby wrote:

> (What shall we say of old Ho Chi Minh and his Salems?  Of Rodchenko's
> cigarette ads?  Do you really prefer the post-cigar Fidel?)

*****   Aleksandr Rodchenko, an exhibit at The Museum of Modern Art
New York City, June 25-October 6, 1998;
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, November 6, 1998-January 24, 1999;
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, March 6-May 24, 1999

Rodchenko's art and fate: the experiment continues

By David Walsh
29 August 1998

...I found two photos of Varvara Stepanova enormously expressive and
poignant.  The first, taken in 1924, shows a lively, brown-haired,
round-faced woman holding a cigarette in one hand, her other hand on
the back of her neck.  She has something of a skeptical smirk on her
face, as if to say, "Well, what do you think you're up to?"  Her hair
is unkempt and her clothes and face look a little grubby, although it
may simply be the lighting.  At any rate, she appears to be taking a
break from her work.

The other is from 1936.  It is of the same woman, although you
wouldn't know it to look at her.  She is dressed for outdoors, in a
cloth coat, with a hat pulled down over one eye.  She is looking
down.  Her expression?  It registers bewilderment, defeat,
resignation.  Light from a window behind the picture-taker falls on
Stepanova in such a manner that its lattice-work casts a horizontal
shadow across the center of her face and a vertical shadow down the
left side of her body.  She appears, in other words, to be behind
bars.  It is one of the most terrifying photographs I know of.

1924 to 1936--only 12 years--little more than a decade, but enough
time for the bottom of the century to fall out....

<http://www.wsws.org/arts/1998/aug1998/rod-a29.shtml>   *****

Yoshie