>(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