Presentation1

THE RUSSIAN CONSTRUCTIV

IST&

SHEPHERD FAIRLY

Consider the influence of a previous generation of illustrators or designers comparing and contrasting the work

FURTHER QUESTIONS1. Do Constructivists act as a channel

reflecting the undercurrents of society?

2. How does art affect political views and opinions?

3. Has constructivism become a blindly borrowing form of design?

SHEPHERD FAIREY

Shepherd Fairey is an American contemporary designer. Best known for his work in the OBEY sticker campaign but also his HOPE poster in the Barack Obama campaign of 2008.

http://www.obeygiant.com/articles/shepard-fairey-2

ABOUT CONSTRUCTIVISM

• Constructivism was a movement created by the Russians that was active from 1915 to the 1940′s. It was a post world war 1 movement that was development from Russian Futurism• Constructivist art is committed to complete abstraction with a devotion to modernity, where themes are often geometric, experimental and rarely emotional. Objective forms carrying universal meaning were far more suitable to the movement than subjective or individualistic forms. Constructivist themes are also quite minimal, where the artwork is broken down to its most basic elements.

CONSTRUCTIVISM ARTICLE

“But it still seems odd that a design movement so strongly identified with a nation and a moment in history so remote from, and apparently irrelevant to, most of our lives should speak so clearly to us. One obvious explanation for why it does is that it has been easy to nick the style and dump the politics. We have seen a tide of increasingly jejune depoliticised versions of Constructivism perpetrated by western graphic designers over the years.

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2008/august/constructivism-the-ism-that-just-keeps-givin

”

COMPARISONShepard Fairey has incorporated graphic motifs and compositions from the Russian Constructivist Alexander Rodchenko, Chinese Communist propaganda. In collaging silk-screened copies of many different sorts of images, words and textures, often at radically different scales, he integrates vertiginous complexity into works of punchy legibility, partly by means of a suave color sensibility usually limited to shades of red, black and off-white. Fairey’s artwork follows the style of his predecessors. His Obama posters (and lots of his commercial and fine art work) are reworking of the techniques of revolutionary propagandists, the bright colors, bold lettering, geometric simplicity, heroic poses. Fairey was largely just trying to be provocative. Advertising is subtle propaganda, so by doing something in an overt propaganda style on the street, Fairey was try to get people to question his work. Then hopefully the next domino would fall, and people would begin to question everything else too.