Hatton Gallery Exhibit at Colorado State University Features Revolutionary Artist Rodchenko

Note to Editors: Call June Greist at (970) 491-6432 for interviews with show curator Steven Yates, for preview tours of the show. Download digital images from the show using the links below:
Portrait of the Artist’s Mother
Equestrian Competition
Guard, Shukov (Radio) Tower
House of Mosselprom
Theatrical Square
Vladimir Mayakovsky
White Sea Canal

Colorado State University’s Hatton Gallery presents an exhibition focusing on Aleksandr Rodchenko (1891-1956), whose contributions to photomontage, cinema and photography made him one of Europe’s most revolutionary and inventive artists.

"Rodchenko: Modern Photography, Photomontage and Film" will open with a reception from 7-9 p.m. Jan. 28. The reception will feature a gallery talk by Steven Yates, who curated the Rodchenko exhibition and is curator of photography at the Museum of Fine Arts in Sante Fe. The show runs from Jan. 28-March 8 at the Hatton Gallery in the Visual Arts Building on campus. The opening reception and the exhibition are free and open to the public.

Yates wrote: "The photographic experimentation of Aleksandr Rodchenko stands as one of the most ambitious efforts in establishing the visual language of modern art in the 20th century. From Russia’s political revolution in 1917, Rodchenko sought to create a corresponding artistic revolution, believing that new ideologies demand new artistic forms. By 1924 he had abandoned easel painting to substitute the camera as the primary image making tool for the modern artist."

In establishing the revolutionary and influential style of Constructivism, his avant-garde experiments and theory became central to Modernist discourse.

In "Rodchenko: Modern Photography, Photomontage, and Film," everyday scenes are viewed with dynamic perspectives and viewpoints that use abstraction. Original photographic publications and cinematic montages created with avant-garde artists and literary figures share this unprecedented exploration of graphic design. The exhibition includes portraits by Rodchenko of his contemporaries during the unparalleled years of the Russian avant-garde. Included are portraits of the artist; his wife Varvara Stepanova; their daughter, leading poet Vladimir Mayakovsky; critic Osip Brik; Cubist-Futurist painter Liubov Popova; and many others who significantly shaped the history of Modernism.

Exhibit curator Yates is the first Senior Fulbright Scholar to the USSR (1991) and Russia (1995) in the history of photography. Yates teaches the history of 19th and 20th century photography and contemporary photographic seminars at the Visual Arts Center of the Santa Fe Community College and is associate adjunct professor at the Art and Art History departments of the University of New Mexico.

The exhibit was organized by the University Art Museum at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, and is circulated by Curatorial Assistance, Los Angeles.

The Hatton Gallery is open from 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 1-4 p.m. Saturdays. For more information about the exhibit, call the gallery at (970) 491-1989.