{"id":893,"date":"2015-04-30T22:06:18","date_gmt":"2015-04-30T22:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/art-history-concepts.webspace.wheatoncollege.edu\/?page_id=893"},"modified":"2015-05-27T21:11:13","modified_gmt":"2015-05-27T21:11:13","slug":"faktura","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/art-history-concepts.webspace.wheatoncollege.edu\/?page_id=893","title":{"rendered":"Faktura"},"content":{"rendered":"

Julia\u00a0Schirrmeister<\/h3>\n
\"Aleksandr<\/a>

Figure 1. Aleksandr Rodchenko, Spatial Construction No. 12 (1920), Plywood, aluminum paint, and wire, Museum of Modern Art, New York.<\/p><\/div>\n

Faktura<\/i> refers to the surface treatment of a work of art. In the late nineteenth century, artists such as Seurat took an increasingly innovative approach to the faktura<\/i> (or facture) of their paintings, making it central to their technique. \u00a0It was the Russian Constructivists, however, who explored this concept most intensely. In 1922, Aleksandr Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova defined faktura <\/i>as \u201cmaterial consciously worked and expediently used, without hampering the construction or restricting the tectonics.\u201d<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> \u00a0By this, they meant embracing the inherent physical properties of the material in practical ways that makes transparent the extent to which the object has been fabricated, thus revealing its process of creation. \u00a0The Russian Constructivist created works of art with \u201cconsciously worked\u201d materials, such as wood, glass, or metal, that they conceived via a process of research, through quasi-scientific laboratory experiments.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> They avoided using materials symbolically (by making them refer to or represent something else) and instead made objects whose very forms were dictated by the material\u2019s tactile qualities, a concept also known as \u201ctruth to materials.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their focus on faktura<\/i> was a political response to the Russian Revolution of 1917, which launched a period of radical reconsideration of the social role of the art object in a classless society. \u00a0Rodchenko and Stepanova\u2019s use of the term \u201cconsciously worked\u201d suggests a Marxist critical focus on material relationships in general. \u00a0By emphasizing the faktura <\/i>of an object they tried to challenge the idea that art making was a bourgeois activity, tied to mystic concepts of divine artistic inspiration. Instead, practical scientific research into the properties of materials (both artistic and industrial) drew attention to the social utility of art. \u00a0Theoretically, their studio findings could then be adopted by industry for mass production. \u00a0Their ideology<\/a> was summed up in several manifestos that hailed technical artistic laboratory experiments and art made for the masses.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Rodchenko\u2019s Spatial Construction No. 12<\/i> (1920) is an example of the Constructivist focus on faktura<\/i>. \u00a0It is one of two surviving works from the 1921 exhibition of the Obmokhu<\/i> (\u201cSociety of Young Artists\u201d), where works were shown as laboratory experiments exploring the essential qualities of faktura<\/i>. His suspended construction was made of a single piece of plywood, cut into concentric ellipses and partially coated with aluminum paint. Rodchenko\u2019s decision to use aluminum paint with industrial associations is not an arbitrary one. \u00a0Its reflective quality draws attention to the physical properties of the paint itself. \u00a0<\/i>The object is also an active participant in the space in which it is placed, as airflow has the potential to create movement. \u00a0The shadows cast on the walls further clarifies the structure of its composition. \u00a0Rodchenko organized the construction in a way that it could be rotated to create a three-dimensional structure and then folded back into its original two-dimensional form, thereby making the process of its production transparent to his viewers.\u00a0<\/i>It is a vivid demonstration of his conception of faktura<\/i>\u00a0as \u201cmaterial consciously worked and expediently used.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-893","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/art-history-concepts.webspace.wheatoncollege.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/art-history-concepts.webspace.wheatoncollege.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/art-history-concepts.webspace.wheatoncollege.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/art-history-concepts.webspace.wheatoncollege.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/art-history-concepts.webspace.wheatoncollege.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/art-history-concepts.webspace.wheatoncollege.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1356,"href":"http:\/\/art-history-concepts.webspace.wheatoncollege.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/893\/revisions\/1356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/art-history-concepts.webspace.wheatoncollege.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}