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Sentry of the Shukov Tower

Creator

Russian Author · 1891–1956

PhotographerPrintmakerDesigner

Alexander Rodchenko was a revolutionary artist, both politically and aesthetically. As a decorator, furniture and theater designer, printer, painter, sculptor, and photographer, he worked with a wide variety of media. He was also an art theorist and educator and began teaching at the *VKhUTEMAS* (Higher State Art-Technical Studios) in Moscow in 1920. Best known as a Russian Constructivist artist,

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Date: 1929
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Culture: Russian
Department: Photographs
Institution: Getty Museum

The crisscrossing lines of the radio tower in this dynamic diagonal composition dominate the sentry standing atop the Shukhov Tower. The vantage point employed here came to be known in Russia as "Rodchenko perspective." As a symbol of the new Soviet citizen, the guard becomes a cog in the state machine, his bayonet point ending in the center of the composition and melding with the cacophony of lines. The dominance of the radio tower in this image is appropriate because Alexander Rodchenko was also a radio engineer, with a studio table filled with radios and their accessories.

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