Iceland review - 2013, Page 26

24 ICELAND REVIEW
ART
graphic designer, photographer and painter Alexander
Rodchenko was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1891,
but from 1914 he lived in Moscow where he died in 1956.
Impressed by the photomontages of the German Dadaists, he started
to shoot his own photographs in 1924. In 1942, Rodchenko switched
photography for producing abstract expressionist works. But graphic
design was always a passion and much of the art Rodchenko created in
the 20th century is a direct result of his earlier work in the field. In 1921,
he executed what were arguably some of the world’s first monochrome
paintings. With photography, he strove to convince people to see it as an
art form. He truly believed in the power of photography. His paintings
were beautiful but his photographs provocative.
A retrospective exhibition of Rodchenko’s photographs, Revolution
in Photography, curated by Olga Sviblova and produced by Ragnheiður
Kristín Pálsdóttir, will open in Reykjavík Art Museum, the Kjarvalsstaðir
building, on October 5 and run until January 26, 2014.
At the same time, at the Russian National Gallery in St. Petersburg,
Iceland’s president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson will open an exhibition of
the works of Jóhannes S. Kjarval (1885-1972), one of Iceland’s leading
artists in the 20th century. These two exhibitions mark the 70th anni-
versary of political and cultural relations between Russia and Iceland. 
Reykjavík Art Museum –
Kjarvalsstaðir will in October
open a retrospective exhibition
of the photographs of one of
Russia’s most influential artists in
the first half of the 20th century,
Alexander rodchenko.
BY PÁLL stefÁnsson
Power oF
PhotograPhy
Stairs, 1930.