How to Look at: Constructivism
How the Russian art movement reinvented art for the industrial age, rethinking the artist as engineer and experimenting with newly invented materials
How the Russian art movement reinvented art for the industrial age, rethinking the artist as engineer and experimenting with newly invented materials
‘It’s been hugely influential for a lot of artists today to look at Russian constructivist works. It feels still very contemporary. It is still a new way of looking at sculpture.’
In this episode of ‘How to Look at’, we learn about Russian constructivism through the radical work of Naum Gabo. Nina Fellmann, co-director of Annely Juda Fine Art shares insights into Gabo's work Linear Construction in Space No.1 (Variation), 1976, the final variation of a work originally conceived in 1938.
A key figure in the constructivist movement, Gabo originally studied engineering before becoming an artist. This technical background shaped his artistic thinking – he was drawn to the ideas, materials and technologies of the modern industrial age. In 1920, Gabo and his brother Antoine Pevsner also published the Realistic Manifesto, laying out the principles of Constructivism.
His work Linear Construction in Space No.1 therefore embodies many of the radical approaches of constructivism, from the use of newly invented materials Perspex and nylon, to how he created a dynamic form using space, light and tension.
Linear Construction, which is on view at Annely Juda at Frieze Masters 2025, is a landmark of 20th-century sculpture, important not just for how it looks, but for how it changed what sculpture could be.
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