Word: spatialism
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Possibly, the Russian Constructivists' preoccupation with space (and not with the resultant mass of carving or of modelling), enabled this group of artists to look at society in spatial terms. No longer did the Soviet society have to be a mass that could only be carved away or molded into massive forms, but instead, society was more than pliant; the artist could construct a society; he could create the gestalt rather than merely alter it; the Constructivist was concerned with a new metaphysics in terms of tectonics...
...previous void. In much of the optical and kinetic movements, one sees the Constructivist concern for space rather than for mass reiterated, especially in the French group, La Groupe de la Recherche Visuele, that includes such pioneers as La Parc and Agam. From Gabo and Pevsner's use of spatial structure comes spatial drawing as manifested in Alexander Calder's mobiles and stabiles, Anthony Caro's I Beams or even Picasso's wire sculptures...
...Search for Total Construction (U. S. S. R. 1917-1932)," on exhibit until February 14 at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. A rather flat show, consisting mostly of photographic and pictorial representations of architectural structures (which is unfortunate since this group has had such an influence in spatial concepts), but an important record in visual historical thought. Some of the best examples have come out of Harvard's own museums: the basements of the Busch-Reisinger, the Fogg, Carpenter Center, etc. (e.g., Malevitch, "Construction: Two Views" and Lissitsky, "Study for Booklet on Two Squares"). It is understandable that...
Alexander Rodchenko, whose works include a chess table (in the Carpenter Center show at Harvard) and a spatial structure not unlike Bohr's model of the atom, is currently in a small exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His were some of the first works constructed of actual movement; MOMA's show exhibits his later fascination with photography where he transformed even a simple stack of wood into a spatial statement...
Crane shots twist spatial relationships in such a way that their effect is wonderfully moving. Set within the extremely developed order of his compositions. Mizoguchi's crane shots strain the dramatic structure of his scenes to its fullest. The point is not that he uses a crane-the point is what his craning motions push against. Any rich fool can set up a crane shot. Only Mizoguchi can so stylize his shots that a crane's are back into space wrenches your heart away from the bearings on which it has rested long enough...