Dmitri Kourliandski

Contra-Relief

Programme noteThe composition is an attempt to reconstruct Vladimir Tatlin's Monument to the 3rd Communist International. The piece is part of the program Reconstruction of the Structural Resistance Group (StRes), dedicated to reconstruction of lost monuments or utopian projects of the Russian avant-garde of the 1920s.Brief glossaryContra-relief - a term introduced by Vladimir Tatlin to designate three-dimensional space compositions made from expressly ''unartistic'' materials (iron, cardboard, wood, glass, plaster etc., sometimes combined with household items or fragments of ready-mades), that are both objects of art and art itself...Vladimir Tatlin (1885 - 1953), Russian artist, designer, scene-designer, a major representative of innovative art of the 1920s, founder of artistic constructivism. Author of the Monument to the 3rd Communist International (''Tatlin Tower'')...Monument to the 3rd Communist International (''Tatlin Tower'') - was displayed in December 1920 in Moscow during the 8th Congress of Soviets. The structure 1.5 times higher than the Eifel Tower was designed as an administrative and propaganda centre of Comintern, an organization that prepared the mankind for the worldwide revolution...Brief descriptionA structure made of metal beams and four transparent cubic capacities revolving with different speeds was to accommodate Comintern's executive, legislative and propaganda agencies. The diagonal of the ''Tatlin Tower'' was connected with the two spirals encompassing it, while the revolving capacities were integrated into the bare frame structure. The original five-meter-high model of the ''Tatlin Tower'', last time displayed in 1930, was later lost (the most accurate of many ''Tower'' model reconstructions was made in Russia in 1992-93).