The notion of faktura in theories of the visual arts in Russia during the 1910s and 20s

At the crossroads of formalist and phenomenological approaches
By Nadia Podzemskaia
English

The highlighting of faktura by David Burljuk and Waldemar Matvejs (1912 – 1914) followed by Tatlin, Punin and Šklovskij made it possible to extract the materiality of the work and turn it into a value as such which, by antonomasia, became the notion of contemporary art. During the 1920s, the theoretical thinking that accompanied constructivist and productivist practices opted for a “technical” orientation and was based on a rather primitive vulgate of materialism. However, true terminological research was carried out within the context of the INXUK and the RAXN / GAXN, where the avant-garde concept of faktura, based on mixing together the space of the work and real space, was taken over in a critical way by the sculptor Vladimir Domogackij and the theoreticians Dmitrij Nedovič and Aleksandr Gabričevskij. They were interested in faktura as an imprint of the creator’s subjectivity, making this notion into a kind of “Urform” of the aura of Walter Benjamin. Thus, the debate on faktura led to the essence of the work of art as such.

Keywords

  • faktura
  • material
  • artistic terminology
  • constructivism
  • science of art
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