Design for Exhibition Construction

The constructivists, especially Rothenko and Klucis, worked out a design methodology, which they developed particularly in the field of graphic arts, while photomontage - which was considered an effective propaganda weapon - allowed them to reconcile abstraction and iconography. They applied it to the fields of printing, poster and exhibition design (as they were tested by the increasing centralised control of art during Stalin's Five Year Plans). It is in this context that Gustav Klucis' 'Design for Exhibition Construction' is placed. The artist created a large series of drawings for outdoor, folding, expandable and easily movable structures. It is a colored structure, probably double-sided and Z-shaped, which rests on four thin supports-frames of rectangular or square cross-section. The structure is seen from above and in such a way that one of its faces is visible.