Rodchenko ! Mayakovsky

RODCHENKO - MAYAKOVSKY
Advertising - Constructor

In an anthology of his own writings titled Experiments for the Future, Rodchenko tells about his collaboration with the poet Mayakovsky on the design of advertising campaigns for several state companies flourishing under the era of the New Economic Policy, which allowed free enterprise, capitalist competition and private patrons from 1921 to 1928, date of the implementation of the First Five Year Plan.

"[...] At the same time I began work on an advertisment for the Dobrolet company. I made signs and a poster "He who is not a Dobrolet stockholder, is not a citizen of the USSR".

One evening we were sitting in the pavillon on the Tverskoi Boulevard - Volodia, Aseev and I. They were laughing at the Dobrolet rhymes, knowing I had designed the poster but assuming the slogan was the work of some bad poet. I was offended and laid into them for not writing text for advertising themselves, and told them that the verse was mine but that it was accidental: I had simply shortened and shifted around the text I'd been given which was " He who does not own a Dobrolet stock, is not a citizen of the USSR"

I don't know if it was this that gave Mayakovsky the push he needed, or whether he was already moving in this direction and that was why he noticed the poster, but soon afterwards he invited me to do advertisement for GUM. [...]
Our collaboration began. Our trademark was: "Advertising - Constructor MAYAKOVSKY — RODCHENKO". We worked with great enthusiasm.

[...] We really were the vanguard of revolutionary art, and each of us in our own field, led the battle for the new Soviet art, even by being against art. This battle continues in other forms, and will forever continue to be fought in art. Our work on Soviet advertising — the creation of our new advertisements — was in full swing. Volodia wrote the copy on the piano in the evening, during the day he took new orders or delivered finished work. With two students from VKhUTEMAS, I painted all night. It was bit-work — and not for the money, but in order to promote the new advertising everywhere.
All of Moscow was adorned with our output...
The Mossel¹prom billboards...
All of our kiosks...
The Gosizdat billboards -
"The black, red, gold"...
Rezinotrest,
GUM,
"Ogonek"
Chaeupravlenie.
We made about fifty posters, around a hundred billboards, packages, wrappers, advertising light-shows, advertisement posts and illustrations in newspapers and magazines. I could spend several years writing a separate book about this work alone, which is precisely what I am thinking of doing if this one turns out well."

This exhibition includes a selection of the original drawings presented to Mosselprom and are believed to be the only surviving original designs. For more information, please contact Anne-Laure Oberson at 212 431 6363.