277

Arte Útil archive nr:

277

Initiator:

Karl Ioganson

Location:

Russian Federation

Category:

economy, social

Users:

Workers, artists

Maintained by:

Karl Ioganson

Certification:

implemented

Duration:

1923

Karl Ioganson
-
Constructivism – Finishing Machine

Description:

In 1923 Karl Ioganson achieved the constructivist fantasy of the artist-engineer working in the metal industry.
He decided to stop working as a sculptor and he started working as a metal cutter at the Krasnyi Prokatchik, a metal rolling factory in Moscow. There he invented a "finishing machine", which consisted in a mechanized system for the treating of aluminum, tin and lead that would raise the productivity of labor by 150%.

Goals:

Change the role of artists, to become the artist-producer (‘khudozhnik-proizvodstennik’) as Nikolai Tarabukin wrote, to design the process through aspects of production. He became a true worker at the factory workbench who is also an inventor, rather than an artist fulfilling a managerial-designer role.

Beneficial Outcomes:

A closer integration of art, work and life. The invention of a machine that raised the production.

Images:

Constructivists (Karl Ioganson, Voldemars Andersons, Karlis Veidemanis, and Gustav Klucis) at the Kremlin, Summer 1918.