Steve Edwards, Russell Roberts, Gill Perry and Bettina Kaufmann, Q&A Session 1

Bettina Kaufmann, Curator’s Talk  Bettina Kaufmann gives an introduction to the Street & Studio exhibition at Tate Modern. She discusses the curatorial issues that arise from the juxtaposition of street and studio photography: at first glance they appear to be two divided image worlds, but interestingly there are inclusions and interplays of specific elements between the two genres. Street photography stands for spontaneity and immediacy, a place that is continuously changing, opposite to the originally quiet, formal and private studio photography.

Russell Roberts, Staged, Estranged, Candid and Observed: Mass-Observation & Photography  Russell Roberts looks at the ways that Mass-Observation engaged with photography during the 1930s and 40s, to understand social dynamics of the historical moment. The paper looks to specific applications of documentary realism in relation to urban space and more choreographed depictions of daily life from the street to the home to the place of work.

Steve Edwards, Documents and Pictures  Steve Edwards explores some of the antimonies or contrasts that have shaped photography from its origin in the nineteenth century to the present. This short survey presentation provides an introduction to ideas and photographic practices relevant for this study day. Suggested Further Reading Steve Edwards, 'Profane illumination': Photography and photomontage in the USSR and Germany, Steve Edwards & Paul Wood eds, Art of the Avant-Gardes, Yale University Press, 2004, pp.395-425

Round Table and Q&A chaired by Gill Perry  Gill Perry is Professor of Art History at the Open University.

David Mabb, William Morris and the Constructivists. What went wrong?  David Mabb has recently discovered through extensive research of newly opened up archives in Kelmscott and Moscow, that William Morris, Kasimir Malevich and the Constructivists secretly developed an extensive collaborative body of work that has until recently remained completely hidden from public view. In his presentation Mabb examines some of the many paintings, videos and photographs that make up this collection. He will explain his own role in their discovery, mount a critique of the works' limitations and suggest some possibilities for what the artists might have been trying to achieve.

Margarita Tupitsyn, A Russian Journey of the Grid  Constructivism had developed its own genealogy of the key modernist emblems such as the grid, and the monochrome as well as theorized on the status of the everyday object in the field of aesthetics. This talk presents a case of the resuscitation and redefinition of the grid's visual and theoretical formats through the work of artists associated with the Moscow conceptual circle in its past and current "membership."

Brandon Taylor, Looking from the Left From Line to Construction: Rodchenko's Laboratory of Form  From the earliest straight-line paintings of 1917 and 1918 through to Rodchenko's article 'The Line' of 1921, lines alone summarised the ambitions of Constructivism for efficiency, simplicity and functionality - and for energy, direction and speed, all metaphors of a new art and a new attitude to three-dimensional form in the real environment.We shall look carefully at the 'laboratory' attitudes of Rodchenko and Popova in their efforts to transcend painting, but with the resourc

Round Table and Q&A chaired by Ben Borthwick  Ben Borthwick, Assistant Curator at Tate Modern, has worked alongside Dr. Margarita Tupitsyn on Rodchenko and Popova: Defining Constructivism.

Alexander Lavrentiev, The Three Constructivisms of Alexander Rodchenko Discussed are the three levels of the constructivist concept developed by Alexander Rodchenko. Constructivism as the way of life and behavior, organization of the artist's own environment and his workshop. Constructivism as the practical environment for everyday life (architecture, interior, communication design) and ideally organized project planning.Constructivism as exploration through art.