Rubies and Lemons

  Call of the Avant-Garde: Constructivism and Australian Art , at Heide Museum of Modern Art, reveals how Constructivism has influenced the work of certain Australian artists from the 1930s to the present. This is the third in a series of exhibitions focusing on Modernist art movements and their impact on Australia; the previous being: Cubism and Australian Art (2009–10) and Less is More: Minimal and Post Minimal Art in Australia (2012). Constructivism began in Russia around 1913. It morphed out of Russian Futurism, alongside its austere, antagonistic brother, Suprematism. Central to the Constructivist Movement was Vladimir Tatlin, who had been enthralled by Picasso’s Cubist reliefs, which he had seen in Paris. Tatlin wanted to make art relevant to modern purposes and fit for the rigours of the oncoming Communist Revolution. Constructivism had the urgency and vigour of all cultural revolutions. As it developed, the movement had a number of permutations and eventually sever