12 February – 17 May 2009
Explore: Room 7
5 x 5 = 25 Paintings
The two-part exhibition 5 x 5 = 25, which opened in Moscow in September 1921, was intended as a farewell to painting. Rodchenko and Popova and fellow artists Varvara Stepanova, Aleksandr Vesnin and Aleksandra Exter each exhibited five paintings. They also contributed statements and five covers each to 25 handmade catalogues.
Not all of the paintings can be identified with certainty, but they included Popova’s Space-Force Construction no.80 1921, which combines a network of impersonal ruler-drawn lines with softer, more painterly triangles among the sharp angles. The works that drew most attention, however, were Rodchenko’s triptych Pure Red Colour, Pure Yellow Colour, Pure Blue Colour 1921. As he later described these works, ‘I reduced painting to its logical conclusion and exhibited three canvases: red, blue and yellow. I affirmed: it’s over. Basic colours. Every plane is a plane and there is to be no representation.’ The painting is presented as a single physical object, with raw colour as its essential material.