All-Soviet Military Railroad 1930

Solomon Telingater made this collage, All-Soviet Military Railroad, using paper and gouache sometime in the mid-twentieth century. It’s a real stew of greys, reds, and yellows, cut sharply and layered like you might build a propaganda poster. It's like Telingater is building up these Soviet heroes and their machines from scraps. I love the way the images are placed slightly off-kilter and bleed off the edge of the picture plane. Nothing quite lines up as you might expect it. Look at the airplane in the upper right corner with its brushed yellow rays behind. Is it coming or going? The same could be said about the train on the left. Are these things arriving or breaking apart? Russian Constructivism had an interesting afterlife in graphic design, and I think Telingater is part of that story. There’s a connection here to the work of Herbert Bayer, whose designs often incorporate photomontage, typography and blocks of flat color. Like all great art, this piece is open to endless interpretations.