Alexandra Exter
Born Białystok (formerly Russian Empire, now Poland), 1882; died Fontenay-aux-Roses, France, 1949
Robot
INV-7627
Alexandra Exter
Born Białystok (formerly Russian Empire, now Poland), 1882; died Fontenay-aux-Roses, France, 19491926
Russian Constructivismsculpturemodern and contemporary art
Date
1926
Medium
Cardboard, fabric, wood, glass, and string
Dimensions
H.: 50.8 cm (20 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Block, Serlin and Saidenberg Fund; through prior gifts of Mr. and Mrs. Carter H. Harrison, Arthur Keating, Albert Kunstadter Family Foundation
Robot is one of a series of marionettes Alexandra Exter made in 1926 for an unrealized film. Her inventive figurines draw on revolutionary artistic developments of the 20th century, including mechanization, nontraditional art materials, assemblage and collage, and abstraction. Exter used glass for the robot’s face to play on the faculty of sight, and she made an accordion of cardboard cubes to form the chest to suggest the act of breathing. A pioneering figure in the international avant-garde working fluidly across media, Exter was a painter and designer active in Moscow and Kyiv before settling in Paris in 1924.
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