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Robot

A work made of cardboard, fabric, wood, glass, and string.

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  • A work made of cardboard, fabric, wood, glass, and string.

Date:

1926

Artist:

Alexandra Exter
Born Białystok (formerly Russian Empire, now Poland), 1882; died Fontenay-aux-Roses, France, 1949

About this artwork

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.

Status

On View, Gallery 393

Department

Modern Art

Artist

Alexandra Exter

Title

Robot

Place

Russia (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1926

Medium

Cardboard, fabric, wood, glass, and string

Inscriptions

none

Dimensions

H.: 50.8 cm (20 in.)

Credit Line

Block, Serlin and Saidenberg Fund; through prior gifts of Mr. and Mrs. Carter H. Harrison, Arthur Keating, Albert Kunstadter Family Foundation

Reference Number

1990.133

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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