El Lissitzky. Organizer

Russian photo avant-garde

Andrey Fomenko

In the early period of its history, photography was not considered a full-fledged art form with specific expressive capabilities. The first attempts to aestheticize it were based on the denial of its main qualities - mechanism and reproduction. It is characteristic that representatives of modernist art were especially intransigent towards photography, for whom it became synonymous with slavish imitation of nature. This critique of photography began with Baudelaire’s text “The Modern Public and Photography,” which was included in his review of the 1859 Salon. In it, he calls photography a manifestation of “material progress” that threatens the very existence of “poetry.”

However, at the beginning of the 20th century, this attitude changed. A new generation of modernist artists are beginning to consider the features of photographic technology as the foundation of a new poetics, which allows them to show such aspects of physical reality that eluded the eye, brought up by traditional, “craft” technologies of painting and graphics. In the 1920s, the “second discovery” of photography took place - from the periphery of the art scene it moved to its center, and all that until recently seemed to be defects that could be corrected turned into advantages. One after another, representatives of the radical avant-garde declare their abandonment of painting for the sake of a more accurate, more reliable, more economical - in a word, more modern - technology. Their arguments are different, although the results are largely similar. One of the most influential systems of argumentation connects the revaluation of photography with a rethinking of the social functions of art itself, which from the production of rarities for “disinterested contemplation” should turn into a form of organization of the collective life of society, corresponding to the modern level of development of productive forces, and at the same time - into a means of its revolutionary change. This idea underlies the so-called “production movement”, which took shape in Soviet Russia in the early 1920s thanks to the joint efforts of artists, writers, architects and avant-garde art theorists - Alexander Rodchenko, Gustav Klutsis, El Lissitzky, the Vesnin brothers, Moses Ginzburg, Nikolai Chuzhak, Boris Arvatov, Sergei Tretyakov, Boris Kushner and others.

Photography has become one of the privileged means of expression for constructivists - this fact is well known. But not long before this, the very word “photography” embodied everything that advanced, radical art does not want to be. Photography was identified with a superficial, mechanical copying of reality, concentrating the worst qualities of traditional art. The avant-garde opposed this, on the one hand, to the study of the language of art in its autonomy and “opacity,” and, on the other, to the ideology of free form-creation, not limited by the need to reflect the existing order of things. Within the framework of this ideology, the concept of life-building was formed, which makes the problem of the convergence of the avant-garde and photography especially intriguing.

Towards a “monistic, collective, real and effective” culture

There is no consensus regarding the “beginning” of the history of modern (modernist) art. It all depends on what is considered “contemporary art”. Someone takes as a starting point the avant-garde movements of the beginning XX century, some - post-impressionism and symbolism of the end XIX th. Avant-garde artists of the 10s and 20s usually traced their genealogy back to impressionism. Modern researchers, prone to broader generalizations, prefer to start with Courbet, Manet, Baudelaire, with the beginning of romanticism XIX century, from the aesthetics of Kant or from the Enlightenment. Longer histories of modernism are also quite conceivable. In essence, modernity begins along with history, from the moment when someone drew the line between yesterday and today, between “ancient, immemorial times” and “our time.”

However, for the so-called mass audience - no matter how vague this definition may be - everything is more or less clear. Modernist art is art that goes against the “norm.” And this “layman's opinion” has that diagnostic accuracy that is sometimes lost in more sophisticated theories. The norm is understood in different ways, but in general it is a combination of “truth” and “beauty”. On the one hand, it is defined from the point of view of compliance with the appearance of the phenomena of the surrounding world, on the other hand, from the point of view of a certain cultural canon. Accordingly, reproaches addressed to works of modernist art focus either on their “ unrealistic", or on anti-aestheticism.

Of course, the so-called life-likeness is of a conventional and, therefore, linguistic character, just like the aesthetic ideal: both are regulated by certain rules, a certain “grammar.” But ordinary consciousness accepts its existing system of rules as the only possible one. Therefore, an attempt to introduce a different system of rules is perceived by him as something negative - as a deviation from this Norm, which carries within itself a destructive principle that threatens to undermine social and cultural foundations.

Avant-garde art made it a rule to break the rules and deviate from the “only possible” cultural Norm. But at the same time, from the point of view of those “initiated” into the problems of modernist art, it is precisely this art that demonstrates compliance with the norm - in contrast to popular art (by the way, this is what makes the signs of kitsch so attractive in the eyes of the avant-garde - after all, kitsch turns out to be a sign profanity). Moreover, various modernist movements constantly strived to formulate a certain absolute norm, a system of rules that would have universal significance. The notorious reductionism of the avant-garde, that is, its desire for a certain fundamental principle, is explained not by its desire for destruction as such, but by the desire to identify this basic, irreducible level of art and make it its foundation. One of the arguments in favor of such reductionism is that only in this way can the process of decay that has captured society and people be stopped.

In "Manifesto I" " of the Dutch group "De Stijl", which played a vital role in the history of modern art, stated:

“There is an old and a new consciousness of time.

The old focuses on the individual.

The new is oriented towards the universal.

Dispute individual with the universal is manifested both in the world war and in modern art.< ... >

New is the art that reveals a new consciousness of time: the modern relationship between the universal and the individual.”

Here a conflict is asserted between the “new” and “old” consciousness, with the new being defined through the category of the universal, while the old is marked by the predominance of the individual, particular principle. This contradiction is constitutive of the avant-garde - as well as the intention to eliminate it or, as the De Stijl manifesto states further, to destroy “traditions, dogmas and the dominance of the individual” - everything that prevents the realization of the “new consciousness of the times” 2 . The idea of ​​a universal norm, which is formulated in avant-garde programs and manifestos and to which works of avant-garde art correspond, has nothing to do with the actual state of affairs and with currently operating cultural conventions. On the contrary, these conventions are considered by avant-garde artists to be false and subject to elimination or, if the alternative is unclear, to revealing their conventionality, artificiality and problematic nature. Viktor Shklovsky very accurately noted that “art is basically ironic and destructive” 3 . This phrase indicates a deeper understanding of the essence of the matter than the widespread interpretation of modernism as “the (self) writing of a medial substrate” (for example, a pictorial surface or a sculptural form) - the latter is only one of the variants or aspects of this art.

Indeed, the early avant-garde saw its task in revealing the “special properties” of each type of art, “its boundaries and requirements” 4 , coinciding with the boundaries and requirements of artistic space. However it art is understood differently, and each new definition of it leads to a revision of the guidelines governing the artistic process. The very idea of ​​what art is and its relationship to non-art is changing. For example, in abstract painting the medium is identified with the carrier of the artistic sign (picture) and, accordingly, with the qualities and parameters that are inherent in this carrier. This definition, in principle, applies to any picture, including naturalistic ones. But the abstract artist strives to “clarify” it and, for the sake of this, abandons representation. The next step is to equate the painting with a material structure, an object that openly demonstrates its “madeness”. Art is now understood not as reflection, but as production par excellence , production in its ideal, unalienated, reflective form. And again, the need arises to “correct” the existing, factual order of things, which contradicts the fundamental identity of artistic and material production. The life-building program is a program for correcting this “wrong”, that is, outdated, overcome in the process of developing the “productive forces” of art, the relationship of art to “everyday life”. The point is to establish a correspondence between the actual norms of culture and the absolute, universal norm formulated by art as a result of the study of its own language.

According to the American critic Clement Greenberg, the avant-garde offers the viewer a reason for reflection: a modernist work of art, unlike kitsch, provokes spectator activity 5 . This means that the viewer or reader of such a work is invited to become an accomplice in the creative, modeling process and perceive culture not as something given once and for all, but as something becoming. The avant-garde, as it were, does not allow a certain system of norms and rules to freeze. And at a certain stage of its history, it moves to direct intervention in the sphere of social practice with the aim of transforming it. The production movement corresponds to precisely such a historical moment.

In the 1920s, art tried to become an effective force operating modern machine technologies, and at the same time gain social legitimacy, previously sacrificed. But since the essential feature of the avant-garde is a critique of existing normativity, then instead of adapting to it, the avant-garde tries to embody its own idea of ​​a universal norm in the social field. The society whose order the avant-garde fulfills does not coincide with society in its current state. Avant-garde design turns out to be primarily social design. It is in this context that “information” and propaganda media acquire special importance for production workers: propaganda posters, photo reports, cinema, newspapers.

Photography met the basic requirements set by production workers for art. Its main advantage compared to traditional artistic media was that it made it possible to bring the sphere of artistic production in line with the modern level of technological development and move from the production of “aesthetic mirages” for individual contemplation to the mass production of documented reliable information used for propaganda and enlightenment. The photographic and film camera placed the artist in the position of a skilled technician, working in collaboration with the production team and in accordance with a specific production plan.

Photomontage: from form-making to factography

Already within the framework of the avant-garde paradigm, with its critical attitude towards representation, formal conditions were created for the revaluation of photography. However, for the practical development of this field, the avant-garde needed a certain mediating model. Montage served as such a model.

Montage turns into a peculiar “style” of thinking of avant-garde artists and writers of the late 10s. Its essence lies in the fact that the work is understood as a complex whole, between the individual parts of which there are intervals that prevent their unification into a continuous unity and shift attention from the level of signifieds to the level of signifiers. The montage method of organizing heterogeneous material corresponds to the contradictory logic of modernist art and combines both principles that determine the evolution of this art in the end XIX - early XX century - on the one hand, it explicates the principle of the autonomy of art, on the other, the will to overcome the boundary between art and non-art. The montage marks a turning point in the evolution of modernism - the transition from aesthetic reflection, that is, from the study of one’s own language, to expansion into the sphere non-artistic. At the level of morphology, this expansion is combined with a revival of figurativeness, which, however, is accompanied by peculiar “precautions” that express an ambivalent attitude towards it and are fully noticeable in the structure of photomontage. This is explained by the fact that constructivist artists seek to rethink representation in the spirit of the concept of life-building, which genetically goes back to the understanding of a work of art as self-explanatory object. Such an object refers to external reality not as the subject of the image, but as its material. Expressed in the language of semiotics, we can say that such a work is not iconic, but a symbolic symbol of the objective, material world.

Apparently, the first example of photomontage in the Soviet avant-garde should be considered the work of Gustav Klutsis “Dynamic City” (1919). An analogue and, perhaps, a prototype of the “Dynamic City” are abstract Suprematist El Lissitzky's paintings are so-called prouns. The similarity is reinforced by the inscription made by Klutsis on his photomontage: “Look from all sides” - a kind of manual for use, indicating the absence of fixed spatial coordinates in the picture. As is known, Lissitzky accompanied his prouns with the same recommendations, in accordance with the special quality of their spatial structure, which the French critic Yves Alain Bois defines as “radical reversibility” 6 .

Radical reversibility is not limited to the possibility of changing spatial axes within the picture plane (reversibility of top and bottom, left and right); it also means the reversibility of what protrudes forward and recedes into depth. To achieve the latter, Lissitzky resorts to the axonometric principle of construction, contrasting it with the classical perspective. Instead of a closed perspective cube, the front side of which coincides with the plane of the picture, and the vanishing point of the depth lines mirrors the viewer's point of view, an open, reversible space appears. As Lissitzky wrote: “Suprematism placed the top of the finite visual pyramid of linear perspective at infinity.<…> Suprematist space can unfold both forward, on this side of the plane, and in depth.” The result of this kind of organization is the effect of polysemy: each signifier in this case corresponds to mutually exclusive signifieds (up and down, near and far, convex and concave, planar and volumetric).

This quality of prouns becomes especially noticeable when comparing them with the works of Malevich, whose ideas Lissitzky develops. Lissitzky's paintings may seem like a step back from pure Suprematist abstraction - a return to a more traditional model of representation. However, introducing elements of illusory spatiality, Lissitzky strives to avoid hypertrophy of flatness - the danger contained in Suprematist system. Transformed into a combination of flat geometric figures on a neutral background, the abstract painting acquired even greater definition and univocity than the “realistic” painting: there “the painting was a tie on a gentleman’s starched shirt and a pink corset tightening the swollen belly of an obese lady.” 7 , here it was reduced to a literal pictorial surface, only differentiated in a certain way. Lissitzky brings to Suprematism deconstructive the beginning, the essence of which is problematization the relationship between the signifier and the signified levels of representation, in a kind of “self-criticism” of a work of art.

Returning to the work of Klutsis, we notice that the use of figurative photographic elements serves precisely to enhance the effect of “open meaning”. The artist seems to lure the viewer into a semantic trap, using iconic signs as bait that affirm an anthropomorphic point of view with its inherent polar coordinates. However, these signs are located without taking these coordinates into account, in the absence of a “horizon ring”. The structural role of photographic elements in this work is determined primarily by the principle of radical reversibility, which turns the first photomontage into a model of a utopian order unfolding on the other side of the space of Euclidean geometry. A “dynamic city” has a corresponding - namely dynamic - structure. It appears before us in the process of its design. Photographic fragments also testify to this. The workers depicted in them are busy building a future reality, the order of which is not specified initially - it remains to be determined as the project progresses.

Photography here performs the function of a disorienting index, excluding the naturalistic interpretation of the image and at the same time establishing a connection with the “reality” beyond its boundaries, and its purely quantitative specific weight is minimal. Using formalist terminology, we can say that here it is clearly a “subordinate element” of the structure. However, the very penetration of this kind of foreign element into the system Suprematist painting is significant. From such repaired elements new systems grow, little similar to those from which they developed. In the process of artistic evolution, the subordinate element becomes dominant.

In parallel with the development of photographic equipment and the transition from the use of ready-made images to the independent production of photographic “raw materials,” certain changes are taking place in the practice of photomontage. Initially, the montage method was nothing more than a way to emphasize the materiality of the work (for example, a colorful surface), expelling from it the last hints of illusionism. But in photomontage, the specific materiality, the “texture” of the medium ceases to play a significant role - due to the medial features of photography, as if devoid of its own texture, but capable of conveying the texture of other materials with particular accuracy. If Tatlin in his “counter-reliefs” tried to make the work not just visible, but tangible, as if reducing the distance between a person and a thing, then mechanical technologies for recording reality restore this distance. Montage is no longer the sum of materials that together form, so to speak, the body of reality, but the sum of different points of view on this reality. Photography gives us the magical ability to manipulate things - or rather, their images - from a distance, with the power of one glance. As a result, the importance of the “hand” and manual labor, which was still very significant in the early photo collages of Klutsis, Lissitzky and Rodchenko, decreases: the function of drawing, as W. Benjamin said, passes from the hand to the eye.

The Poetics and Politics of the Snapshot

In the mid-20s, two main directions were formed in the Soviet photo avant-garde - propaganda and factual - the leaders of which were, respectively, Gustav Klutsis and Alexander Rodchenko. For this period, these two figures are as representative as the figures of Malevich and Tatlin for the avant-garde of the second half of the 10s.

AND Klutsis and Rodchenko took their first photographs in 1924, trying to fill the lack of suitable material for photomontages. But if Klutsis continued to consider photography only a raw material subject to subsequent processing, then for Rodchenko it soon acquired an independent meaning. By exchanging painting for photography, Rodchenko is not just mastering a new technology for creating images - he himself is mastering a new role for himself, exchanging the independence of a free artist for the position of a photo reporter working to order. However, this new role remains precisely the choice of a free artist, a kind of aesthetic construct, the result of artistic evolution, which brought to the fore the question: “how to be an artist” in a new, socialist culture.

On the one hand, mastering photography turns out to be the next step towards the rehabilitation of fine art. But, on the other hand, the relationship between “what” and “how”, between “content” (or rather, “material”) and “form” (understood as methods of organizing this material) is supplemented and determined by another term - “why” . Such qualities of the photographic medium as “accuracy, speed and cheapness” (Brick) turn into advantages in the light of the installation of industrial-utilitarian art. This means the introduction of new evaluation criteria that determine the relevance or irrelevance of a particular work, a particular technique in the light of the tasks of the cultural revolution.

Thus, for Rodchenko, the central argument in favor of unexpected shooting angles (“top-down” and “bottom-up”), deviating from the traditional horizontality characteristic of picture optics, is an indication of the ideological baggage that each formal system carries with it. Trying to revive traditional art forms by filling them with new, “revolutionary” content (as members of the associations AHRR and VAPP did), we inevitably relay the ideology of this art, which in the new context takes on a clearly reactionary meaning. A similar strategy underlies the concept of “photo paintings”, proposed by representatives of the “centrist” bloc of Soviet photography, grouped around the magazine “Soviet Photo” and its editor Leonid Mezhericher. For avant-garde artists, “photo painting” is a symptom of artistic restoration, during which the conservative part of the art scene is trying to take revenge and reduce the cultural revolution to “revolutionary themes.” “The revolution in photography,” writes Rodchenko, “is that the photographed fact, thanks to its quality (“how it was filmed”), would act so strongly and unexpectedly with all its photographic specificity that it could not only compete with painting, but also show everyone a new perfect way to reveal the world in science, technology and in the everyday life of modern humanity" 8 .

Avant-garde photography is built on visual paradoxes and displacements, on “misrecognition” of familiar things and places, on violation of the norms of classical representation, built according to the rules of direct perspective. Objective the foundation of all this “deforming” work is formed by the technical capabilities of photography. But at the same time, this identification of the artist with the mechanical eye of the camera takes on the character of expansion, a purposeful and active exploration of new spheres of experience that open up thanks to the photographic medium.

The formal techniques used by “leftist” photographers indicate the primacy of action over contemplation, the transformation of reality over its passive perception. They seem to tell the viewer: the very contemplation of this or that object is an active process, including a preliminary choice of distance, angle, and frame boundaries. None of these parameters are obvious, are not established in advance as something self-evident and follows from the natural order of things, because there is no “natural order” at all. The consumer's view is consistently replaced by the producer's view.

In the photographic practice of production workers, three main formal strategies can be distinguished. In general, their meaning can be reduced to signifying the active position of the observer in relation to the subject of observation, the fundamental possibility of a “different” vision of “life”, which cannot be exhausted by any one, canonical, point of view. To do this, constructivist photographers resort, firstly, to the “foreshortening” technique, when the camera takes an arbitrary position towards the horizon line. The essence of this technique, which goes back to the principle of “radical reversibility” in the early photomontages and prouns of Lissitzky and Klutsis, lies in the displacement of anthropomorphic coordinates that organize the space of representation.

The language of geometric abstraction and photomontage is also reminiscent of another technique, directly related to “foreshortening” and also based on the “decanonization” of perspective space - the technique of “similar figures” 9 . We are talking about multiple duplication or variation of one form, one standard element of a photo statement. But if in photomontage the animation of an element is achieved artificially, through physical intervention in the image, then in direct photography the corresponding effects are found in reality itself, which is thereby “artificialized”, acquiring the features of a recitative text - or a production conveyor. The artificial dominates the natural. The human will is objectified in things.

In the literature of the 20s we also encounter the motif of “similar figures”. It arises when looking at the world from the window of an airplane: “a good point for observing man not as the king of nature, but as one of the animal breeds,” as Tretyakov says in his famous report “Through Unworn Glasses,” describing the experience of such a flight. Sitting on an airplane, the writer looks down and is greeted by the spectacle of a purely “horizontal”, non-hierarchically organized world: “All individual differences are extinguished by height. People exist like a breed of termites, whose specialty is to furrow the soil and build geometrically correct structures - crystals from clay, straw and wood." 10 .

The quoted text was included by Tretyakov as a preface to the book of “collective farm essays”, in the context of which it takes on additional meaning: a production writer rises above the ground and contemplates its surface with traces of human agricultural activity with an abstract, downright “ Suprematist", distance - but only in order to then come into contact with this land in the most direct way, taking part in the activities of the collective farm 11 . The peculiar methodological “dehumanism” that Tretyakov resorts to is partly only a preliminary stage for a new discovery of man. “Similar figures” give way to “close-up” or “fragment”.

This is the third method of photo avant-garde. It is, so to speak, symmetrical to the previous one: if the effect of “similar figures” occurs when moving away, then a “close-up”, on the contrary, occurs when you are as close to the subject as possible. In any case, there is a deviation from a certain “average”, “optimal” distance. “Close-up” is the pole of the individual, opposed to the pole of the general - and at the same time conceptually connected with this general. This connection is indicated by the fragmentation of the close-up, its compositional incompleteness, which provokes the completion of the context.

In contrast to the pure extensiveness of “similar figures,” the “close-up” is extremely intense - it’s like a clot of energy feeding the conveyor mechanism. Faces shot close-up literally radiate with energy - like the face of Sergei Tretyakov in the famous photograph of Rodchenko. However, as a conductor or accumulator of this energy, an individual person simultaneously turns out to be a conductor of the universal. It is extremely difficult, guided by this portrait, to create an idea of ​​“what Sergei Tretyakov looked like in life.” There is a feeling that everything individual and unique disappears from his face. Any random photo carries much more information in this regard. This feature of photography from the 20s and 30s is even more noticeable in comparison with photography from the middle XIX centuries. “In those days,” writes Ernst Jünger, “the light ray encountered in its path a much denser individual character than is possible today.” 12 . By contrast, “Portrait of Sergei Tretyakov” is, in fact, not the face of an individual, but a mask of the type that Junger defined as a Worker.

Work is the universal signified of a wide variety of constructivist experiences: from the theatrical productions of Meyerhold and Eisenstein, designed to teach a person to use his body as a perfect machine (the concepts of “biomechanics” and “psychotechnics”), to the transformable “living cells” of Moses Ginzburg, extending the production process to sphere of life; from photomontage, the very name of which, as Klutsis says, “grew out of industrial culture,” to photography in general, which, according to Jünger, is the most adequate means of representing the “Gestalt” of the Worker. It's about a special way of giving meaning to things. “It is necessary to know,” writes Jünger, “that in the era of the worker, if he bears his name by right ... there can be nothing that is not comprehended as work. The pace of work is the blow of a fist, the beating of thoughts and hearts, work is life day and night, science, love, art, faith, cult, war; work is the vibration of the atom and the force that moves the stars and solar systems" 13 .

The central argument that Rodchenko resorts to in his programmatic article “Against the summarized portrait for a snapshot” comes from the same premises. “Modern science and technology,” writes Rodchenko, “are not looking for truths, but are opening up areas for work in it, changing what has been achieved every day.” 14 . This makes the work of generalizing what has been achieved pointless, because the “accelerated pace of scientific and technological progress” in life itself is ahead of any generalization. Photography acts here as a kind of probing of reality, in no way pretending to “summarize” it.

But at the same time, the apology for the snapshot in Rodchenko’s article is combined with an implicit awareness of its limitations: the alternative to the “summary portrait” can only be the “sum of moments,” open both in time and space. It is not for nothing that the central argument in favor of photography for him is not any single photograph, but a folder of photographs depicting Lenin. Each of these photographs is in itself accidental and incomplete, but together with other photographs it forms a multifaceted and valuable evidence, in comparison with which any pictorial portrait that purports to sum up a particular person looks unreliable. “We must firmly realize that with the advent of photographic documents there can be no question of any single immutable portrait,” writes Rodchenko. “Moreover, a person is not one sum, he is many sums, sometimes completely opposite.” 15 . This is how the idea of ​​a photo series arises, to which Rodchenko returns in the article “Ways of Modern Photography.” “You need to take several different photos of the object from different points and positions, as if examining it, and not peek through one keyhole,” writes Rodchenko 16 . Thus, the editing strategy is transformed into editing a photo series.

About the documentary epic

The principle of the photo series is a symptom of a trend that is gaining strength in avant-garde art of the late 20s and the meaning of which is the search for new artistic forms that have a polyphonic structure and express the global meaning of social transformations. If in the mid-20s avant-garde artists valued photography for its mobility, for its ability to keep up with the pace of life and the pace of work, now it is increasingly beginning to be considered from the point of view of the possibilities of creating a large form. Of course, a “large form” differs from a small one not only in the number of pages or square meters of area. The important thing is that it requires a significant investment of time and resources without providing equivalent “practical” reimbursement for these costs.

The genre of “long-term photographic observation” proposed by Tretyakov is the literal antithesis of the “instant photo”, which in 1928 the same Tretyakov called one of the two main achievements of “LEF” (along with “literature of fact”). But they do not simply contrast “long-term observation” with the snapshot; rather, it integrates the earlier model. At the same time, another genre is crystallizing, corresponding to the tendency towards monumentalization photography is a genre of photo murals. First of all, this trend is reflected in the design of Soviet pavilions at world exhibitions - in particular the pavilion at the Press exhibition in Cologne in 1928, the design of which was led by Lissitzky with the participation of Sergei Senkin, Klutsis’s closest colleague and like-minded person. This pioneering work relates to Lissitzky's past experiments aimed at transforming traditional norms of representation - including the principle of "radical reversibility" of spatial axes. Photographic images occupied not only the walls, but also the ceiling, as well as special stands of complex design. A peculiar disorientation effect arose - as if the viewer found himself inside one of the early prouns.

Two years later, Gustav Klutsis stated in one of his reports: “Photomontage goes beyond the boundaries of printing. In the near future we will see photomontage frescoes of colossal proportions.” 17 . The practical implementation of this program by Klutsis dates back to the same time: “ supergiant", full-length photographic portraits of Lenin and Stalin, installed on Sverdlov Square in Moscow on May 1, 1932. At night, the portraits were illuminated by spotlights, in accordance with the task of using the “powerful technology of electricity” for agitation and propaganda purposes. In his article for Proletarsky Photo, Klutsis outlines the history of the implementation of this project and, in particular, describes its initial plan 18 . Judging by this description, initially Klutsis’s project was fully consistent with the style of his photomontages of the late 20s and early 30s: there is a contrasting juxtaposition of different-scale elements, panoramic pictures of socialist construction sites, and planar graphics (red banners). In a word, this work was fully consistent deconstructive the logic of photomontage and that paradoxical concept of propaganda, “not obscuring, but revealing methods of influence,” which was previously formulated by Boris Arvatov 19 . During the implementation process, the project was significantly simplified. And yet Klutsis calls it a “world achievement” that opens up “grand prospects for monumental photography, which becomes a powerful new weapon of class struggle and construction.” 20 . The design of Sverdlov Square, as it were, completes the story opened by Klutsis’s early poster “Lenin and the electrification of the entire country”: from the use of electricity for utilitarian purposes, we move on to its “deutilization”.

Are we dealing with a complete rebirth? production project under the influence of external or internal factors? Indeed, the symptoms of such a degeneration - or, more precisely, a compromise with the requirements of official culture - are quite obvious, but they appear later, in the mid-30s, when avant-garde artists begin to adjust the style of their works. But this cannot be said about the works of Klutsis, Rodchenko, Ignatovich, dating back to the period of the first five-year plan. They still respond to the principles of semiotic and epistemological criticism, which, according to Bois, distinguishes Lissitzky's early prouns and which is an indicator of avant-garde art as such. Moreover, it seems that it was at this time that the possibilities of the methods developed by the Soviet avant-garde were most fully revealed.

However, the production workers themselves understood perfectly well that left-wing art was entering a new phase of its development. In the article “The New Leo Tolstoy,” published in the magazine “New LEF” in 1927, Sergei Tretyakov proposes a term that accurately conveys the essence of their aspirations. Polemicizing with the ideologists of the VAPP and with the program for the revival of classical literary genres, which, in their opinion, are capable of expressing the scale of revolutionary transformations, Tretyakov declares: “Our epic is a newspaper.” It may seem that this thesis is conditioned by the context of the controversy. But below Tretyakov gives the following explanation, which fills the word “epic” with positive content: “What the Bible was for a medieval Christian - a pointer to all occasions in life, what a teaching novel was for the Russian liberal intelligentsia - that is what it is for a Soviet activist today newspaper. It covers events, their synthesis and directives on all sectors of the social, political, economic, and everyday front.” 21 .

In other words, the concept of epic is used by Tretyakov precisely in the context of the statement production concepts: the epic does not replace factography, but allows one to reveal the deep meaning of facts and thereby make them a more effective weapon of revolutionary struggle and socialist construction. It is a natural result of the desire to bridge the gap between art and life, to transform art into a continuation of reality, and not into an isolated scene of its representation. The new epic, instead of serving as a statement of a closed, complete system, becomes a stimulus for constant change and development. It grows out of utilitarian and official forms and genres - from a newspaper report, from the text of a decree or appeal, from a photograph and newsreel.

Pointing to the newspaper as a truly modern form of the epic, Tretyakov thereby confirms that its basic element is a fragment, reduced into an integrity that has no rigid boundaries and is built on the principle of comparing heterogeneous elements. In other words, the new epic is built using the method of “montage of facts” - in the spirit of photo series by Rodchenko and other constructivist photographers, contrasting a generalized, “summary portrait” of reality with the sum of fragmentary photo frames, or photo montages by Klutsis, in which internal inconsistency becomes a structural principle of constructing the whole.

Past, present and future

The principles of the “documentary epic” were finally formulated in one of Tretyakov’s last books - in the collection of literary portraits “People of the Same Fire”. In the preface to this book, Tretyakov establishes a general, universal quality that “characterizes the art of the first decade after the World War.” This quality, in his opinion, is “the search for great art that has extracted reality and claims to have a nationwide educational influence.” 22 . The concept of a documentary epic is the result of development, at the beginning of which stands Nikolai Punin’s thesis about “monistic, collective, real and effective culture.” The desire to make art part of the collective production process is the main prerequisite for its formation. And at the same time, it forces us to look at the evolution of the avant-garde from a new angle and poses new questions to us. What are the roots of this new concept? What is its connection with the strategic objectives that guided the apologists of “productive-utilitarian art”? Finally, what can the idea of ​​epic art have in common with the principles of the avant-garde?

To answer these questions, one must understand what, in fact, is the specificity of the epic as such and how it differs from the artistic forms developed in subsequent eras. These problems were deeply explored by Mikhail Bakhtin in his texts of the 30s - mainly in the essay “Epic and the Novel”, as well as in the book “Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel”.

For Bakhtin, “epic” forms a conceptual opposition to the “novel”. The essence of the contradiction between them is that the epic is realized in the “absolute past.” This past is separated from the present, i.e. from the becoming, incomplete, historical reality open to the future, an impenetrable border and has an unconditional value priority over it. The epic world is not subject to revaluation and rethinking - it is complete both as a whole and in each of its parts. The novel opens the circle of the ready and the finished and overcomes an epic distance. The novel develops as if in direct and constant contact with the elements of historical development - it expresses the spirit of this emerging historical reality. And in it a person also loses completeness, integrity and certainty. If the epic man is “entirely external” and “absolutely equal to himself,” so that “there is not the slightest discrepancy between his true essence and his external appearance,” then the novelistic man ceases to coincide with himself, with his social role - and this discrepancy becomes source of innovative dynamics 23 . Of course, we are talking about genre norms, but they have a certain historical reality behind them. Human existence is split into various spheres - external and internal, and the “inner world” arises as a result of man’s fundamental incarnation “into the existing socio-historical body.”

The subsequent history of European culture was a history of attempts to overcome this fragmentation of human existence in the world and restore the lost completeness - a kind of detour into the absolute past. But over time, European humanity believed less and less in the successful outcome of such searches - especially since the discord between various spheres of life not only did not weaken, but, on the contrary, worsened. In this sense, the concept of decadence is immanent to the concept of culture: the entire history of the latter is the history of the collapse of genres and forms, a progressive process of differentiation, accompanied by a tragic feeling of the impossibility of the whole.

In European culture of modern and especially modern times, recognition of the insurmountability of this dissonance has turned into evidence of uncompromisingness, honesty and true humanity: today, a happy ending is considered a sign of a conformist and deceitful mass culture, while high art serves as a reminder of man’s inevitable defeat in the fight against fate . Against this background, the will to win, voluntarism and optimism of the avant-garde look rather like an exception. A comparison with optimistic mass culture involuntarily suggests itself - it is not without reason that conservative critics of the avant-garde often address it with the same reproaches as kitsch, exposing the avant-garde artist as a mediocre upstart and a charlatan, whose products lack genuine artistic quality, intellectual depth and were created with the expectation of sensation. However, this optimism differs from the optimism of mass culture in that the realization of the goals of the avant-garde is transferred to the future. The radical confidence of the avant-garde about the future leads to an equally radical criticism of the present.

The avant-garde draws conclusions from the previous history of culture, from its “romanization”, which opened up the prospect of an unfinished future. It is not for nothing that it arises at a time of sharp increase in decadent sentiments in European culture. In response to them, the avant-garde turns its gaze no longer to the mythical or epic past, but to the future, and decides to sacrifice the cultural “complexity” that has accumulated the experience of previous failures. The avant-garde contrasts the historically determined present with an absolute future, which merges with the prehistoric past, which is why the avant-garde so widely uses signs of the archaic, primitive and infantile. At the same time, in the evolution of the avant-garde, a movement can be traced from the denial of modern industrial civilization to its integration (of course, return movements also periodically take place). Achievements of technological progress can and must be turned against their own negative consequences. New technologies, including the machine industry, transport, mechanical reproduction, cinema, are turning from mechanisms of alienation and fragmentation of life into tools for the utopian construction of an unalienated world. At a new stage of its development, having passed the path of liberation, society “returns” to a classless, universal state, and culture again acquires a syncretic character.

However, striving to realize the utopia of a holistic, non-alienated being, the avant-garde at the same time refuses attempts to stage this integrity within the confines of “one, separate” picture. The future is present in the present rather negatively - in the form of gaps and breaks, indicating the incompleteness of the world and the prospect of an absolute future. And this ultimately returns the avant-garde to the context of modern art.

An expression of becoming, unfinished, decentralized, multilingual reality Bakhtin calls the novel. The novel destroys the epic “value-removing distance” - and laughter plays a special role in this process. In the sphere of the comic, Bakhtin writes, “the artistic logic of analysis, dismemberment, and death dominates.” 24 . But doesn't the same logic prevail in the field of avant-garde methods? Isn't editing a symbolic "death" of a thing? And doesn’t avant-garde photography take this logic of decanonization, the dismantling of a stable picture of the world, to the limit?

If we turn to constructivist photography, we will see that for all the pathos that permeates it life affirmation her methods are thoroughly parodic. Here is a short list of them: juxtaposition of the incomparable, creation of “unexpected neighborhoods” and the use of non-canonical perspectives (abolition of the symbolic spatial hierarchy of top and bottom, left and right, whole and part, etc.), fragmentation (symbolic dismemberment of the social body). The inescapable, “deep” traditionalism of the avant-garde is expressed in the denial of specific forms of tradition, while simultaneously integrating (at least through dialectical overcoming) previous moments and episodes of artistic evolution. By formulating the task of building an absolutely integral, harmonious society, the avant-garde at the same time postpones the implementation of this task “for later”, transfers it to the future, which at the same time turns into a source of constant criticism of the present. The negative reaction of government agents to this deeply ambivalent poetics was in its own way absolutely adequate - it was the reaction of “canonizers” who wanted to see in art only the implementation of legal and life-affirming functions.

Deformations

During the period of massive criticism of “formalism,” the critic L. Averbakh spoke about Rodchenko’s “Pioneer”: “... he filmed the pioneer, placing the camera at an angle, and instead of the pioneer he got some kind of monster with one huge arm, crooked and in general with a violation of any symmetry of the body.” 25 . Let us listen to this remark: isn’t this association with pathology, with bodily deformation, appropriate? Such associations often arise in Rodchenko’s photographs - one can recall, for example, the deformed face of “Bugler” or “High Jump” - one of the photographs of a sports series of the 30s: here the body of a diver turns into some kind of strange flying machine, at the same time similar on an insect pupa in a state of metamorphosis.

In the 30s, the theme of bodily transformations became one of the central ones in art (especially for artists of the surrealist circle). According to Boris Groys, interest in this topic is a natural continuation of the avant-garde project: the body set the boundary for experiments aimed at transforming reality. To make the body transformable, plastic, pliable would mean breaking the resistance of nature itself 26 . This remark is fair, but requires clarification. The source of resistance and inertia, from the point of view of avant-garde artists, should not be sought in the nature of things as such. On the contrary, the essence of this nature is infinite creativity, which is similar to the all-generating element of fire, “measuredly flaming and gradually extinguishing,” according to Heraclitus of Ephesus. Things represent an alienated form of the existence of fire: produced by it, they force it to retreat, to fade away. The task of the avant-garde is to rekindle this flame, to renew the process of creation, the necessary condition of which is the destruction or, in any case, the change of what has already been created. Constructivists, with rationalism that marks them out as heirs of the Enlightenment project, tried to realize this task by methods of sober and systematic work to create a new person. But it’s worth changing the angle of view and the feeling of transparent logic and articulation inspired by their works turns into an effect of alarming strangeness, sacrificial self-mutilation in the spirit of surreal aesthetics.

The emergence of the collective body of proletarian society becomes one of the main themes of Soviet avant-garde photography, and the montage technique acts as its image and likeness. The construction of this superbody involves a moment of fragmentation, reduction, violence against the integrity of the photograph and, ultimately, against the bodies captured in this photograph. Constructivist manipulations with photographic images are akin to the procedures underlying all initiation rituals: the acquisition of a new, more perfect, social or supersocial, the body is achievable only after killing, sacrificing the original, individual body. The memory of this killing is recorded on the body in the form of scars, scars and tattoos, indicating the negation of primary corporeality. The negativity constitutive of the “montage of facts” serves as the equivalent of these scars.

It has long been noted that avant-garde art, which resorted to systematic depersonalization and likening of man to a machine, was much more “totalitarian” in spirit than the art of real totalitarianism. Real totalitarianism cannot be as consistent and frank; it tends to mask the work of its mechanisms. Instead of the dismembered and deformed physicality in the art of “high Stalinism” (including the late works of Rodchenko and Klutsis), the image of an organically integral, “symmetrical” body comes to the fore. The desire to integrate the experience of disintegration is replaced by its displacement outside the field of representation and the illusory reconstruction of the “humanistic” ideal.

It is logical to assume that Stalinist culture does not allow the symbolization of negativity and destructiveness due to the overwhelming reality of this experience. This is the source of that “disturbing strangeness” 27 , which is associated with the Stalin era and is retroactively projected onto its signs - works of socialist realism. Meanwhile, Stalinist art is not responsible for this effect, remaining only a symptom that screens real experience. It can become “reflexive” (avant-garde) only as a result of its historical contextualization, - but this reflection is not “internal”, but “external”. On the contrary, in avant-garde works, destruction and deformation are the structural principles of their formal organization. In the situation of Stalinism, these principles acquired a revealing effect.

In some of the most recent works of the Soviet avant-garde, the destructive effect appears as if contrary to their direct meaning and the intention of the author and involuntarily acquires a critical sound. In one of the posters by Victor Denis and Nikolai Dolgorukov, who worked in the manner of Klutsis until the end of the 30s, a huge figure of Stalin appears from behind the horizon, towering over the panorama of Red Square. Since, in general, the space of photomontage is treated quite naturalistically, subject to the laws of perspective, this figure looks like an alien anomaly. It seems that a little more and she will crush the people and equipment in the foreground.

Avant-garde and kitsch

In essence, the “documentary epic” was the only true “socialist realism” - this dogmatic definition takes on a completely non-dogmatic meaning if projected onto the posters of Gustav Klutsis and Sergei Senkin, onto the photo reports of Alexander Rodchenko, Boris Ignatovich and Elizar Lagman, which combined “ sober work" with "grand prospects", without trying to obscure the contradiction between them. In comparison with these works, the art of “socialist realism” in the usual, historical meaning of the word seems historically uncompetitive, and its victory “in life” seems like an accidental curiosity. In reality, this “curiosity” is natural.

Many of the researchers of socialist realism spoke about the impossibility of describing this phenomenon in the categories of aesthetics of modern and contemporary times. Instead, they pointed to the deep archaism of the forms of Stalinist culture, and also drew an analogy between Stalinist art and modern mass culture. Both analogies are essentially based on one feature of socialist realist art - namely, its “formularity,” “canonicity,” and tendency to “petrify reality,” which Tretyakov objected to. However, the second of them, in our opinion, is more accurate - if only because the nutritious soil for socialist realism, as well as for mass culture, is the aesthetic forms created by the European culture of modern times. In addition, both Stalinist realism and Western mass culture are not absolutely isolated and self-contained: they come into contact with high, avant-garde, “non-genre” culture and integrate its techniques.

Thus, we return to the classic ( Greenbergian) definition of socialist realism as kitsch. Greenberg believed that the main difference between kitsch and avant-garde is that the first offers us a ready-to-use product, while the second is only a reason for reflection. Indeed, in socialist realism the idea of ​​completeness and integrity plays a central role. But the difference between kitsch and the avant-garde can be described in a slightly different way, namely by pointing to the function that the institution of the museum or, in a broader sense, the system of cultural memory embodied in specific examples performs in them.

In the context of modernist culture, a museum is essentially a collection of taboo samples: it imposes a ban on repeating the old, showing what has already been done and what can no longer be done, what can only be remade. This prohibition not only does not deny the positive assessment of the corresponding work - but, on the contrary, confirms it. In official Soviet culture, the specific negative aspect of the modern museum is weakened: ideally, a museum, especially a museum of modern art, is a collection of positive role models. The selection is made not on the principle of originality, that is, deviation from the historical canon, but, on the contrary, on the principle of compliance with it.

Socialist realism, positioning itself as the result of the entire world culture, tries to carry out a synthesis of all its achievements. “Classics are not born from classics,” Russian formalists insisted in vain at the end of the 20s, trying to show that artistic evolution is carried out by falling away from the canon. The history of art, from their point of view, is the history of heresies in the absence of permanent orthodoxy. Stalinist culture, on the contrary, traces its origins exclusively to the classics. However, she also does not accept consistent neoclassicism, because it also, in its own way, evades synthesis. This requirement was early understood by writers and artists from the RAPP and AHKhR associations, who began to work on an order for the “Soviet Tolstoy” and combine the epic with the novel, and the psychological portrait with the icon. This is not about combining quotations that retain connections with the original context and therefore give the new text a complex, internally contradictory character, but about an attempt to achieve some kind of “golden mean”. After all, a quotation is a product of dismemberment and, therefore, death of a sample, its corpse. And any sharply original, too noticeable technique threatens the integrity and continuity of the tradition, indicating a division within it, partiality and incompleteness. The ideal of Stalinist culture is a work that is entirely “life-affirming” and declaring the fullness of being. If the avant-garde fights tradition, Stalinist art neutralizes it. To do this, it forms a strictly ordered canon of historical memory, in which “positive” and “negative”, “positive” and “negative” are clearly separated.

However, this canon represents a certain sum and therefore, despite attempts to homogenize it, remains too diverse in its composition. In addition, it is influenced by external factors: for example, changes in the official policy may lead to its revision. Instances of such revision are particularly significant: they highlight the predominantly affirmative meaning attached to cultural memories in this culture. The practice of removing certain documents of the past from the archives, typical of Stalinist culture, in connection with changes in the political situation, shows that this culture thinks of the archive exclusively in a positive register. If possible, negative memories are simply “forgotten”, that is, they are excluded, erased from the archive (as portraits of “enemies of the people” were erased from Soviet textbooks), since this culture does not draw a clear boundary between the past and the present. In a sense, its ideal is no longer the absolute epic or mythical past, as in traditional cultures, and not the absolute future, as in avant-garde culture, but the absolute present. In this absolute present, negativity is projected outward - into the historical, pre-revolutionary past or into the modern, “relative” present of capitalist society.

A typical example: in the 30s, when the language of avant-garde photomontage was rejected or at least brought into line with traditional picture conventions, there remained an area where this method continued to exist for a long time in its classical form. It is formed by scenes from the life of the bourgeois, Western world - the world of exploitation, unemployment, class struggle, etc. Negativity, which, as we have already seen, is the defining principle of constructing photomontage, seems impossible in the representation of a positive “Soviet reality,” but is quite appropriate in relation to capitalist reality.

It makes no sense to argue about whether socialist realism is a “continuation” and development of the constructivist project “by other means,” or whether it was based on its negation. The point is that in the case of art, the “means” are not something indifferent or secondary. Both constructivism, Ahrrovsky, and later socialist realism have in mind the same content. A more fundamentally formal difference: and here the notorious “how” of representation comes into play. The manufacturing movement, despite the fact that it proclaimed the renunciation of autonomy and renounced the principles of modernist art, remained essentially a purely modernist phenomenon. And modernism is focused on the study of the language of art and recalls the gap between the order of things and the order of signs (even in its desire to eliminate this gap). The principle of extremes prevails here, and not the “golden mean”, the principle of decanonization, which asserts “freedom to identify material” 28 . It was these principles that turned out to be unacceptable to the authorities. She unmistakably recognized the “critical form” that constitutes the space of autonomy of art with the help of complex mechanisms that cannot be unambiguously defined and externally regulated - and hastened to eliminate them.

El Lissitsky at work on the layout of the design of the play “I Want a Child” based on the play by Sergei Tretyakov at the State Theater named after Vs. Meyerhold. 1928. Silver gelatin print.

The exhibitions present a total of more than 400 works, including almost never before seen in Moscow paintings from foreign museums, a huge corpus of graphics, books, photographs and photomontages - this is the first exhibition of Lissitzky, allowing us to appreciate the full scale of the artist-inventor of the avant-garde era, whose last work was the famous poster “Everything for the front!” created at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Everything for victory! The curator of the exhibition, Tatyana Goryacheva, and the editor of the exhibition catalog, Ekaterina Allenova, outlined the key terms of the art of Lissitzky, who himself loved to structure the books he designed as modern organizers.

Lazar Markovich (Mordukhovich) Lisitsky was born on November 10 (22), 1890 in the village at the Pochinok railway station, Elninsky district, Smolensk province (now Smolensk region) in the family of a merchant and a housewife. Soon the family moved to Vitebsk, where Lazar Lissitzky studied drawing and painting with Yuri (Yehuda) Pan, Marc Chagall's teacher. After he was not accepted into the Higher Art School at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg (according to the official version, he completed the drawing of the “Discobolus” without observing academic canons), he went to Germany to study at the Faculty of Architecture of the Polytechnic Institute in Darmstadt, where in 1914 defended his diploma with honors, and then returned to Russia and entered the Riga Polytechnic Institute, which was evacuated to Moscow during the First World War, to confirm his German diploma in architecture (in 1918 he defended the institute’s diploma with a degree in “architect-engineer”).

Project of a skyscraper on the square at the Nikitsky Gate. 1924–1925. Paper, photomontage, watercolor.

Lissitzky “officially” took the pseudonym El, formed as an abbreviation of his name, which sounds like Eliezer in Yiddish, in 1922. However, he began signing as El several years earlier. Thus, the dedication to his beloved Polina Khentova on the title of the book “Had Gadya” (“Little Goat”), which he designed in 1919, is signed with two Hebrew letters - “E” or “E” (in the Hebrew alphabet this is the same letter) and “L” " But the famous poster “Beat the Whites with a Red Wedge,” created a year later during the Civil War, still has the initials “LL” in the signature.

Hit the whites with a red wedge. Poster. 1920. Paper, lithograph.
Russian State Library

#Jewish_renaissance

Lissitzky's earliest works - architectural landscapes of Vitebsk, Smolensk and Italy - are associated with his studies at the architectural department of the Polytechnic Institute in Darmstadt: the ability to make sketches of this kind was part of the basic architectural knowledge.

Memories of Ravenna. 1914. Paper, engraving.
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands

But after returning to Russia, Lissitzky became involved in the problems of national culture - born and raised in a Jewish environment, he maintained contact with it throughout his youth. Becoming a member of the Circle of Jewish National Aesthetics and then collaborating with the artistic section of the Culture League, he became one of the most active participants in Jewish artistic life. The goal of this activity was the search for a national style that preserves traditions, but at the same time responds to the aesthetic needs of our time. The study and preservation of Jewish cultural heritage was also important.

Ancient synagogues, medieval Jewish cemeteries, ancient illustrated manuscripts attracted Lissitzky’s attention during his years of study in Germany. There is evidence of his interest in the 13th-century synagogue at Worms. In Belarus, his interest was aroused by an outstanding monument of national art - the painting of the synagogue in Mogilev. Lissitzky wrote about them: “It was truly something special... like a crib with an elegantly embroidered bedspread, butterflies and birds, in which the infant suddenly wakes up surrounded by splashes of the sun; That’s how we felt inside the synagogue.” In subsequent years, the synagogue was destroyed, and the only evidence of its picturesque splendor remained copies of fragments of paintings made by Lissitzky.

A copy of the painting of the Mogilev synagogue. 1916.
Reproduction: Milgroym-Rimon, 1923, No. 3

But the main field of activity of the new generation of Jewish artists was art in its secular forms. The artists chose the design of books, in particular children's books, as the main direction of their creativity - this area guaranteed a mass audience. After the abolition of the rules limiting the publication of Yiddish books in Russia in 1915, masters of book graphics were faced with the task of creating books that could compete with the best Russian publications.

State Tretyakov Gallery

Illustration for the book “Had Gadya” (“Little Goat”). Kyiv, 1919.
State Tretyakov Gallery

Illustration for the book “Had Gadya” (“Little Goat”). Kyiv, 1919.
State Tretyakov Gallery

In 1916–1919, Lissitzky created about thirty works in the field of Jewish book graphics. These include nine illustrated books (in particular, the exquisitely designed scroll book “Sihat Hulin” (“The Prague Legend”)), individual drawings, covers of collections, sheet music and exhibition catalogues, publishing stamps, posters.

#"Prague_legend"

Sihat Hulin (The Prague Legend) by Moishe Broderzon was published in 1917 in an edition of 110 numbered lithographed copies; 20 of them are made in the form of scrolls, hand-painted and placed in wooden arks (in the remaining copies only the title page is painted). In this design, Lissitzky used the tradition of Torah scrolls wrapped in precious fabrics. The text was written by a professional scribe (soifer); The cover of the scroll book depicts the figures of its three authors - a poet, an artist and a scribe.

Cover of Moishe Broderzon's book Sihat Hulin (The Prague Legend). Paper on linen, lithograph, color ink
State Tretyakov Gallery

“The Prague Legend” became the first publication of the Circle of Jewish National Aesthetics in Moscow in 1917. His program stated: “The work of the Circle of Jewish National Aesthetics... is not general, but intimate, because the first steps are always very selective and subjective. That is why the Circle publishes its publications in a small number of numbered copies, published with all the care and variety of techniques provided by modern printing art at the disposal of book lovers.”

Design of Broderson's book "Sihat Hulin" ("Prague Legend"). Scroll (paper on linen, lithograph, colored ink), wooden ark.
State Tretyakov Gallery

The plot of the poem is borrowed from Yiddish folklore. “The Prague Legend” tells the story of Rabbi Yoin, who, in search of income to feed his family, ends up in the palace of the Princess, the daughter of the demon Asmodeus. He has to marry her, but he is homesick, and the Princess lets him go for a year. The Rebbe again begins the usual life of a pious Jew. A year later, realizing that Yoina is not going to return, the Princess finds him and asks him to return to her, but the rebbe does not want to betray his faith anymore. The princess kisses him goodbye for the last time, and the rebbe dies from the enchanted kiss.

#Figures

In 1920–1921, Lissitzky developed a project for staging the opera “Victory over the Sun” as a performance, where instead of actors, “figures” were supposed to act - huge puppets driven by an electromechanical installation. In 1920–1921, Lissitzky created the first version of the design of the opera; his folder of sketches, made in a unique graphic technique, was called “Figures from A. Kruchenykh’s opera “Victory over the Sun.” Further, in 1923, a series of color lithographs was produced, called Figurinen (“Figurines”) in German.

The opera was first staged in 1913 in St. Petersburg and marked the birth of futurist theater in Russia. The libretto was written by the futurist poet Alexei Kruchenykh, the music was written by Mikhail Matyushin, and the scenery and costumes were performed by Kazimir Malevich. The libretto and scenography were based on the utopia of building a new world. Lissitzky's scenographic interpretation enhanced the initially futuristic nature of the dramaturgy, turning the performance into a real theater of the future. The electromechanical installation, as conceived by the author, was placed in the center of the stage - thus, the very process of controlling the puppets, as well as sound and light effects, became part of the scenography.

Undertakers. Figures from the project for the production of the opera “Victory over the Sun”. 1920–1921. Paper, graphite and black pencils, drawing instruments, gouache, ink, varnish, silver paint.
State Tretyakov Gallery

A traveler through all centuries. Figurine from the project for the production of the opera “Victory over the Sun”. 1920–1921. Paper, graphite and black pencils, drawing instruments, gouache, ink, varnish, silver paint.
State Tretyakov Gallery

New. Figurine from the project for the production of the opera “Victory over the Sun”. 1920–1921. Paper, graphite and black pencils, drawing instruments, gouache, ink, varnish, silver paint.
State Tretyakov Gallery

Lissitzky's production was never realized. The only evidence of this grandiose innovative project were sketchbooks made in the form of folders with individual sheets inserted into them (the folder of 1920–1921 was made in the original technique; the folder published in 1923 in Hanover consists of color lithographs, absolutely identical to the original version) . In the preface to a 1923 album of lithographs, Lissitzky wrote: “The text of the opera forced me to preserve something of human anatomy in my figures. Paints in separate parts<...>used as equivalent materials. That is: when acting, parts of the figures should not necessarily be red, yellow or black, it is much more important if they are made of a given material, such as shiny copper, wrought iron, etc.”

#Prouns

Proun (“Project for the approval of the new”) is a neologism that El Lissitzky came up with to designate the artistic system he invented, which combined the idea of ​​a geometric plane with the constructive construction of a three-dimensional form. The plastic idea of ​​Proun was born at the end of 1919; Lissitzky coined the term, formed on the same principle as the name of the group Unovis (“Approvers of the New Art”), in the fall of 1920. According to his autobiography, the first Proun was created in 1919; according to the artist’s son Ian Lissitzky, it was a “House above the ground.” “I called them “proun,” wrote El Lissitzky, “so that they wouldn’t look for pictures in them. I considered these works to be a transfer station from painting to architecture. Each work presented a problem of technical statics or dynamics, expressed through the means of painting.”

Proun 1 S. House above ground. 1919. Paper, graphite pencil, ink, gouache.
State Tretyakov Gallery

Combining geometric planes with images of three-dimensional objects, Lissitzky built ideal dynamic structures, floating in space, having neither top nor bottom. The artist especially emphasized this feature: “The only axis of the picture perpendicular to the horizon turned out to be destroyed. By rotating the proun, we screw ourselves into space.” The prouns used motifs of technical design and techniques of descriptive geometry, combining perspective constructions with different vanishing points. The coloring of the Prouns was restrained; color denoted the mass, density and texture of various supposed materials - glass, metal, concrete, wood. Lissitzky transformed plane into volume and back again, “dissolved” planes in space, created the illusion of transparency - volumetric and flat figures seemed to penetrate each other.

Proun 1 D. 1920–1921. Paper, lithography.
State Tretyakov Gallery

Proun motifs were often repeated and varied in different techniques - easel graphics, painting and lithography. These constructions seemed to Lissitzky not only as abstract plastic and spatial constructions, but also as concrete new forms of the future: “And through prouns we will come to the construction above this universal foundation of a single world city of life for the people of the globe.<…>Proun begins his installations on the surface, moves on to spatial model structures and moves on to the construction of all forms of life,” he stated.

Study of Proun. 1922. Paper pasted on cardboard, graphite pencil, charcoal, watercolor, collage.
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Lissitzky claimed that his prouns were universal - and indeed, the innovative designs he invented, their individual details and general compositional techniques were used by him as the basis for plastic solutions in printing, exhibition design and architectural projects.

#Exhibition_design

El Lissitzky essentially invented exhibition design as a new type of artistic activity. His first experiment in this field was the "Space of Prouns" (Prounenraum). The name carried a double meaning: plastic techniques for constructing space in prouns were used to place them in the showroom.

In July 1923, at the Great Berlin Exhibition, Lissitzky received a small room at his disposal, where he mounted an installation in which there were not picturesque prouns, but enlarged copies of them made of plywood. They were not just located along the walls (the ceiling was also involved), but organized the space of the room, setting the viewer the direction and pace of inspection.

Proun space. Fragment of the exposition of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. 1923. Paper, offset printing.
State Tretyakov Gallery

In an explanatory article, Lissitzky wrote: “I showed here the axes of my formation of space. I want to give here the principles that I consider necessary for the fundamental organization of space. In this already given space, I try to show these principles clearly, taking into account the fact that we are talking about an exhibition space, and for me, therefore, a demonstration space.<…>The balance I want to achieve must be fluid and elementary, such that it cannot be disturbed by a telephone or a piece of office furniture.” The remark regarding the possibility of a telephone and furniture existing in this interior emphasized the functionality of the project and its claim to the universality of the method.

Interior of the Constructive Art Hall at the International Art Exhibition, Dresden. 1926. Silver gelatin print.
Russian State Archive of Literature and Art

At the international art exhibition in Dresden in 1926, Lissitzky, as an artist-engineer, created the “Hall of Constructive Art”: “I placed thin slats vertically, perpendicular to the walls, painted them on the left white, on the right black, and the wall itself gray.<…>I interrupted the system of receding slats with caissons placed in the corners of the room. They are half covered with mesh surfaces - a mesh made of stamped sheet iron. There are paintings above and below. When one is visible, the other flickers through the mesh. With every movement of the viewer in space, the effect of the walls changes, what was white becomes black, and vice versa.”

Abstraction office. Fragment of the exhibition at the Provincial Museum, Hannover. 1927. Silver gelatin print.
State Tretyakov Gallery

He further developed the same ideas in the “Cabinet of Abstraction” (Das Abstrakte Kabinett), commissioned by the director of the Provincial Museum in Hannover, Alexander Dorner, to exhibit contemporary art. There, the interior was supplemented with mirrors and horizontally rotating display cases for graphic works. Sending a photograph of the “Cabinet of Abstraction” to his colleague Ilya Chashnik, Lisitsky wrote: ““I am attaching a photograph here, but what’s going on there needs to be explained, because this thing lives and moves, but on paper you can see only peace.”

Visitors to the USSR pavilion at the International Press Exhibition, Cologne. 1928. Silver gelatin print.
State Tretyakov Gallery

“Red Star” (spatial diagram “Soviet Constitution” by El Lissitzky and Georgy Krutikov) in the USSR pavilion at the International Press Exhibition, Cologne. 1928. Silver gelatin print.
State Tretyakov Gallery

Moving installation “Red Army” by Alexander Naumov and Leonid Teplitsky for the USSR pavilion at the International Press Exhibition, Cologne. 1928. Silver gelatin print.
Russian State Archive of Literature and Art

“The tasks of the press are to educate the masses.” Photo-freeze of El Lissitzky and Sergei Senkin in the USSR pavilion at the International Press Exhibition, Cologne. 1928. Silver gelatin print.
Russian State Archive of Literature and Art

In the USSR pavilion at the International Press Exhibition in Cologne (1928), the main exhibit was the design itself: the spatial diagram of the “Soviet Constitution” in the form of a luminous red star, moving installations and transmissions, including the “Red Army” by Alexander Naumov and Leonid Teplitsky, as well as a grand photo frieze. “The international press recognizes the design of the Soviet pavilion as a major success of Soviet culture. For this work he was noted in the order of the Council of People's Commissars<…>. For our pavilion in Cologne, I am making a photomontage frieze measuring 24 meters by 3.5 meters, which is a model for all extra-large installations, which have become a mandatory part of subsequent exhibitions,” Lissitzky recalled in his autobiography, written shortly before his death.

#Photo experiments

In the 1920s and 1930s, experimental photography gained popularity among avant-garde artists - it not only became an independent art form, but also had a significant influence on graphic design and printing. Lissitzky used all the technical and artistic possibilities of contemporary photography - photo collage, photomontage and photogram. His favorite technique was projection photomontage - a combined print from two negatives (this is how his famous 1924 self-portrait “Constructor” was created). Another method - photo collage - was based on combining cut out fragments of photographs into a composition. A photogram was created by exposing objects directly onto light-sensitive paper.

Man with a wrench. Circa 1928. Paper, photogram, chemical toning.
Russian State Archive of Literature and Art

Lissitzky called this technology “photo-painting” and considered it one of his most significant artistic experiments; about his work in this area, he wrote: “Work on the introduction of photography as a plastic element in the construction of a new work of art.” Lissitzky used the visual and technical resources of photography he mastered in exhibition design - in photo friezes and photo frescoes for the design of exhibition spaces, and in printing.

#Typography_photobook

Among all the books designed, constructed, and mounted by him, Lissitzky invariably singled out two: “The Suprematist Tale of Two Squares,” composed by himself (Berlin, 1922), and “For the Voice” by Mayakovsky (Moscow - Berlin, 1923).

A Suprematist tale about two squares in 6 buildings. Berlin, 1922. Here are two squares. Building No. 1 1 / 6

They fly to the ground from afar. Building No. 2

Seeing black is alarming. Building No. 3

Impact, everything is scattered. Building No. 4

The black became clear and red. Building No. 5

It's over here. Building No. 6

Lissitzky formulated everything that formed the basis for their creation with constructivist laconicism in the article “Topography of Typography,” published in the magazine Merz published by Kurt Schwitters (1923, No. 4):

"1. The words of a printed sheet are perceived by the eyes, not by hearing.

2. Concepts are expressed through traditional words; concepts should be formalized using letters.

3. Economy of expressive means: optics instead of phonetics.

4. The design of the book space using typesetting material according to the laws of typographic mechanics must correspond to the forces of compression and tension of the text.

5. The design of the book’s space through clichés should embody new optics. Supernaturalistic reality of sophisticated vision.

6. A continuous series of pages - a bioscopic book.

7. A new book requires a new writer. The inkwell and quill pen are dead.

8. The printed sheet overcomes space and time. The printed page, the infinity of the book, itself must be overcome. Electrolibrary".

Mayakovsky. For the voice. Moscow - Berlin, 1923. Book spread.
State Tretyakov Gallery 1 / 3

In 1932, Lissitzky became the executive editor of the magazine “USSR in Construction”. This monthly was published in four languages ​​and was aimed primarily at a foreign audience. His main propaganda weapon was photography and photomontage. The magazine was published from 1930 to 1941, that is, Lissitzky headed it as an artist virtually throughout its existence. At the same time, he made propaganda photo books - “The USSR is building socialism”, “Industry of Socialism” (1935), “Food Industry” (1936) and others. It is usually said that the avant-garde artist and innovator became one of the artists serving the Soviet regime in the 1930s. And it is forgotten that the photobook itself was an innovation for that time (experiencing a digital renaissance today).

Food industry. Moscow, 1936. Book spread. Design: El and Es Lissitzky.
Collection of LS, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands

A word from Lissitzky himself: “The largest artists are engaged in montage, that is, they compose entire pages from photographs and captions that are cliched for printing. This is molded into a form of unambiguous impact that seems very easy to use, and therefore in some sense provokes vulgarity, but in strong hands will become the most rewarding method and means of visual poetry.<…>The invention of easel painting created the greatest masterpieces, but the effectiveness was lost. The winners were cinema and the illustrated weekly. We rejoice at the new tools that technology gives us. We know that with a close connection with social reality, with the constant sharpening of our optic nerve, with a record speed of development of society, with invariably seething ingenuity, with the mastery of plastic material, the structure of the plane and its space, we will ultimately impart new effectiveness to the book as a work of art.<…>Despite the crises that book production, along with other types of production, undergoes, the book glacier is growing every year. The book will become the most monumental masterpiece, it will not only be cherished by the tender hands of a few bibliophiles, but also grasped by the hands of hundreds of thousands of poor people. In our transitional period, the same explains the predominance of the illustrated weekly. A mass of children's books with pictures will join our mass of illustrated weeklies. Our kids are already learning a new plastic language when reading, they are growing up with a different attitude to the world and to space, to image and color, they, of course, will also create a different book. However, we will be satisfied if our book expresses the lyricism and epic that are characteristic of our days” (“Our Book,” 1926. Translation from German by S. Vasnetsova).

#Constructor

In 1924, Lissitzky made a famous self-portrait, the impetus for the creation of which, according to Nikolai Khardzhiev, was Michelangelo’s quote from Giorgio Vasari: “The compass should be in the eye, and not in the hand, for the hand works, but the eye judges.” According to Vasari, Michelangelo “adhered to the same thing in architecture.”

Constructor. Self-portrait. 1924. Photomontage. Cardboard, paper, gelatin silver print.
State Tretyakov Gallery

Lissitzky considered the compass an essential tool for the modern artist. The motif of the compass as an attribute of the modern artistic thinking of the creator-designer repeatedly appeared in his works, serving as a metaphor for impeccable precision. In his theoretical writings, he proclaimed a new type of artist “with a brush, hammer and compass in his hands,” creating the “City of the Commune.”

Architecture VKHUTEMAS. Moscow, 1927. Book cover. Photomontage: El Lissitzky.
Collection of Mikhail Karasik, St. Petersburg

In the article “Suprematism of Peacebuilding” Lissitzky wrote:

“We, who have gone beyond the picture, have taken into our hands the plumb line of economy, the ruler and the compass, because the splattered brush does not correspond to our clarity, and if we need it, we will take the machine into our hands, because to reveal creativity, both the brush and the ruler , and the compass, and the machine are just the last joint of my finger, drawing the path.”

#Inventor

A rough note from the early 1930s preserves Lissitzky's sketch of an unrealized exhibition or automonograph. The project, entitled “Artist-Inventor El,” consisted of seven sections, reflecting all types of art in which Lissitzky worked: “Painting - Proun (as a transfer station to architecture)”, “Photography - new art”, “Printing - typographical montage, photomontage ", "Exhibitions", "Theater", "Interior architecture and furniture", "Architecture". The accents placed by Lissitzky indicate that his activity was presented as a Gesamtkunstwerk - a total work of art, a synthesis of different types of creativity, forming a single aesthetic environment based on a new artistic language.

Elizaveta Svilova-Vertova. El Lissitzky at work on the poster “Everything for the front! Everything for victory! Let's have more tanks." 1941.
Sprengel Museum, Hannover

Lissitzky did not identify any main area in his activity: the key concepts for him were experiment and invention. The Dutch architect Mart Stam wrote about him: “Lissitzky was a true enthusiast, full of ideas, interested in everything that would lead to the creation of a creatively transformed environment for future generations.”

What kind of person was he

Compared to the noble provocateurs of the Russian avant-garde, El Lissitzky seems to be a modest man: he did not paint his face or attach a spoon to his suit, was not afraid that his Suprematism would be stolen, did not drive other artists out of his house - and did not make fun of them. He worked phenomenally hard, taught at the same time throughout his life and was friends not only with Russian artists, but also with famous foreigners: in 1921 he was appointed cultural emissary of Soviet Russia to Germany and in fact became a liaison between great artists of both countries.

Designer (self-portrait), 1924. From the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery

For Lissitzky, his Jewish origin was of great importance - and the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center knew from the very beginning that it was about Lissitzky that they would prepare their first large exhibition project about a Jewish artist for the anniversary. Lissitzky was born in a small Jewish town near Smolensk, studied with Y.M. Pan, like Chagall before him, traveled a lot around the country, visiting ancient synagogues - and illustrated works of Jewish authors, combining “world of art” techniques with graphics of traditional scrolls, Jewish lubok , antique miniatures and calligraphy. After the revolution, he became one of the founders of the Kultur League, an avant-garde association of artists and writers who wanted to create a new Jewish national art. He will collaborate with the Kultur League for many years, which will not be hindered by his passion for Suprematism, and then the invention of his own style: even in his famous prouns he will include letters in Yiddish.

Tatiana Goryacheva

Art critic, specialist in Russian avant-garde, exhibition curator

There was not a single bad review about Lissitzky: he was a wonderful and kind person, with an incendiary character, he could light up everyone around him. Even if he was not such a charismatic leader as Malevich, who always gathered a group of students around him. He was a perfectionist, he brought everything to perfection - and in those of his later works, where, like any master in the Stalin era, he was overtaken by the problem of the entropy of creativity. Even in the montages and collages with Stalin and Lenin: if we ignore the character, then from the point of view of photomontage they were done flawlessly.

Flying ship, 1922

© Israel Museum

© Israel Museum

Glove, 1922

© Israel Museum

Chiefs card, 1922

© Israel Museum

Garden of Eden, 1916. Replica of a decorative motif for a Torah crown or tombstone

© Israel Museum

A lion. Zodiac sign, 1916. Copy of the ceiling painting of the Mogilev synagogue

© Israel Museum

Triton and the Bird, 1916. Based on the painting of the synagogue in Druya

© Israel Museum

Sagittarius. Zodiac sign, 1916. Copy of the ceiling painting of the Mogilev synagogue

© Israel Museum

Great Synagogue in Vitebsk, 1917

© Israel Museum

Maria Nasimova

Chief Curator of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center

Lissitsky was a very pleasant and kind person; he was not involved in any scandals. He was practically a monogamist: he had all two great loves, and they both had a fantastic influence on his work. In the Russian avant-garde, eccentric behavior was considered the norm among artists, but he did not waste his energy on this at all. Lissitzky studied with Chagall and Malevich - and was a good student, and then worked hard to create an environment around himself. We were not able to show his inner circle at the exhibition, but we will definitely talk about him in other projects: in Lissitzky’s notebooks, among the telephone numbers of Mayakovsky and Malevich, one could find the numbers of Mies van der Rohe and Gropius. He was truly an international artist and was friends with big and great names.

How to understand Lissitzky's works

Lissitzky traveled extensively throughout Europe, studied in Germany to become an architect, and then continued his education at the Polytechnic Institute evacuated from Riga. The foundation of his work is precisely architecture and Jewish roots, attention to which he developed throughout his life, exploring the ornaments and decoration of ancient synagogues. In his early works they are reflected along with the traditional popular print. Then - successively - Lissitzky was strongly influenced by the mystical works of Chagall and the Suprematism of Malevich. Soon after becoming interested in Suprematism, he, according to his own statement, “became pregnant with architecture” - during his short period of life in Germany in the 1920s, he met Kurt Schwitters and became interested in constructivism and created his famous “horizontal skyscraper”, as well as many other architectural works, which, unfortunately, remained on paper: he comes up with a textile mill, a commune house, a yacht club, a complex of the Pravda publishing house, but remains, by and large, a paper architect: his only building was the Ogonyok printing house built in 1- m Samotechny Lane.

Tatiana Goryacheva

“Lissitzky was interested in Suprematism for a very short time - then he began to work on the basis of constructivism and Suprematism, synthesizing them into his own style: he created his own system of prouns - projects for the approval of the new. He came up with these works as a universal system for building the world, from which one could get anything - a composition of architecture and a book cover in which these motifs could be discerned. In the Tretyakov Gallery we are showing architecture in which the design of the prouns is also discernible, and in the Jewish Museum there will be many of his photographic works, montages and photograms. His exhibition designs remain in some sketches and photographs and represent an important part of his work.”

New approval projects

Skyscraper on the square at the Nikitsky Gate. General view from above. Proun on the topic of the project

Proun 43, around 1922

© State Tretyakov Gallery

Proun 43, around 1922

© State Tretyakov Gallery

Proun 23, 1919. Sketch, variant

© State Tretyakov Gallery

Proun 1E (City), 1919–1920

© Azerbaijan National Museum of Art named after. R. Mustafaeva

It was the prouns - invented within a few weeks on the basis of Malevich's Suprematism and the plastic principles of constructivism - that brought Lissitzky world recognition. They combined the techniques of architectural thinking and geometric abstraction; he himself called them “a transfer station from painting to architecture.” The ambitious title of the “Project for the Approval of the New” served, among other things, to separate Lissitzky’s work from the mystical, objectless world of Malevich (Malevich himself was very disappointed that his best student nullified Suprematism in the theory and practice of his experiments). Lissitzky, unlike Malevich, solved completely different spatial problems - and described them as a “prototype of the architecture of the world” and in this sense understood by them much more than just volumetric Suprematism - but the utopian and ideal relationship of space in the world: these ideas he would later develop implement both your architecture and design.

“Lissitzky worked within the trend of geometric abstraction of the early 20th century, and the main works of our large exhibition are his prouns and figurines, incredibly beautiful works and, perhaps, the most significant thing that Lissitzky did in his life. It is difficult to single out his main works: he worked so much and fruitfully in various directions. But it seems to me that the picturesque prouns should be especially interesting - the viewer has never seen them in Russia. I really like his figures: he came up with them for an electromechanical production, where instead of actors the puppets had to move, which were activated by the director in the center of the stage - which, unfortunately, never came to fruition.”

Print design

© Sepherot Foundation

Design of the collection of poems by V.V. Mayakovsky “For the Voice”, 1923

© Sepherot Foundation

Lissitzky was engaged in books all his life - from 1917 to 1940. In 1923, in the magazine Merz, he published a manifesto, where he asserted the principles of a new book, the words of which are perceived with the eyes and not by ear, means of expression are saved, and attention moves from words to letters. This is the principle in which his famous and reference edition of Mayakovsky’s collection “For the Voice” was designed: on the right side of the pages, the names of poems were cut out, like letters in a telephone book, so that the reader could easily find what he needed. As such, Lissitzky’s printing work is usually divided into three stages: the first is associated with the illustration of books in Yiddish and publications of the Cultural League and the Jewish Branch of the People’s Commissariat for Education, then a separate stage is devoted to constructivist publications of the 1920s and, finally, his most innovative photo books of the 1930s, which arose at a time when Lissitzky was fascinated by photomontage.

Photograms, photomontage and photo collages

Photomontage for the magazine “USSR at Construction” No. 9–12, 1937

© Sepherot Foundation

Moving installation "Red Army" at the international exhibition "Press", Cologne, 1928

© Russian State Archive of Literature and Art

Many avant-garde artists were fond of photo collage in the 1920s and 1930s. For Lissitzky, this was at first a new artistic means of book design, but then the possibilities of photography for the artist expanded, and in 1928, Lissitsky, at his famous exhibition “Press,” used photography as a new artistic means in exhibition design - with photo panels and active photomontage. It should be noted that Lissitzky’s experiments with editing were more complex than those of the same Rodchenko: he created a multi-layered image from several photographs during printing, obtaining the depth of the frame due to the influx and intersection of images.

Architecture

Skyscraper project at Nikitsky Gate, 1923–1925

Lissitsky is an architect by training, and all of his works are in one way or another about space. At one time, German critics noted that the main thing in Lissitzky’s works was the fight against the old architectural understanding of space, which was perceived as static. Lissitzky created dynamic space in all his works - exhibitions, typography, artistic design. The idea of ​​a horizontal skyscraper, far ahead of its time, was never realized, like many of his other projects - but went down in the history of avant-garde architecture.

Exhibition design

Space of Prouns, 1923. Fragment of the exhibition of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition

© State Tretyakov Gallery

Lissitzky’s exhibition design techniques are still considered textbook. If he was not a pioneer in architecture and painting, then about exhibition design we can say that Lissitzky invented it - and came up with new principles of art installation. For his first exhibition, “Spaces of Prouns,” Lissitzky replaced paintings with enlarged plywood models for a “space of constructivist art” and came up with an unusual wall treatment, thanks to which the walls changed color if the visitor was in motion. For Lissitzky, it was important that the viewer become a participant in the exhibition process along with the works of art, and the exhibition itself would turn into a game. For this, like modern curators, he selected exhibits to enhance the effect of their expression, and arranged their spectacular compositions, reminiscent of prouns. In the Constructivist Art Hall in Dresden, the viewer could open and close the works he wanted to see - directly "communicating with the objects on display" in Lissitzky's words. And at another famous Lissitzky exhibition, “Press,” in Cologne, he actually created new exhibits with his exhibition solution - a huge star and moving installations on which he showed his works.

About the fate of the artist in the great history of art

El Lissitzky. Beat the whites with a red wedge, 1920. Vitebsk

© Russian State Library

Lissitzky shared the fate of all the great avant-garde artists. By the 1930s, with a change in state policy in the field of culture, he began to receive less and less work; after his death, his wife was completely exiled to Siberia, and the name of the artist himself was consigned to oblivion. Given Lissitzky's close ties to the European art world, it is not surprising that his influence abroad is much more appreciated than in Russia. His exhibitions are regularly held in the West, where there are more opportunities to get his works, many of which have settled in America - with picturesque prouns, for example, the Russian viewer is practically unfamiliar, and the RSL has not given the poster “Beat with a wedge” to exhibitions for the last 40 years - Meanwhile, in terms of its importance for the history of the Russian avant-garde, this work is on par with Malevich’s “Black Square”.

It is not easy to judge exactly how Lissitzky changed the world: he worked in all conceivable directions at once, but it is difficult to associate a single author’s concept with his name. Lissitzky is associated with the invention of Jewish modernism, and with the development of constructivist architecture, and with the invention of constructivist techniques in printing; there is no doubt about his merits - perhaps just the primary ones - in the design of exhibitions and photographic experiments, where he was truly ahead of his time. And the short period associated with the invention of prouns had a strong influence on all Western fine arts - primarily on the Bauhaus school, but also on the Hungarian avant-garde.

Tatiana Goryacheva

“Without Lissitzky, modern exhibition design would have been impossible: his works have become textbooks. It’s easy to refer to Malevich’s Suprematism, Mondrian’s neo-plasticism, but it’s difficult to refer to Lissitzky’s exhibition design - that’s why, probably, no one refers to him anymore: how can you be the author of the arrangement of objects in space? And it was he who came up with the techniques of photo-freezes and moving installations. He was rather an artist of integrating talent: he snatched leading trends from modern art and created completely utopian architectural projects on their basis, always adding his own style to them. His projects within the framework of constructivist printing can always be easily and unmistakably recognized. Horizontal skyscrapers were a breakthrough, but they were never built - so we can say that Lissitzky achieved greater success in printing. He made many posters and book covers, and designed books all his life. We show absolutely fantastic books in Yiddish, which he designed back in 1916 and 1918, even before he became an adherent of contemporary artistic systems, although he had already tried to introduce modern techniques into them. But the Jewish tradition is also preserved in his works until the end of his life: among the books of 1921 there are those whose covers are completely constructivist, and inside there are ordinary object illustrations, gravitating toward popular print stylization.”

Maria Nasimova

“Lissitzky started out as a Jewish illustrator, this is a fairly well-known fact, but he is still associated primarily with the Prouns. Although he worked in completely different genres! One typographic chapter of our exhibition occupies an entire hall - 50 exhibits. The Jewish period is very important for Lissitzky, although he abruptly moved from it to his constructivist solutions - he was a great graphic artist, designer, and illustrator. He was one of the first in history to create photo collages.

Lissitzky turned photography and design upside down. I saw at one of the exhibitions how his project for a residential unit was recreated - and it simply amazed me: pure IKEA! How was it even possible to come up with this a hundred years ago? He learned his models of space from Malevich, but completely reworked them and showed them in his own way. If you ask designers today who is their foundation, everyone will answer Lissitzky.”

In two museums at once - the Tretyakov Gallery and the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center - large exhibitions dedicated to the Russian artist El Lissitzky opened in mid-November. The exhibitions can be viewed until February 18. Porusski magazine decided to find out who El Lissitzky is, why he is called an outstanding figure of the avant-garde, why you need to visit both exhibitions and how they differ.

Designer (self-portrait), 1924. From the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery

The very name of El Lissitzky, whether you know it or not, seems unconventional and futuristic. This is exactly what the avant-garde artists themselves were like. At the beginning of the 20th century, representatives of this movement in art sought to find new means of expression, radically different from the previous ones. They experimented, expanded boundaries and created a new artistic reality for the future. Lissitzky was no exception. He distinguished himself in many genres of art - he was an architect, artist, engineer, graphic designer, photographer and typographer. Almost everywhere, Lissitzky is a recognized innovator, and therefore an outstanding avant-garde artist. Lissitzky achieved significant success in book design, graphic design, photography, and the revival of Jewish art. However, among his iconic ideas are prouns, horizontal skyscrapers and an innovative approach to organizing exhibition space. It is for these reasons that Lissitzky is considered an outstanding figure of the avant-garde, because his universal talent gave the world unique artistic solutions.

Prouns

El Lissitzky. Proun. 1920

Let's start our acquaintance with Lissitzky's most important invention - prouns. Proun is a neologism, an abbreviation for the ambitious “project of affirmation of the new.” Since 1920, El Lissitzky began working in the style of Suprematism, actively interacting with Malevich. Suprematism was expressed in combinations of simple multi-colored geometric figures that formed Suprematist compositions. According to Malevich, Suprematism is a full-fledged creation of the artist, his pure fantasy, an abstract creation. Thus, he freed the artist from subordination to real objects of the surrounding world.

Initially, Lissitzky was fascinated by the concept of Suprematism, but soon he became more interested not in the ideological content, but in the practical application of Suprematist ideas. It was then that he created prouns - a new artistic system that combined the idea of ​​a geometric plane with volume. Lissitzky comes up with real three-dimensional models consisting of multi-colored volumetric figures. These models serve as a prototype of innovative architectural solutions - a futuristic city of the future. Lissitzky called prouns “a transfer station on the way from painting to architecture.” Prouns allow you to take a different look at the organization of space – both pictorial and real.

Horizontal skyscrapers

El Lissitzky “Horizontal skyscraper in Moscow. View of Strastnoy Boulevard" 1925

At the beginning of the 20th century, avant-garde artists made history - they invented cities of the future, laid down new artistic and aesthetic values, and strived for crystal functionality and practicality. In 1924-1925 El Lissitsky presents an unusual project on the square at the Nikitsky Gate - horizontal skyscrapers. They became a logical continuation of the idea of ​​prouns, which were transformed from painting into an architectural object. Like prouns, skyscrapers look like simple geometric shapes. But this time, prouns have become a strictly functional invention.

The horizontal parts of the skyscrapers would house central institutions, and the vertical supports would house elevators and stairs. One of the supports was planned to be connected to the metro. Lissitzky set himself an ambitious goal - to obtain a maximum usable area with minimal support. He planned to erect eight skyscrapers in the center of Moscow - they would completely change the appearance of the city, turning it into a city of the future. Here Lissitzky showed himself to be a real urbanist. However, the concept of horizontal skyscrapers was too innovative for its time. It was never implemented in Russia. Lissitzky's architectural solutions had a significant impact on world architecture. Prototypes of horizontal skyscrapers were built in other countries.

Exhibition space

Another innovative solution by El Lissitzky was once again inspired by the Prouns. In 1923, he created a pron room for the Great Art Exhibition in Berlin. This is a three-dimensional space in which the geometric shapes of the prouns have become truly three-dimensional - they literally grew out of the walls. At that time, exhibitions were organized according to a simple principle - all works and objects were hung in a row along the walls. Lissitzky turns the exhibition space itself into an installation, an art object that actively interacts with the viewer. In the proun room, the viewer found himself in a three-dimensional space that changed depending on the angle at which it was viewed. The room and the objects placed in it are transformed, inviting the audience to interact and involving them in the process of creating the exhibition. This approach to organizing exhibition space was a new word in exhibition design.

Today we have a unique opportunity to visit the first large-scale retrospective of the pioneer of the Russian and world avant-garde, El Lissitzky, in Russia. The purpose of dividing the retrospective into two exhibitions is to more fully reveal Lissitzky’s multifaceted work. The curators gave us a chance to reflect - by visiting one of the parts of the exhibition, we can take a time out and digest what we saw. And when we are ready, go to the next exhibition to get to know the artist’s work even more deeply.

The main difference between the exhibitions is that they are dedicated to different periods of El Lissitzky’s work. At the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, the exhibition tells about the initial Jewish period of the artist’s work. Here you can see Lissitzky's early works. The Tretyakov Gallery presents the main avant-garde period of creativity. Here you will get acquainted with famous works, architectural projects, exhibition design sketches and photography. Before visiting, we recommend downloading Alena Donetskaya’s guide and grabbing headphones - the former editor of Russian Vogue will be an excellent company in exploring Lissitzky’s universe.

You can begin your acquaintance with the retrospective in chronological order from the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center - this part of the exhibition helps to understand the origins of Lissitzky’s work, talks about the influence of Jewish roots on the artist’s work and introduces viewers to his unique style. In turn, the exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery represents the avant-garde period of creativity and includes iconic works by the artist. Our advice: forget about chronology. If you decide to visit the first exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery, then you will even more want to know what influenced Lissitzky. If you first go to the Jewish Museum, then you will ultimately not avoid the Tretyakov Gallery, because it is there that you will learn how Lissitzky’s artistic and architectural talent developed. It's a matter of accents, and how to place them is up to you to decide.

Anya Steblyanskaya

An esthete, a bit of a traveler, a connoisseur of literature, spacious museums and cinema. He believes that Pushkin is our everything.

Working with photographic materials. From the history of El Lissitzky. Constructor. (Self-portrait) Alexander Rodchenko. Cinema eye. Advertising poster In the middle of the 19th century - for technical purposes when creating group photographs. At the beginning of the twentieth century - artistic use. Gustav Klutsis. Sports, 1923

1. Photomontage (from Greek phos, genitive photós – light and installation, French montage lifting, installation, assembly) 1. Compiling photographic images or their parts into a unified composition in an artistic and semantic sense. 2. The composition obtained by this method. Photomontage is performed by gluing together different parts of photographs. Mechanical photomontage The necessary images are cut out from photographs, adjusted by enlargement to the required scale, and glued onto a sheet of paper. Projection photomontage Images from a number of negatives are sequentially printed on photographic paper. Computer photomontage The most powerful and widespread Adobe Photoshop program. Adobe Photoshop Digital photography allows you to immediately use the footage for digital photomontage.