Exhibitions

The edition results from a twenty year long research of distinguished scholars, Alexander Kantsedikas and Zoya Yargina. It is the fullest in history of art criticism investigation of the outstanding Russian avantguardist’s work.

ROSPHOTO introduces exhibition dedicated to edition “El Lissitzky. Film of Life. 1890-1941”

The edition results from a twenty year long research of distinguished scholars, Alexander Kantsedikas and Zoya Yargina. It is the fullest in history of art criticism investigation of the outstanding Russian avantguardist's work. This project of New Hermitage One museum-gallery (Moscow) is exceptional for several reasons. The study, composed of seven books bound in three pockets, represents the new type of art edition unique both in its content and design. First five books use the principle of biographic narration and explore the main stages of El Lissitsky's life in art. The history of the artist's diverse practices is given in fine detail and with perfect consistency.

 

	The sixth book of the monograph is a research in art history. Eighty analytic sheets give one a clear view of the general sections of Lissitsky’s diverse work, whilst exploring his art technique and his place among other Russian and European avantguard artists. The final, seventh part of the series contains Lissitsky’s main articles and lectures that explain his theory of the development of contemporary art in its various forms. The two last parts are bound in a separate pocket.
	The edition is richly illustrated by El Lissitsky's works: suprematic posters, designer projects that had found their life in book illustrations and exhibition pavilions built by the artist, the famous "prouns" (projects of establishing the new) and "figurines" (scenographic design projects). The illustrations enhance reader's experience of the artist's thoughts and views.
	To all the values of "Film of Life" (including, by the way, its convincingly constructivist polygraphic version), there is one drawback. "Film of Life" is a small run and therefore quite costly publication. However, New Hermitage One gallery, following its concept of cooperation with museums, and ROSPHOTO have together come to the idea of this exhibition that will allow to introduce the edition to a wide audience and to tell about the artist rightly named "the ambassador of the Soviet art" in Europe of the 1920ies.

Film of Life - Der Lebensfilm von El bis 1926. 
Russian State Archive of Literature and Art in Moscow (RGALI). 
El Lissitzky fund, f.2361, inventory I, case 58, p.2.

Birth
My generation was born a couple dozens of years before the Great October Revolution.
Ancestors
Several centuries ago our ancestors were lucky to make great discoveries. 
Us
We, the grandchildren of Columbus, are creating the epoch of magnificent inventions. They have made our earth very small, but our space expands and our time soars. 
Sensations
My life has been accompanied by unprecedented sensations. Hardly had I turned 5 as Edisson phonograph tube was pushed into my ear. At 8, I am in the first tramway car in Smolensk, and all horses are fleeing the town frightened by this infernal force. Several more years pass by, and zeppelins would fly over my head to Germany, and airplanes would turn loops in the air. My movement rate is higher and higher every day. And though, due to motors' flaunts, I myself still run with by feet, I foresee that in several years today's couple-hundred kilometer speeds would seem a snail's tempo. 
Compression of substance
My cradle was rocked by steam engine that by now has already remained with ichtyosaurus. Machines have lots of bowels in their full stomachs, we witness compressed skulls of dynamos with their electric brain. Substance and spirit have merged into one. I see power being transferred directly into production without pipes, wires, or knee joints. Gravity is overcome.
My eyes
Lenses and oculars, precision instruments and vertical reflex cameras of cinema with its time lens, X-rays and XYZ-rays, planted into my forehead eyes that perceive details 20, 2000, 2000000 times finer than hairs. 
1918
The year 1918 flashed before my eyes inMoscow like a lighting that split the world in two. This flash separated our present like a wedge between yesterday and tomorrow. I put myself into work to drive this wedge deeper. The choice was only - here or there: there was no compromise. 
Art
Today and every day, between breakfast and afternoon tea, you communicate with art of all centuries and from all over the world. We set against these bacilli of ichtyosaurus times our creations of radio time. Our art was labelled ‘abstract'. But are radiowaves abstract, or ar they realistic? I fought art in the name of art and now I see that art has become private affair of art historians, critics and amateurs. Damn, once again. 
Proun
The plane of picture has become too narrow for me. So has the circle of harmonic colors of fine art. And I constructed Proun as an overpass, a transit station from painting to architecture. 
As a basis, I used canvas and wood board where upon I worked with black-and-white and red as substance and material. This is the way that formed the reality corresponding corresponds with the new reality of the world. 
New reality
New discoveries that allowed movement in new spaces at new speeds, created new reality. The static architecture of Egyptian pyramids is overcome: our architecture rolls, flows, flyes. It is the form of this reality that I want to find and create.

El Lissitzky