El Lissitzky

Lazar Markovich Lissitzky {{Audio|ru-El_Lissitzky.ogg|listen}} (?????? ???????? ????????, November 23, 1890 – December 30, 1941), better known as El Lissitzky (??? ????????), was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer, and architect. He was one of the most important figures of the Russian avant garde, helping develop suprematism with his friend and mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designed numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the former Soviet Union. His work greatly influenced the Bauhaus, Constructivist, and De Stijl movements and experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate 20th century graphic design.

Legacy

Throughout his career Lissitzky advanced a number of methods, ideas, and movements that had a large and significant impact on contemporary art — particularly in the fields of graphic design, exhibition design, and architecture. Partly because of his constant expansion and experimentation into many different mediums and styles, and his spirit of innovation in them, Lissitzky's work is generally held in high regard by historians and critics. He was one of the principal innovators of modern typography and photomontage, both relatively nascent fields at the time.

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He was also preoccupied from early to late career with the book design. He thought of the book as a dynamic object, a "unity of acoustics and optics" requiring the viewer's active involvement. When working on USSR im bau he took his experimentation and innovation with book design to an extreme. In issue #2 he included multiple fold-out pages, presented in concert with other folded pages that together produced design combinations and a narrative structure that was completely original at the time. He also invested great effort into establishing international links between artists and promoting new ideas, helping the avant-garde spread across Europe. This started locally with UNOVIS, where he attempted to spread and promote new art primarily in Russia, and reached its peak with his stay in Germany, where he exchanged ideas internationally and helped influence the German Bauhaus and Dutch De Stijl movements.

Related Topics:
Bauhaus - Dutch - De Stijl

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Along with his efforts towards the advancement of art, Lissitzky worked tirelessly for ways to better life with art. For that purpose he chose to study architecture in his youth; an artistic medium that directly affects and contributes to society. He was an ardent supporter of the Communist ideology and devoted a great part of his life and energy in its service. Through his Prouns, Utopian models for a new and better world were developed. This approach, in which the artist creates art with socially defined purpose, could aptly be summarized with his edict "das zielbewußte Schaffen" — "the task oriented creation." 4

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In his later years he brought revolutionary change to exhibition design, garnering him respect internationally as well as prestige within his own country and government. In exhibition and propaganda design, he found an area where he could apply his creative forces in the service of society. In his autobiography written in June, 1941 (which was later edited and released by his wife as El Lissitzky, life, letters, texts), Lissitzky wrote: "1926. My most important work as an artist begins: the creation of exhibitions."

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