Book Description
Following World War I, a new artistic-social avant-garde emerged with the ambition to engage the artist in the building of social life. Through close readings of the works of Alexander Rodchenko, El Lissitzky, and László Moholy-Nagy whose careers covered a broad range of artistic practices and political situations, Victor Margolin examines the way these three artists negotiated the changing relations between their social ideals and the political realities they confronted. Focusing on the difficult relationship between art and social change, Margolin brings important new insights to the understanding of the avant-garde's role in a period of great political complexity.

"An ambitious effort. This book puts the masters of European Modernism into perfect focus as inventors, propagators, and practitioners of a visual language that continues to hold sway over contemporary graphic style."--Steven Heller

"Worth the wait. . . . Margolin usefully presents what he calls the 'failed hope' of this movement in this valuable effort."--Publishers Weekly




Card catalog description
Following World War I, a new artistic-social avant-garde emerged with the ambition to engage the artist in the building of social life. Nowhere is this project more evident than in the lives of Alexander Rodchenko, El Lissitzky, and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy whose careers covered a broad range of artistic practices and political situations. The remarkable continuity between the various forms of their work stems from their belief that art had to be extended beyond the aesthetic sphere. But given that the social situations they confronted changed radically in their lifetimes, their operative strategies were severely tested and underwent significant revisions. Through close readings of their work as it relates to the situations in which they were active, Victor Margolin examines the way these three artists negotiated the changing relations between their social ideals and the political realities they confronted. He follows them and their affiliations through the 1920s and 1930s in Moscow, Berlin, and Chicago, documenting their contributions to utopian architecture, Constructivist ideology, industrial design, photography, visual communication, and design education. Each essay features one or two of the artist-designers and shifts from one medium to another through a chronological narrative that begins with the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and ends in Chicago just after World War II. Focusing on the difficult relationship between art and social change, Margolin brings important new insights to our understanding of the avant-garde's role in a period of great political complexity.

FROM THE PUBLISHER