El Lissitzky (1890–1941) was undoubtedly one of the most significant and multifaceted artists of the Russian avant-garde era, and perhaps the one who exerted the greatest influence on the subsequent evolution of various fields of artistic language and audiovisual communication. At the same time, however, he remains a relatively unknown and mysterious figure.
In recent years, a series of essays and retrospective exhibitions have sought to unravel the "Lissitzky enigma." His participation in the Jewish cultural renaissance in Ukraine and Belarus, his role in the development of abstraction, and his pioneering contributions to fields such as photomontage, graphic design, exhibition design, advertising, typography, and mass propaganda, among others, have sparked an intense interest that shows no signs of waning.
This edition aims to bring together the author's most relevant theoretical texts to trace the trajectory of his aesthetic ideas. Furthermore, it includes an appendix featuring texts by contemporary artists and intellectuals (Gustav Klutsis, Kazimir Malevich, Nikolai Tarabukin, and Moisei Ginzburg) that aim to shed light on the creative context in which the author's ideas were formed.
