Lissitzky – The Industry of Socialism 1935 USSR SOWJET UNION RUSSIA PROPAGANDA

Lissitzky – Tal, Boris (Ed.).
Industriya (Industriia) Sotsializma (Sotzializma). Tyazhelaia
promyshlennost’ k VII vsesoiuznomu s’ezdy sovetov. (The Industry of
Socialism. Heavy Industry for the Seventh All-Union Congress of
Soviets). (Publishing and Art-Editor: Filipp Amstislavsky and Isaak
Abramsky; Text: A. M. Litvak. Photomontages: Vladimir Shtranikh;
Illustrations: M. A. Medvedev, Fiodor Slutzky and Piotr Staronosov;
Coverphoto: Anatoly Skurikhin; Photos: Semion Alperin, Max Alpert,
Vsevolod Chekrizov, Victor Chemko, Vladimir Griuntal, Dmitry Debabov,
Roman Karmen, Nikolai Kuleshov, Yeleazar Langman, G. Pasternak, Nikolai
Petrov, Georgy Petrusov, Mikhail Prekhner, Arkady Shaikhet, David
Shulkin, Anatoly Skurikhin, Gregory Zelma et al; Design: El Lissitzky
and Sophie Küppers; Design Assistant: Victor Chemko). 6 (statt 7) Bände.
(Moskau, IZOGIZ (State Publishing House for Fine Arts) 1935). Folio (37
x 28 cm.). [18] Bl. (davon 2 auf Japanpapier), 39, (2) S. (Text) mit
illustr. Titel, zahlr. Abb., 1 doppelblattgr. illustr. Karte u. 1
gefalt. Tafel; [71] Bl. (davon 6 auf Japanpapier) mit zahlr. Abb. u.
teils farb. Illustrationen u. 6 gefalt. Tafeln; [45] Bl. (davon 1 auf
Japanpapier) mit zahlr. Abb. u. 2 gefalt. Tafeln; [24] Bl. mit zahlr.
Abb. u. 1 gefalt. Tafel; [24] Bl. mit zahlr. Abb. u. 3 gefalt. Tafeln;
[45] Bl. (davon 5 mit ausgestantzten rechteckigen Fenstern) mit zahlr.
Abb. (davon 1 mit mont. farb. Stoffmuster) u. 3 gefalt. Tafel OKart. mit
Leinenrücken u. silber- oder goldgepr. Deckelillustration in illustr.
Orig.-Leinenkassette.

Karasik/Heiting, The Soviet Photobook
1920-1941, 214 ff. (mit zahlr. Abb.). Parr/Badger I, 160 ff. The Book
of 101 Books 82 ff. The Open Book 116. – Einzige Ausgabe der sehr
seltenen sovietischen Propaganda-Dokumentation. – Es erschien auch eine
Luxusausgabe in einer Lederkassette. – „The Industry of Socialism is one
of El Lissitzky’s masterpieces. Everything in the book, beginning with
the cover image, speaks of the triumph of Soviet Industry. The cover …
with an aluminium bas-relief carries the title of the book and Anatoly
Skurikhin’s 1930 photograph „The Builders of Kuznetsk: the
maschine-operator Maria Rogova and the furnace-man Fiodor Popov“. The
shape of the relief – a rounded metal frame with rivets – resambles an
aircraft window or a car door… The book is made up of seven brochures,
each of which is devoted to a separate theme. The cover sheet of each
gathering is designed with a bas-relief, printig in silver and bronze
ink and the title in red. … Some of the pages are separate signatures –
vertical and horizontal pages (with an area of half or a third of the
usual page), fold-outs and book-lets. The pictorial material comprises
photographs, photomontages, graphic art, diagrams, maps and
reproductions of paintings. … This book makes use of all methods of
printing available at the time and all sorts of materials: paper, card,
tracing paper, film, fabric, metall and acrylic plastic. … The
publication of ‚The Industry of Socialism‘ was itself a triumph of the
Soviet heavy and printing industries“ (Karasik/Heiting). – „Following
his success with the USSR Buils for Socialism, El Lissitzky was
commissioned to disign a multi-volume report along similar lines for the
Seventh Congress of Soviets in 1935, an interim review of the progress
of Stalin’s second Five-Year Plan. In tone and content Socialist
Industry closely follows the style of the magazine USSR in Construction,
and El Lissitzky and his wife Sophie Küppers … took many of the more
radical design ideas they had conceived for the periodical and developed
them in book form. The result is a cornucopia of graphic design and
photomontage, arguably the high point both of Lissitzky’s book-designing
career and the Soviet propaganda photobook, rivalled, but certainly not
surpassed by Moskva Rekonstruirruetsya (Moscow Under Reconstruction,
1938) by Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova. It is the couple’s
most cinematic photobook, the result of their theoretical discussions on
the techniques of montage with the film-maker Dziga Vertov. In no other
book is the imagery quite so brilliantly piled up, one picture upon the
other, the ideas constantly inventive and dazzling … All Soviet
propaganda books are relentlessly unbeat, but Lissitzky and Küppers have
given new meaning to the world ‚possitive‘, investing a down-to-earth
subject with a metaphysical quality somewhat at odds with the dialectic
materialism of Marxism and much more in keeping with the incessant
desire culture of consumers capitalism“ (Parr/Badger). – Kassette
berieben, am Rücken und den Deckelrändern etwas aufgehellt, 3 Bl. in
Heft VI mit ausgeschnittenen Personen auf den Abb. (bei 1 Bl. mehrere,
wohl zensiert), Heft VII (Karten) fehlt, sonst sehr gut erhalten.