El Lissitsky - Work Quotes

12 Sourced Quotes

View all El Lissitsky Quotes
During my stay in Germany in 1922 I collaborated with the writer Ehrenburg, on the Magazine 'Vešč' (Gegenstand) [Object] (first pro-Soviet edition). [I] Took part in organizing the First Russian Art Exhibition 1922-23 in Berlin and Amsterdam. My works were purchased by European and American collectors and museums. The museum in New York acquired a 'Proun' from the Soviet Exhibition. At this time, in 1923, I contracted pulmonary tuberculosis.

El Lissitsky
We must take note of the fact that the artist nowadays is occupied with painting flags, posters, pots and pans textiles and things like that. What is referred to as 'artistic work' has on the vast majority of occasions nothing whatever to do with creative effort: and the term 'artistic work' is used in order to demonstrate the 'sacredness' of the work which the artist does at his easel. The conception of 'artistic work' presupposes a distinction between useful and useless work and as there are only a few artists buyers can be found even for their useless products. The artist's work lies beyond the boundaries of the useful and the useless.

El Lissitsky
In 1928 I designed a photo-montage frieze of 24 by 3.5 m for our 'Pressa' pavilion. It became the example par excellence for all larger-than-life montages, which were a permanent feature of the exhibitions from then on. During Majakovskij's stay in Berlin in 1923 I was commissioned to design his book 'For the Voice'. The book was recognized as the starting-point of a new typography, and the Gutenberg Society in Mainz made me a member. Another field of my work is the artistic and poly-graphic design of albums and periodicals.

El Lissitsky
Let us summarize these three points more concisely:
(a) The rejection of art as a mere emotional, individualistic, and romantic affair.
(b) 'Objective' work, undertaken with the silent hope that the end product will nevertheless eventually be regarded as a work of art.
(c) Consciously goal-directed work in architecture, which will have a concise artistic effect on the basis of well-prepared objective-scientific criteria.

Such an architecture will actively raise the general standard of living. This represents the dialectic of our development process, which purports to arrive at the affirmative by negation — a process similar to melting down old iron and forging it into new steel.

El Lissitsky
Therefore THE IDEA OF 'ARTISTIC WORK' MUST BE ABOLISHED AS A COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY CONCEPT OF WHAT IS CREATIVE and work must be accepted as one of the functions of the living human organism in the same way as the beating of the heart or the activity of the nerve centers, so that it will be afforded the same protection.

El Lissitsky
And amid the thunderous roar of a world in collision WE, ON THE LAST STAGE OF THE PATH TO SUPREMATISM BLASTED ASIDE THE OLD WORK OF ART LIKE A BEING OF FLESH AND BLOOD AND TURNED IT INTO A WORLD FLOATING IN SPACE. WE CARRIED BOTH PICTURE AND VIEWER OUT BEYOND THE CONFINES OF THIS SPHERE AND IN ORDER TO COMPREHEND IT FULLY THE VIEWER MUST CIRCLE LIKE A PLANET ROUND THE PICTURE WHICH REMAINS IMMOBILE IN THE CENTER. The empty phrase 'art for art's sake' had already been wiped out.

El Lissitsky
Back in Moscow in 1925 - teacher at 'Vchutemas' of interior design and furniture at the faculty of wood and metalwork. In 1926 my most important artistic work began: designing exhibitions. In that year I was invited by the committee of the International Exhibition of Art in Dresden to design the space for contemporary art. Was sent abroad for by 'VOKS'. [In] 1927 Exhibition of Typography in Moscow.

El Lissitsky
I Went to Germany to study there and graduated from the architecture faculty in Darmstadt in 1914. I studied art during my trips through Europe; went to Paris. In the summer of 1912 I traveled more than 1200 km in Italy on foot, learning and drawing. In 1912 my works were accepted for the first time at the large exhibition in Petersburg. From 1915 in I lived in Moscow, exhibiting each year.

El Lissitsky
Then I can see that I'm with you [in Dresden] at the end of April - beginning of May. Then I'll also paint with you the few works which are desired of me, if you'll help me - because I have already forgotten how to paint.

El Lissitsky
It has become obvious to the new architect that by virtue of his work he is taking an active part in the building of a new world. For us the work of an artist has no value 'as such'; it does not represent an end in itself; it has no intrinsic beauty. The value of a work of art is determined by its relationship to the community... The artist, or the creative worker, invents nothing; there is no such thing as divine inspiration. Thus we understand by the term 'reconstruction' the conquest of the unresolved, of the 'mysterious,' and the chaotic. In our [Russian] architecture, as in our entire life, we are striving to create a social order, i. e., to raise the instinctive to a conscious level.

El Lissitsky
We believe that the elements in the chemical formula of our creative work, problem, invention, and art, correspond to the challenges of our age.

El Lissitsky
This is the way in which the artist has set about the construction of the world - an activity which affects every human being and carries work beyond the frontiers of comprehension. We see how its creative path took it by way of cubism to pure construction, but there was still no outlet to be found here.

El Lissitsky