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.
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