Art in life

In the early 1920s, in the Soviet Union, constructivism invented an art for the greatest number, turned towards the future, concrete, functional, in connection direct with life, contrary to the currents which saw it as a universe autonomous offered to contemplation. Easel painting must give way on the bill, literature in the press, theatre in mass actions. This collection brings together manifestos, writings by artists and sometimes theorists already known in French, given here in a new translation, as well as very many unpublished texts, collected over years of research. It is not not limited to the most studied art forms, but invests in fields neglected such as movement or music, and highlights texts by women hitherto ignored for their theoretical contribution. It is also important to restore the utopian dimension of the movement, including in its most radical. The iconography shows how the theories evoked come to life and are embodied in practice. Each section is introduced by a specialist of the field considered. The important critical apparatus and the numerous illustrations allow the reader to be accompanied into the teeming universe of this unique period in the world history of art. This major contribution to the study of the Soviet avant-gardes bears witness to a greater diversity than imagined, of an inventiveness and a thirst for changes that were then crushed by Stalinism.