Art on the Edge.(Brief Article)

"Kruchenykh and I have illustrated some books together which are selling very well," the Russian Futurist Olga Rozanova told her sister in 1913. Although the Futurists loved the mechanized look, their books were homemade, usually stapled, and sometimes decorated with potato stamps. THE RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE BOOK 1910-1934 (Abrams) shows how Futurist graphics influenced the attempts of post-revolutionary Constructivists to make books that would be accessible even to the illiterate--a style that in turn informed early Soviet propaganda.

The avant-garde artists of Central Europe are less well known in the West than their Soviet counterparts; CENTRAL EUROPEAN AVANT-GARDES: EXCHANGE AND TRANSFORMATION, 1910-1930 (M.I.T.) attempts to fill in the blanks by showcasing other artistic movements from Poznan[acute accent] to Bucharest. "Art must become international or it will ...