A Slap in the Face of Public Taste: In Defense of Free Art: Poems, Prose, Essays (1912) [Russian]
Filed under book | Tags: · avant-garde, cubism, futurism, literature, poetry, russia
A famous Russian futurist book is bound in sackcloth and printed on wrapping paper. It opens with a manifesto signed by David Burliuk, Alexander Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Viktor Khlebnikov, followed by two essays by David Burliuk on cubism and on texture [both signed Nikolai Burliuk], verse by Khlebnikov and Benedikt Livshits, and four prose sketches by Wassily Kandinsky.
Poshechina obshestvennomu vkusu. V zashchitu svobodnogo iskusstva. Stikhi, proza, stat’i (Пощёчина общественному вкусу. В защиту свободного искусства: Стихи, проза, статьи)
Publisher Georgy L. Kuzmin, Moscow, Dec 1912
114 pages
Wikipedia (Russian)
Commentary (from a book on the aesthetics and ideology of speed in Russian avant-garde by Tim Harte)
Sound recording of Kandinsky’s poem To See
Russian avant-garde on Monoskop wiki
Miguel Molina Alarcón: Baku: Symphony of Sirens: Sound Experiments in The Russian Avant-Garde. Original Documents and Reconstructions of 72 Key Works of Music, Poetry and Agitprop from the Russian Avantgardes (1908-1942) (2008) [EN, MP3]
Filed under book, sound recording | Tags: · art history, avant-garde, constructivism, futurism, history, music, music history, politics, proletkult, radio art, russia, sound, sound art
“A comprehensive overview of the complexity and breadth of the many early 20th-century Russian avantgarde movements, followed by detailed notes and contexts for the individual recordings – including summary biographies of the main actors; additional work notes about the process of the extraordinary Baku reconstruction; a bibliography, rare photographs, web research links, artwork, facsimiles of contemporary documents, a comparative timeline of European and Russian Avantgardes and the first English translation of an article by Avraamov about the symphony. This is a definitive library collection, some seven years in the making and possibly our most important release of recent years.”
Publisher: ReR Megacorp, London, 2008
ISBN 9780956018403
72 pages
PDF and MP3s (removed on 2018-8-21 upon request from publisher)
Comment (0)Vladimir Mayakovsky: My Discovery of America (1926/2005) [Russian/English]
Filed under book | Tags: · 1920s, capitalism, futurism, poetry, russia, technology, united states
Touring the United States in 1925, the Russian Futurist poet and propagandist Vladimir Mayakovsky observed at first hand what he considered to be the model for Soviet technological development. Writing in his typical declamatory style, he found much to celebrate in the modernised, industrialised America of the 1920s – creativity and advancement, a ‘primitive futurism’. But he also decried the social injustices of uncaring capitalism, losing no opportunity to propound his own political beliefs.
Presented here in full for the first time in the English language, My Discovery of America forms a series of humorous sketches, thoughts, jottings and poems, the significance of which resounds from the early twentieth century through to our own times.
First published as Мое открытие Америки in Russian in 1926
With an introduction and translated by Neil Cornwell
Foreword by Colum McCann
Publisher Hesperus Press, 2005
Modern Voices series
ISBN 1843914085, 9781843914082
138 pages
View online (HTML) [Russian]
PDF (PDF) [English]