LEF, 1-7 (1923-25), & Novyi LEF, 1-24 (1927-29) [Russian, English]

LEF (“ЛЕФ”) was the journal of the Left Front of the Arts (“Левый фронт искусств” – “Levy Front Iskusstv”), a widely ranging association of avant-garde writers, photographers, critics and designers in the Soviet Union. It had two runs, one from 1923 to 1925 as LEF, and later from 1927 to 1929 as Novyi LEF (‘New LEF’). The journal’s objective, as set out in one of its first issues, was to “re-examine the ideology and practices of so-called leftist art, and to abandon individualism to increase art’s value for developing communism.”

Although LEF was catholic in its choices of writers, it broadly reflected the concerns of the Productivist left-wing of Constructivism. The editors were Osip Brik and Vladimir Mayakovsky: fittingly, one a Russian Formalist critic and one a poet and designer who helped compose the 1912 manifesto of Russian Futurists entitled, “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste”. The covers were designed by Alexander Rodchenko, and featured photomontages early on, being followed by photographs in New LEF. Among the writings published in LEF for the first time were Mayakovsky’s long poem About This, and Sergei Eisenstein’s The Montage of Attractions, as well as more political and journalistic works like Isaac Babel’s Red Cavalry. The journal had funding from the state, and was discussed critically, but not unsympathetically by Leon Trotsky in Literature and Revolution (1924).

The later New LEF (“Новый ЛЕФ” – “Novyi Lef”), which was edited by Mayakovsky along with the playwright, screenplay writer and photographer Sergei Tretyakov, tried to popularise the idea of ‘Factography’: the idea that new technologies such as photography and film should be utilised by the working class for the production of ‘factographic’ works. In this it had a great deal of influence on theorists in the West, especially Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht. Linked journals also appeared such as the Constructivist architectural journal SA (edited by Moisei Ginzburg and Alexander Vesnin) and Proletarskoe Foto, on photography. The New LEF closed in 1929 over a dispute over its direction between Mayakovsky and Tretyakov, and under pressure for its ‘Formalism’, which jarred with the incipient Socialist Realism. (from Wikipedia)

LEF at Monoskop wiki

LEF, 1-7 (ZIP; updated on 2012-7-19)
Novyi LEF, 1-24 (ZIP; updated on 2012-7-19)
All issues in PDF (added on 2015-7-21)
All issues in HTML (added on 2015-8-11)
English translations of selected essays (trans., ed. & intro. Richard Sherwood (LEF) and Ben Brewster (Novy LEF), Screen 12(4), Winter 1971-72; added on 2015-7-21)

Exter, Goncharova, Popova, Rozanova, Stepanova, Udaltsova: Amazons of the Avant-Garde (2000)

“Amazons of the Avant-Garde presents work by six Russian women who contributed to the development of modern art in the first quarter of the 20th century: Alexandra Exter, Natalia Goncharova, Liubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Varvara Stepanova, and Nadezhda Udaltsova. The catalogue includes several essays that discuss the hindrances and influences affecting women in Russian avant-garde art circles. In addition, each artist featured in the exhibition (originally set up at the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin in 1999, next year travelled to the New York’s Guggenheim through London, Venice, and Bilbao) is individually discussed at length, along with biographical timelines and excerpts of their writings from letters and publications. Color reproductions of the works in the exhibition accompany the essays to form a cohesive illustration of the art world in Russia during the first decades of the 20th century and the women who changed the aesthetic canons of their time.”

Contributions by Natalia Adaskina, John E. Bowlt, Charlotte Douglas, Matthew Drutt, Ekaterina Dyogot, Laura Engelstein, Nina Gurianova, Georgii Kovalenko, Alexander Lavrentiev, Olga Matich, Nicoletta Misler, Vasilii Rakitin, Dmitrii Sarabianov, and Jane A. Sharp

Edited by John E. Bowlt and Matthew Drutt
Published by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2000
ISBN 0892072253
366 pages

Review: Patricia Railing (Art Book 2000).

Publisher

PDF (23 MB, updated on 2012-7-18)
Internet Archive (multiple formats)
Guggenheim flipping book (Flash)

Art of the Avant-Garde in Russia: Selections from the George Costakis Collection (1981)

“Documenting the first exhibition of Russian collector George Costakis’s holdings of early 20th-century Russian artists in the United States, the catalogue Art of the Avant-Garde in Russia: Selections from the George Costakis Collection is an invaluable resource for scholars of art of the avant-garde in Russia. Art historian Angelica Zander Rudenstine’s introduction describes the Costakis Collection’s formation and details from George Costakis’s biography. Margit Rowell reexamines certain premises about Russian and Soviet avant-garde art in the essay, ‘New Insights into Soviet Constructivism: Painting, Constructivists, Production Art.’ The publication also includes color and black-and-white reproductions of selected works with entries and biographies of the 39 artists in the exhibition.”

Edited by Margit Rowell and Angelica Zander Rudenstine
Publisher The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1981
ISBN 089207293
320 pages

Publisher

PDF (no OCR; updated on 2012-7-18)
Internet Archive (multiple formats)
Guggenheim flipping book (Flash)