Machine-Age Exposition, catalogue (1927)
Filed under catalogue | Tags: · architecture, art, avant-garde, constructivism, cubism, design, industrial design, machine

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Poster, via Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Exhibition catalogue of the Machine-Age Exposition, held on May 16-28, 1927, at 119 West 57th Street in New York, and advertised as the first event bringing together “architecture, engineering, industrial arts and modern art.”
The exhibition was initiated by Jane Heap of The Little Review, a New York literary magazine, and organised along with Société des urbanistes, Brussels; U.S.S.R. Society of Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries; Kunstgewerbeschule, Vienna; Czlonkowie Group Praesens, Warsaw; Architects D.P.L.G, Paris; and Advisory American Section.
The volume contains a panorama of European and American architecture and art, with photo documentation, and following articles: “Foreword: Architecture of this Age” by Hugh Ferriss, “The Aesthetic of the Machine and Mechanical Introspection in Art” by Enrico Prampolini, “Machine and Art” by Alexander Archipenko, “The Americanization of Art” by Louis Lozowick, “French Architecture” by André Lurçat, “Architecture Opens Up Volume” by Szymon Syrkus, “Machine-Age Exposition” by Jane Heap, “The Poetry of Forces” by Mark Turbyfill, and “Modern Glass Construction” by Frederick L. Keppler.
The artists committee of the exhibition included Alexander Archipenko, Robert Chanler, Andrew Dasberg, Charles Demuth, Muriel Draper, Marcel Duchamp, Josef Frank, Hugh Ferriss, Louis Lozowick, André Lurçat, Elie Nadleman, Man Ray, Boardman Robinson, Charles Sheeler, Ralph Steiner, Szymon Syrkus and L. Van der Swallmen.
Represented countries: “America”, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland and Russia.
Published in New York, 1927
44 pages
via Hagley Digital Archives
Commentary (E. B. White, The New Yorker, 1927): “That the machine is the tutelary symbol of the universal dynamism can be discovered at the Machine Age Exposition. […] Drawings, photographs, cubist and constructionist figures by reputable modern artists are side by side with cogs, motor boat propellers, Crane valves, insides of pianos and diving suits.”
Machine-Age Exposition at Monoskop wiki
Comment (0)Die Form: Zeitschrift für gestaltende Arbeit (1922-1935) [German]
Filed under magazine | Tags: · advertising, architecture, art, art criticism, avant-garde, bauhaus, city, design, graphic design, industrial design, photography, typography
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Die in den Jahren 1925-1934 erscheinende Zeitschrift „Die Form“ wurde von Walter Curt Behrendt für den Deutschen Werkbund herausgeben. Sie erschien im Berliner Verlag Hermann Reckendorf; ihre Auflage überschritt nie die Marke von 5.000 Exemplaren. Der Untertitel lautete von 1929 bis 1934 „Zeitschrift für gestaltende Arbeit“.
Bereits im Jahr 1922 hatte es einen ersten Versuch gegeben die Werkbund-Zeitschrift zu etablieren. So heißt es im Geleitwort des ersten Bandes (1925) von Walter Curt Behrendt „Mit dieser Zeitschrift setzt der Deutsche Werkbund ein Unternehmen fort, das bereits vor längerer Zeit begonnen, unter dem Druck der wirtschaftlichen Verhältnisse zunächst wieder aufgegeben werden mußte. Die Zeitschrift wird die Aufgaben der Formgestaltung für alle Gebiete des gewerblichen und künstlerischen Schaffens behandeln.“
Behrendt blieb bis Ende 1926 Herausgeber und wurde dann durch Walter Riezler abgelöst. Die Gestaltung der typographischen Umschläge lag in den Händen von Joost Schmidt. Er war seit 1919 am Bauhaus und leitete seit 1925 die Plastische Werkstatt. 1934/35 wurde die Zeitschrift von den Nationalsozialisten übernommen und dann eingestellt. (Source)
Publishers: Hermann Reckendorf, Munich and Berlin, 1922 & 1927-1932; Kurt Schroeder, Bonn and Berlin, 1925-1926; W. & S. Loewenthal, Berlin, 1933 (1-3); Wendt & Matthes, Berlin, 1933 (4-12), 1934 (1); Deutscher Werkbund, Berlin, 1934 (2-6); Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 1935
via Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg
Volumes (single PDFs) and separate articles (PDF, HTML):
Volume 1, 1922 (Die Form: Monatschrift für gestaltende Arbeit, 4 Issues)
Volume 1, 1925-1926 (15 Issues)
Volume 2, 1927 (Die Form: Monatschrift für gestaltende Arbeit, 12 Issues)
Volume 3, 1928 (Die Form: Monatschrift für gestaltende Arbeit, 15 Issues)
Volume 4, 1929 (24 Issues)
Volume 5, 1930 (24 Issues)
Volume 6, 1931 (12 Issues)
Volume 7, 1932 (12 Issues)
Volume 8, 1933 (12 Issues)
Volume 9, 1934 (6 Issues)
Volume 10, 1935 (1 Issue)
Vladimir Mayakovsky, El Lissitzky: Dlia golosa (1923) [Russian]
Filed under artist publishing | Tags: · avant-garde, constructivism, graphic design, poetry, typography

Dlia golosa [For the Voice], a collection of 13 poems by Mayakovsky, “constructed” by Lissitzky, has long been recognized as one of the finest achievements of Russian avant-garde bookmaking, a tradition in which poets and artists collaborated to create books that attained the status of art objects. By any reckoning, For the Voice is a landmark event in the history of modern graphic design. The book was inspired by the “new optics,” where ideas are given form through printed letters, turning them into pictorial signs, and by “words that are seen and not heard,” as Lissitzky wrote.
Для голоса [Dlia golosa]
Publisher R.S.F.S.R. Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo, Berlin, 1923
61 pages
via babs71
PDF (pages 14-15 are missing)
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