Universal_War_in_Russian_literature Universal_War

explosion of trunk, collage #3 of universal war, 1916, edition in moma ny



alternative copy of explosion of trunk, costakis collection

zaum poetry attempted “…lead artist far beyond restraints of socially sanctioned patterns , vice of national vocabularies and, whilst similar marinetti s insistence on concrete nature of words, kruchenykh insisted zaum liberation meaning form.

[kruchenykh] described new logic of zaum ‘broader sense’, logic liberated words, letters , sounds ‘submission meaning’ defined conventional three-dimensional logic.

the poems short, , filled onomatopeiac syllables;

page 2—battle between mars , scorpio

appetite pegasus

appendicitus

grabz

chachen

respact

herself

female

tuningfork

page 3—explosion of trunk

with queue full of whips

cuts stone vengeance

hil ble faes

och fi ge

in preface kruchenykh claimed collages born of same source transrational language- liberation of creation unnecessary conveniences (through non-objectiveness) . cited style originating rozanova, , taken malevich under rather uninformative name of suprematism. in fact, russian avant-garde aware of kandinsky s experiments abstract art. kandinsky, russian living in munich, regularly returned russia, , had contributed slap in face of public taste poem klänge, artist s book of sound poetry placed in tandem abstract woodcuts, published in munich, 1912. seminal artist s book, la prose du transsibérien et de la petite jehanne de france blaise cendrars , russian, sonia delaunay, had been exhibited in russia in late 1913, , linked colourful abstract images concrete poetry.

the work pre-dates hans arp s similar experiments abstract collages done cabaret voltaire, dada venue, although s not known if 2 men aware of each other s works.

exile

unlike italian futurists, attitude of russian futurists war , russian revolution @ best ambiguous- kruchenykh, kamensky, dodged draft retiring wooden hut in caucausus sometime in 1916. 1917, had moved newly independent (if short-lived), menshevik-controlled democratic republic of georgia, , became member ilia zdanevich , igor terent ev of avant-garde group 41°, centered @ fantastic cavern, underground cabaret in downtown tiflis. scattering of artists during revolution brought cubo-futurism end, replaced constructivism.

there copies of universal war in moma, new york, , in costakis collection.