On Hadid and suprematism and constructivism

I came across recently this very inspiring video on Zaha Hadid's groundbreaking architecture, Kazimir Malevich's suprematism and El Lissitzky's constructivism:

Video from Architectural Digest's youtube channel

Proun-Raum centenary

Celebrating its centenary this year, El Lissitzky's reconstructed 1923 Proun-Raum at Berlinische Galerie, Berlin 2012:

Proun-Raum vs Jüdisches Museum

El Lissitzky's reconstructed Proun-Raum at Berlinische Galerie, Berlin 2018:

Daniel Libeskind's 2001 Jüdisches Museum, Berlin:

The Sun and the Arrow

From the exhibition Hello World. Revision Einer Sampling at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin 2018 ...

El Lissitzky's Sieg Über Die Sonne (Victory Over The Sun):

Hannah Höch's Collage Mit Pfeil (Collage With Arrow):

Lissitzky @ Berlinische

El Lissitzky at Berlinische Galerie, Berlin 2017:

CounterIntelligence

This show is a surprise.  It's closing this week.  So I must write about it before flying to London tonight.  The ambitious exhibition CounterIntelligence curated by Charles Stankievech at Toronto's Justina M. Barnicke Gallery reveals the seemingly unlikely connection between art and secret intelligence/military surveillance from historic to the most recent times.  Close to 100 items are on display.

Anna-Sophie Springer's Cleve Backster Interrogates To Janet Craig:

El Lissitzky's Proun Room drawing:

Edward Snowden's Public Encryption Key:

Harun Farocki's Serious Games IV: A Sun With No Shadow:

Trevor Paglen's NOYFB:

Abbas Akhavan's Study For Blue Shield:

Yves Klein's book Peintures: 10 Planches En Colours:

Canadian Forces' CADPAT Camouflage Design:

Site (Specific): Satellite Images Of Earthworks:

Paul Virilio's book Bunker Archéologie:

Charles Stankievech's redacted postcard 89°29'58"N 62°20'5"W:

Berlinische Lissitzky

El Lissitzky at Berlinische Galerie, Berlin 2012:

Proun-Raum

El Lissitzky's reconstructed 1923 classic at Berlinische Galerie, Berlin 2011-2012:

Constructivist Lissitzky

Another great Russian constuctivist artist featured in Royal Academy of Arts' exhibition Building The Revolution: Soviet Art And Architecture 1915-1935 in London is El Lissitzky, another favourite of mine.  His graphic and architectural works from the 1920s:

Images from Design: El Lissitzky, John Milner 2009

Bauhaus + constructivism @ Neue Nationalgalerie

Para-Bauhaus El Lissitzky at Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin 2011:

Bauhaus Meister László Moholy-Nagy at Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin 2011:

Chad Gadya: Stella after Lissitzky

I experienced an art overdose yesterday, trying to squeeze in too much within a one-day time frame.  I was really exhausted.  I should never do that again.

It has been raining in Berlin for two days now.  There's really nothing better to do than to stay indoors.  I visited Daimler Contemporary, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart and  Mies van der Rohe's Neue Nationalgalerie yesterday.  There's so much to see in HBMfG that I could have dwelt in there for the entire day.  I went to Deutsche Guggenheim and Kunstwerk today - at a much better pace.  I've seen so much these past two days that there is a lot that I can possibly write about.  But I think, for now, I'll just write about what I saw at NN last evening.

Two great masters were brought together at NN with Frank Stella's illustrations after El Lissitzky's Chad Gadya.  Lissitzky made illustrations for the old Jewish song Chad Gadya in the late 1910s.  More than 60 years later, Stella made new illustrations for the same song, having been inspired by Lissitzky's original work.  I like Stella's version better since Lissitzky has not quite matured to his suprematist style at that time yet.  Stella's work is, to my delight, geometric based.

Stella at Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin 2011:

Suprematist geometry

Pioneer of Russian suprematism in the early 20th century, El Lissitzky was one of the first visual artists employing pure geometry in his works.  From 1922:

Image from Design: El Lissitzky, John Milner 2009