Olga Rózanova

Libro transracional, 1916

(Transrational Book) 

In the 1910s, Russia was at the forefront of a period of maximum experimentation in the languages of art, literature and theatre. Moscow and St Petersburg became the nerve centres where artists, poets, dramatists and composers all participated in the formulation of avant-garde art, guided by the slogan “art in life and life in art”. The creators of culture adopted the aim of disseminating the change of paradigm with regard to academic conventions and the influence of French Post-Impressionism. Through groups such as Soyuz Molodezhi (Union of Youth) or Bubnovyy Valet (Jack of Diamonds), both of which began in 1910 and in which Olga Rozanova (Melenki, Russia, 1886 – Moscow, Russia, 1918) played an important part, they combined efforts, organised exhibitions, created magazines, published books, and so on. These groups served as vehicles for the shaping of a specifically Russian avant-garde language, Cubo-Futurism, in 1913. All this was accompanied by the publication of manifestos – “Poshchechina obshchestvennomu vkusu” (A Slap in the Face of Public Taste), 1912, signed by David Burliuk, Aleksei Kruchenykh, Velimir Khlebnikov and Vladimir Mayakovsky – and by periods spent by artists in Paris and other European capitals, as in the cases of Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova, the creators of Rayonism (1913), or artistic exchanges, such as the visit made by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti to St Petersburg in 1914 and the participation of a group of Russian artists, including Rozanova, in the exhibition Esposizione Libera Futurista Internazionale, held in Rome that year.

Another event that took place in 1913 was the presentation of the opera Pobeda nad Solntsem (Victory over the Sun), an example of a choral work, with music by Mikhail Matyushin, costumes by Kazimir Malevich and a libretto written in transrational language (zaum) by Aleksei Kruchenykh, the creator of that style. This opera is considered one of the works that inaugurated Russian modernity, leading to the abstract languages that were then being formed. The exhibitions Tramvai V (Tramway V, March 1915) and 0,10. Poslednyaya futuristicheskaya vystavka kartin (0,10. The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings, December 1915) were two other key moments in the recognition of a real Russian avant-garde that had broken away from the naturalistic tradition and set aside the influence of Cézanne, and they gave glimpses of the two movements that were to dominate the art scene in the following years: Malevich’s Suprematism and Vladimir Tatlin’s Constructivism.

Zaumnaya gniga exemplifies that moment of flowering, rupture and definition of languages, of their hybridisation and coexistence (visual, textual, auditory and physical). It consists, on the one hand, of a series of short poems by Aleksei Kruchenykh and Aliagrov (Roman Jakobson) written in transrational language (zaum), and, on the other, of three collages – two on the inside pages and one on the cover, in which there is a heart-shaped figure cut out of red paper with a white button in the centre – and nine linocuts in various colours made by Olga Rozanova. The result is a collaborative work that sets out to break some of the intrinsic principles of the illustrated book: abandoning the idea that the images should accompany and complement the poems, and breaching the principle of a page with text fitted into its space in a series of horizontal lines, read from top to bottom and from left to right. Furthermore, the text has not been composed by means of movable type and printed mechanically but has been printed by the use of rubber stamps. All this forms part of the idea of zaum, which was quite close to other contemporary visual/textual exercises such as the Futurist parole en libertà, and which argued in favour of a realism without meaning, breaking the relationship between sign and signification, emptying words and experimenting with their expressive sonority.

With regard to Rozanova’s contribution, the nine linocuts refer to figures from a pack of cards, a theme that she developed in a series of paintings while she was making Zaumnaya gniga. In contrast with the simple forms of the three collages, in which she uses physicality and contrast, in the linocuts she combines Cubo-Futurist devices (simultaneity of planes, a profusion of angles and broken lines) with reminiscences of the imagery and printing technique of the traditional Russian print (lubok).

Rozanova is a central figure in the processes through which the Russian avant-garde was established. In addition to her activity in various groups, an area of special importance in which she was active was that of books and publishing. She designed many book covers, and with Kruchenykh she also made the distinctly Cubo-Futurist Te li le (1914) and the album Voina (War, 1916). After joining the Suprematist group, in 1916 she moved to Moscow and took a prominent part in their activities and publications. After the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917 she became involved in the reform of art education, working for Izo Narkompros (the Visual Arts Department of the People’s Commissariat of Education) together with Alexander Rodchenko. After her early death in 1918 she was recognised with a posthumous exhibition the same year, the first Gosudarstvennaia vystavka (State Exhibition) of art.

References

Dadá ruso 1914–1924. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía,Madrid, 2018.

A Slap in the Face! Futurists in Russia. Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London, 2007.

Nina Gurianova: Exploring Color. Olga Rozanova and the Early Russian Avant-garde, 1910–1918. G B Arts International, Amsterdam, 2000.

Rocío Robles Tardío, 50 Obras maestras 1900-1950, IVAM, València, 2019, p.84.