ILIAzDE
Ilia Zdanevich
French and Georgian. 1894–1974
1922
A 1922 lithograph poster by Ilia Zdanevich that turns a lecture announcement into a visual provocation, using fractured French and Russian type to make language read as image.
Your eye is seized by dense, stenciled black type in varying sizes—a large, angular '11°', a jagged central divider resembling a map, and stacked columns of Cyrillic and Latin letters—so that reading becomes a rhythmic, puzzle-like experience.
The sheet is a hallmark of the Russian avant‑garde and zaum experiments, showing how typography could be sculpted as visual art and helping to redefine graphic design, concrete poetry, and multilingual modernist communication.
Medium
Lithograph
Dimensions
21 3/8 x 19 1/8" (54.3 x 48.7 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Arthur A. Cohen Purchase Fund
Accession
459.1985
Palette
Exhibitions
