Lajos Kassák: Picture Architecture

The black-and-white prints, created by the Hungarian artist and political activist Lajos Kassák (1887–1967), are an outstanding example of the use of a minimalist aesthetic to call for social change. In the early 20th century, Constructivism’s radical fusion of social critique and artistic approach distilled the message to an abstract, clear arrangement of unadorned geometric forms.

The linocut technique originally employed by Kassák in his “Picture-Architecture” (Bildarchitektur) was extremely well suited to this purpose. The prints’ publication as a portfolio in 1965 testifies to the delayed recognition of his art, as does the Budapest museum that was dedicated to Kassák’s work after his death.

Kassák published a periodical called MA, meaning “today” and short for Magyar Aktivismus (Hungarian activism). The issues displayed in the exhibition include poetry, a novel, and a manifesto by Kassák dating from the 1920s, who also designed their covers. A later cooperation with the Hungarian-French artist Victor Vasarely led in 1961 to a joint portfolio in which six of Kassák’s early works were reproduced as screenprints, two of which can be seen here.

Bildarchitektur

Portfolio; linoleum cut and screenprint, 13/100, 1965

Gift of Robert Lewin, London