Cool Hunting

The Van Abbesmuseum in Eindhoven, Netherlands is set to open a three-year exhibit on the Soviet visionary El Lissitzky, dubbed the Lissitzky+ Project. The first of three one-year installments opens 19 September, 2009, giving up an entire floor to a man whose career was marked by contradictions. Interestingly, he alternately worked to preserve Jewish heritage in the former Russian empire and as a polemicist designing propaganda posters for Stalin.

This first installment, entitled Victory Over the Sun, takes its name from Lissitzky's futurist opera that premiered in St. Petersburg in 1913. A firm believer in the principle of "das zielbewußte Schaffen" (goal-oriented creation), Lissitzky's desire to inspire and educate is evident all the way to his very last work, a WWII propaganda poster with the imperative, "Davaite pobolshe tankov!" (Give us more tanks!).

Displaying sketches and lithographs from Lizzitky's electromechanical dolls, the Van Abbesmuseum has heightened the exhibit by following the artist's detailed how-to instructions painstakingly recreating many of these three-dimensional objects, including a six-meter high figurine displayed at the museum's lake.

The museum will continue with two more installments of Lissitzky which will run through 2012. For an in-depth look at his art, check out the Getty Research Institute's exhaustive collection of Lissitzky's work.

Lissitzky+ Project
Through 2 September 2012
Van Abbesmuseum
Bilderdijklaan 10
Eindhoven, The Netherlands map
tel. +31 (0)40 238 1000