Situating Proun within El Lissitzky’s Oeuvre, 1919-1926

una aproximación al significado de Proun, 1919-1926

Abstract

In this article, we situate the term “Proun”, a polyvalent and ambiguous— yet operative—concept conceived and developed between 1919 and 1926 by the Soviet artist El Lissitzky. Trained as an engineer-architect, Lissitzky gained prominence after the 1917 Revolution, collaborating with artists such as Kazimir Malevich in the creation of an avant-garde abstract art rooted in geometric forms. Proun was the framework through which Lissitzky brought painting and architecture into relation, in terms that sought to surpass the disciplinary specificities traditionally associated with these fields. Proun is not an object, but a concept that manifests itself in different works disseminated by the artist through various media—textual, graphic, plastic, and exhibition-related. Despite this multiplicity of media, the central focus remains the relationship between painting and architecture, understood from an expanded perspective of spatiality. To focus the analysis on Proun requires us to focus on this relationship. To address this issue, we combine historical-conceptual methods, supported by bibliographic research, with the critical analysis of texts. We draw on primary and secondary sources, including books and studies on Lissitzky’s trajectory, many of which remain scarcely accessible in Portuguese.