Subject: Cinema

Iconic Soviet art journal that defined an era.

In the wake of the Russian Revolution, the group “Left Front of the Arts” was formed in Moscow, bringing together creative people of the era—avant-garde poets, writers, photographers, and filmmakers, including Vladimir Mayakovsky, Osip Brik, and others. The group’s philosophy was to re-examine the ideology of so-called leftist art, abandon individualism, and increase art’s role in building communism. The group considered itself as the only representative of revolutionary art. In 1923 they founded the journal LEF (ЛЕФ [Левый фронт искусств], Left Front of the Arts), which was published until 1925. In 1927, it was succeeded by Novyi LEF (Новый ЛЕФ, New LEF) and published until 1928. Despite its short run of only 33 issues, LEF inspired entire movements and artists not only in Russia, but throughout the world.

LEF served as a forum for intense debate, including manifestos, polemics and critical articles on photography, film, theater, architecture, and design. The journal encouraged experimentation with writing and promoted the idea of “factography,” or the use of language or art to describe or depict the realities of everyday life in the Soviet Union. The journal also championed photography and film as the most suitable forms for postrevolutionary art. The journal’s striking illustrations and covers, many of which were designed by the renowned artist and photographer Alexander Rodchenko, served as an alternative model for realism, challenging the grand, monumental style that was quickly dominating official Soviet art.

The LEF Digital Archive comprises the entire collection of the 33 published issues, completely digitized for the first time (over 450 articles). The archive offers scholars the most comprehensive collection available for this title, and features full-text articles with full page-level digitization and complete original graphics. The archive has searchable text, and is cross-searchable with numerous other Infoteka digital resources.

Critical journal from the early years of Russian cinema.

The beginning of 1920s in the Soviet Russia is known for fresh creative cinematographic forces. It was in this era that world-renowned directors such as Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Trauberg, Ermler, Ardov, Kozintsev and other artists of the first generation of Soviet directors made their debut. Kino-zhurnal A.R.K. (Кино-журнал А.Р.К., Cinema-Journal A.R.K.), published by the Association of Revolutionary Cinematography, is where these groundbreaking directors expounded on their art, reflecting the dynamic era of 1920s Soviet Russia. New theories simultaneously pushed the limits on and aligned with Soviet thought on film montage, and debate in the pages of the journal led to novel methods of movie editing and directing. The painter Kazimir Malevich also contributed to the journal, describing his views towards cinema as an art form.

Kino-zhurnal A.R.K. also covered Soviet, European, American and Asian film news, film technology, international cinema industry exhibitions like the 1925 Berlin Film Exhibition. The US film industry was booming at that time, with some pages dedicated to American actors and new film out of Hollywood. The magazine also published sociological data on Soviet viewers and film statistics.

The constructivist design of the magazine covers was created by Piotr Galadzhiev (1900-1971), a well-known Soviet artist and illustrator for several early Soviet film publications (Kino-Glaz, Kinopechat, etc.).

An extremely rare Soviet film magazine, only twelve issues of this monthly magazine were published. The magazine ceased publishing in 1926 when its editor Nikolay Lebedev wrote an article blaming Maxim Gorky for disliking cinema as a genre. Although Lebedev later apologized, he was nevertheless fired soon after and the magazine was transformed into a different journal, Kino-front.

The Kino-Zhurnal A.R.K. Digital Archive contains all published issues of the journal (1925-1926) for a total of 12 issues and 444 articles. The archive features full page-level digitization, complete original graphics, and searchable text, and is cross-searchable with numerous other Infoteka digital resources.

Short-lived but influential Russian cinema and photographic art journal.

Kino-fot (Кино-фот, Cinema-Photo), the legendary Russian cinema and photographic art journal, represented the core of the Gan-Rodchenko-Stepanova collaboration. Published in 1922-1923, issues of the journal were illustrated throughout with typographic designs and photos of abstract compositions by Rodchenko; articles by Kuleshov, Dziga Vertov and N. Bernstein, and numerous letterpress designs. All advertisements were also designed in dynamic black and red Constructivist style. Photography and cinema were both still very new and exciting for a new emerging audience and its photomontage pictures, avant-garde layouts, unusual types and other elements put the Kino-fot journal on the very edge of design and influenced the creative flow of the 1920s.

The Kino-fot Digital Archive contains all published issues of the journal (1922-1923) for a total of six issues and 99 articles. The archive features full page-level digitization, complete original graphics, and searchable text, and is cross-searchable with numerous other Infoteka digital resources.