"Lissitzky was at first able to sustain a radical suspension of alternatives, to destabilize the spectator's spatial assumptions - as analogues for social assumptions - without replacing them with ready-made solutions; but that, as the dictatorship [of Stalinism ] grew in power, it overwhelmed this fragile possibility and inserted its own new/old closures into the sphere of graphic and ideological work alike. As long as Lissitzky kept intact the Utopian force of his (political) desire the radical project was sustainable; but as soon as the circumstances closed off his Utopian impulse, he was faced with no possibilities other than silence or service."
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Paul Wood quotes here two times Yve-Alain Bois, in his article 'El Lissitzky: Radical Reversibility', in 'Art in America', April 1988, p. 175
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/El_Lissitsky
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El Lissitsky
Lazar Markovich Lissitzky [Лазарь Маркович Лисицкий] (November 23, 1890 – December 30, 1941), more famous as El Lissitzky [Эль Лисицкий], was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer, and architect. He was an active protagonist of Russian Constructivism.
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