Iliazd: From 41° to Dada

Lecture announcement: Zdanévitch, Nouvelles écoles dans la poésie russe
(New Schools of Russian Poetry), 41°, Paris-Passy (November 27, 1921), 1921
Letterpress, 10 3/4 x 8 1/4” (27.3 x 21 cm)

Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, Il'ia Zdanevich (French, born Georgia, 1894–1975) studied in St. Petersburg, where he encountered pioneers of Russian Futurist art and poetry including Aleksei Kruchenykh, Mikhail Larionov, and Vladimir Mayakovsky. At war’s end, Zdanevich returned to his hometown of Tiflis (now Tblisi), the capital of Georgia, where he founded the publishing house 41°; the number was chosen to indicate a feverish artistic temperature, four degrees Celsius above the normal temperature of the human body. “The task of 41°,” declared its 1919 manifesto, “is to make use of all the great discoveries of its contributors, and to place the world on a new axis.” 

Zdanevich—who first published under the shorted version of his name, Iliazd, in 1920—obtained a visa to enter Paris in 1921, where he organized lectures under the auspices of the comically pompous Université du 41° faculté russe (University of the 41st Degree, Russian Faculty). On key issues such as a commitment to semantic abstraction and the self-conscious embrace of exile status, Zdanevich’s 41° and Tristan Tzara’s Dada recognized a kinship. When Tzara was banned from holding Dada events at the Théâtre Michel in Paris, Zdanevich booked the theater on his behalf for the legendary Soirée du Coeur à barbe (The Bearded Heart Soirée) of 1923, for which Iliazd also designed the flyer.

Lecture announcement: Iliazd, L'Eloge de Ilia Zdanévitch nommé l’ange
(Eulogy for Ilia Zdanevitch as Angel), 41°, Paris (May 12, 1922), 1922
Lithograph, 21 5/8 x 18 7/8” (54.9 x 47.9 cm)

Lecture announcement (left) and ticket (right): Ilia Zdanévich, La Maison sur la mer’e [sic]: Les Intellectuels et l’empire (The House on the Sea:
The Intellectuals and the Empire), 41°, Paris (April 16, 1922), 1922
Both letterpress, 5 5/8 x 8 5/8” (4.3 x 21.8 cm) and 3 3/8 x 5” (8.5 x 12.7 cm)

Lecture announcement: Ilia Zdanévitch, Philippe Soupault, and Tristan Tzara, Paris-Passy (November 28, 1922), 1922
Lithograph, 12 3/4 x 9 7/8” (32.3 x 24.8 cm)

Announcement: Soirée du Coeur à barbe (The Bearded Heart Soirée),
Paris (July 6 and 7, 1923), 1923
Letterpress, 10 1/4 x 8 1/8" (26 x 20.6 cm)

N.[aum] Granowsky
Cover of the book: Iliazd, Lidantiu faram / Ledentu le Phare (Lidantiu as a Beacon). Preface by Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, typography by the author.
Paris: 41°, October 1923. Edition: 530
Cut-and-pasted metallic paper, perforated cork, faux leather,
and letterpress on board, 7 1/2 x 5 5/8” (19 x 14 cm)