David Burliuk

(1882 - 1967)

5589

David Burliuk a.o.

Садок Судей

A trap for judges

St. Petersburg: Zuravl, 1910

125 x 120 mm. 132 pages

Edition: 300

The first half of the year 1910 was a time of immense activity for David Burliuk. He took part in almost every debate about painting and poetry, proselytizing for modern art, not only in the capital but also in the provinces. The deep bond between poetry and art, many artists being master in one or both of these fields, was changing the conception of art in Russia. Whereas former classical metres were dictating poetry, now the sound was giving free reign. In book art the book beautiful was being replaced by the book as a carrier of both sound and image on an equal basis. This anthology of poetry is central in the development of Russian Avant-garde book art. David Burliuk, the ‘father of Russian Futurism introduced a new concept of book presentation. In contrast to earlier books by members of the Mir Iskusstva, like Bilibin and Benois, these publications were not meant to please the eye or the ear, but to provoke. Instead of chromolithography on costly paper of the State Stationery Office, these books were printed in plain black and white on cheap wall paper. The printing on wallpaper had one disadvantage: the machines had to be cleaned often from the chalk of the paper. Although printed in an edition of 300, due to problems with paying the printer, only a few copies exist today. A trap for judges was produced by David Burliuk and had 9 drawings by his brother Vladimir, mainly portraits of the participating authors.

References:

Markov 1969 p. 22

Ex libris 1974, no. 38

Compton 1978, p. 60

Compton 1983, plates 6-10

Munich 1993, no. 19

Paris 1995, p. 61

Otaru, 1996, p. 21

Getty 1997, no. 151

Lavrentiev 2000, p.13

Moma 2002, no. 1

Nijmegen 2004, p. 51