Viktor Goppe

(1962 - )               [

The seventh poem

Moscow: Goppe, 2016

230 x 230 mm. 12 pages

Edition: 12. Copy nr. 3/12.

‘The seventh poem’ by Aleksandr Vvedenskii (1904-1941) is the seventh book in a series of 10 published and edited by Viktor Goppe. They all have the same format but are illustrated with lithographs by different artists. This book contains two poems by Vvedenskii and two colour lithographs by Goppe. For the book ‘A discussion about cards’ (cat. 142) Vladimir Nemukhin (1925-2016) designed the lithographs, while Francisco Infante (born 1943) designed the lithographs for ‘A discussion on the absence of poetry’ (cat. 149), both are internationally recognized artists. Nowadays the poet Aleksandr Vvedenskii (1904-1941) is considered among Russian writers and literary scholars to be one of the most important and original Russian poets together with the great poet Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922), whom Vvedenskii admired. In the early 1920s Vvdenskii studied with famous Futurist avant-garde artists. In 1928 in Leningrad, together with the famous absurdist Daniil Kharms (1905-1942), Vvedenskii founded OBERIU: the Association for Real Art. As his works could not be published because of Soviet censorship, Vvedenskii, just as Kharms, turned to the children’s book and worked for the State Publisher of Children’s Books (Detgiz) in Leningrad which was led by Samuil Marshak (1887-1964), the writer and editor who gathered the finest writers and illustrators for children’s books and magazines of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1931 Vvedenskii was arrested, accused of being an ant-Soviet writer, but he was released in 1932. In 1938 Marshak and his group of artists and writers was accused of ant-Soviet behaviour by the Soviet authorities. Marshak moved to Moscow and Vvedenskii to Kharkov where he was arrested in September 1941 and died of pleurisy during his transport to Kazan. With lithographs by Viktor Goppe.

References:

2016, Eindhoven VAM, nr. 158