UNITY: Elaine Lustig Cohen (1951) is one of the best examples of unity. Here the fragments of type work together to create an overall flow with mood and attitude. Her use of greasy and black recalls images of traditional newspaper and print while removing the contents of language and applying formalist theory to image construction. Exceedingly modern and suspiciously “classy”, she’s managed to convey symbols as art.
Gestalt: Using Asymmetry here serves to heighten the sense of action and importance. The hand raised in salute relates significantly to the image of the hat and creates a “figure” where none actually exists. The face and body of the figure become the identifying text and the great wash of red between the objects. The over all feeling is one of powerful individualism and strength in anonymity.
Space: The Dadaists used space to heighten the effect of purposeful-randomness. The placement of items in these images becomes artificially organic. There seems to be some intentional obfuscation, but it’s hardly without form and consideration. The space becomes “part” of the overall work and manages to incorporate the vacant space with the printing. On a side note, I wonder if this cavalier use of empty space isn’t also a by-product of an industrialized print system wherein the cost of printing is low enough to allow non-informative material to be printed at price significantly lower then just a few years before.
Dominance: At first glance it’s obvious in any language what the message here is. The color and perspective is strong, if not aggressively. The swastika and numeral both crush and invite the ant-like masses below. The individual form is eradicated in lieu of the grander, and unified, symbol above. The impression becomes one of anti-individualism or, identity via assimilation.
Hierarchy: Here the page is filled with relative redundancies in content, color and guides the eye predominantly by the use of size. The Date and game information dominate the visual field while the less important information is divided and recessed by size. I think this is an exceptionally beautiful poster for anything…whatever Lumpen Ball might be I want to go.
Balance: Since the Dadaist were indirectly concerned with the modernization of art as well as experimental much of the print work focuses around the juxtaposition of new-vs.-old. Here old-timey images and calligraphic type is used to contrast new and decidedly modern numerals. The balance here is not only the fabulous placements of these otherwise incongruent items, but the balance of messages conveyed.
Rodchenko, in 1919 uses color in traditionally “wrong” ways. The goal in these pieces is to express grand excitement and loud announcement. The color serves to jarringly contrast the image and arouse the viewer’s sense of immediacy. Although I think this is a particularly ugly and, perhaps, clichéd example of this, the color really does “shout” from the page. All in all I admire him, but his work seems awfully in-elegant.
