Csaplár Ferenc szerk.: Lajos Kassák / The Advertisement and Modern Typography (1999)
Ferenc Csaplár: Kassák the Book and Advertisement Artist
Konstruktive Kunst. The poster for Ma's Vienna Evening on 8 May 1926, 616x499 mm, Kassák Museum issue of Ma, it was not only the layout, the typographical arrangement of the text, that was the visual expression of the idea but also the system of geometric figures made up of rules. The cover page of the 15 September 1923 issue may be regarded as an advertisement, the propagation of a political programme through text and graphic elements; the graphic composition, which consisted of the large black characters of the magazine title, a red square and the text "To create, organise and appropriate" was bordered by a monumental red exclamation mark on the right and by the subtitle Activist Journal below the rule underneath. As a result of the ingenious construction, the word Ma functioned not only as a magazine title, but also as a word calling attention to timely tasks. This strident, poster-like cover, or advertisement used as a cover, launched the series of works in Kassák's advertising graphic arts oeuvre whose principal element was a red square. This was the geometric figure which, as a result of the artistic and theoretical work of Malevich, could be regarded as the formal equivalent of a revolutionary world view and new world structure as well as the symbol of creative power as of the end of the 1910s. Kassák further expressed his attraction to this early form of Supremacism by publishing his magazine in a square format as of October 1922. He often liked to use the square in cover designs when promoting his own work. He published his lino cuts in a folder on the green cover of which he printed a black square within a black border. 3 0 He also used this arrangement on the cover of his political pamphlet entitled Álláspont, Tények és új lehetőségek (Viewpoint : Fact and New Possibilities). 3 1 The eye-catching graphic figure on the cover of his volume of poems entitled 1924 was a red square framed in black. 3 2 The cover of the 1924 DÚR folder had the same combination as the lino cut folder had had earlier: a portion of the black square was covered by a geometric element in another colour, as if breaking into or out of its field. 3 3 69
