Alexei Mikhailovich Gan (1893–1942) was one of the originators of Russian Constructivism in the 1920s. He developed a unique theoretical model of Constructivism as a socially oriented form of "intellectual production," distinguished himself as a master of Constructivist typography, directed documentary films, and formulated a theory of "mass spectacle" within the performing arts. He published and laid out the journal *Kinofot*, designed kiosks and film posters, and played a role in the formation of the Constructivist Group, the Association of Contemporary Architects (OSA), and the "October" association.
This book is the first Russian-language monograph on Alexei Gan. The author, Alexander Lavrentiev—an art historian, design scholar, professor at the Stroganov Russian State University of Design and Applied Arts, and a prominent advocate for the legacy of the Russian avant-garde (as well as the grandson of Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova)—constructs a portrait of his subject by drawing upon manifestos, the recollections of contemporaries, friends, and colleagues, and scholarly and critical analyses of Gan’s surviving or reconstructed creative body of work.