Curated by Margarita Tupitsyn

It doesn’t matter who did it first—Dadaists or Soviets—but why it was made. Photomontage, for Gustav Klutsis, was indivisible from communist ideology. Content preceded form in importance, and it was this, he claimed, that differentiated Dada photomonteur from Soviet. He and his wife, Valentina Kulagina (both were involved with vkhutemas), created a vast number of agitational objects; roughly 150 posters, photomontages, books, photographs, and preparatory designs from the 1920s and ’30s feature here. In addition to an extensive essay by the curator, the catalogue includes the artists’ letters and diaries and the first English translation of Klutsis’s key manifesto. The Soviets may or may not have done it first, but Klutsis did it best.

— Nicole Rudick