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DOI Artikel:Kessler, Erwin: M. H. Maxy: Cubo-Constructivist Integralism
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51716#0142
ŠTÚDIE / ARTICLES
ARS 47, 2014, 2
M. H. Maxy:
Cubo-Constructivist Integralism
Erwin KESSLER
The first issue of the avant-garde magazine Inte-
gral appeared in Bucharest on lst March, 1925. Itwas
edited by a group of artists and writers inscribed on
the frontispiece, comprising Brunea Fox, Ion Calu-
garu, B. Fondáne, M. H. Maxy, Hans Mattis-Teutsch,
and Ilarie Voronca. A few months before, they were
involved in mounting the first, groundbreaking event
of the Romanian avant-garde, the First International
Exhibition of the avant-garde magazine Contimpo-
ranul (Bucharest, November-December 1924). Mul-
tiplying through rapid Splitting of small groups into
warring factions was a spécifie avant-garde phenom-
enon, as typical as the production of manifestos. The
reason for issuing Integral was presented almost half
a Century later, by M. H. Maxy, who was the actual
agency behind the foundation of the new magazine:
“Integral wanted to be a movement, wanted to have
a standpoint. One more constructive and modern.”1
Maxy, together with ex-Dada pillar Marcel lancu, was
in fact the curator of the First International Exhibi-
tion of Contimporanul, and a regulär contributor to
the Contimporanul magazine too. Yet, to him “those
from Contimporanul were too bourgeois...they
were not a movement or a tendency, but a kind of
forum where all the movements cohabitate.”2 The
Splitting of the local avant-garde meant the sépara-
tion from an originally ecumenical gathering (around
Contimporanul) of a more “progressive” (or ag-
gressive) element, intending to promote a coherent
ideology and artistic practice. Such a phenomenon
DRISCU, M.: Rétrospective: M. H. Maxy (interview). In: Arta,
1971, No. 4-5, Bucharest, p. 53. Itwas the last interview given
by Maxy.
is characteristic of the late avant-garde expansion,
after WW1. It is the reverse of the original, early
avant-garde development. Then the founders were
either individuals or very small, and extremely co-
herent groups, either like the first Cubists, Picasso
and Braque, working at the beginning almost se-
cluded, isolated by the visionary protectionism of
Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, or like Der Blaue Reiter
Expressionist team, so cohesive in its Output. The
Futurist junta Works like a paragon too, as it was
made up almost exclusively of Italian artists rallying
around one single figure, F. T. Marinetti. The deeds
of those small factions were afterwards endlessly
replicated and developed across the world through
exhibitions, publications and events. Contrariwise,
numberless ecumenical avant-garde events prolifer-
ated after the Great War. The avant-garde, activist
ecumenism had the Communist internationalism as
a model. The Novembergruppe in Berlin, for example,
had among its leading figures Expressionists such as
Max Pechstein, Dadaists such as Viking Eggeling,
Constructivists such as El Lissitzky, and Abstract
artists such as Wassily Kandinsky. Their Expression-
ist cubo-constructive-futurism was a paragon of the
avant-garde melting pot after WW 1, when the major
priority seemed to be less the artistic cohérence but
the activist and démocratie, missionary impetus
(the subséquent Juryfrei exhibitions will peak this
trend). The same is valid for the First International
Exhibition of Contimporanul, in late 1924, when,
2 Ibidem, p. 53
134
ARS 47, 2014, 2
M. H. Maxy:
Cubo-Constructivist Integralism
Erwin KESSLER
The first issue of the avant-garde magazine Inte-
gral appeared in Bucharest on lst March, 1925. Itwas
edited by a group of artists and writers inscribed on
the frontispiece, comprising Brunea Fox, Ion Calu-
garu, B. Fondáne, M. H. Maxy, Hans Mattis-Teutsch,
and Ilarie Voronca. A few months before, they were
involved in mounting the first, groundbreaking event
of the Romanian avant-garde, the First International
Exhibition of the avant-garde magazine Contimpo-
ranul (Bucharest, November-December 1924). Mul-
tiplying through rapid Splitting of small groups into
warring factions was a spécifie avant-garde phenom-
enon, as typical as the production of manifestos. The
reason for issuing Integral was presented almost half
a Century later, by M. H. Maxy, who was the actual
agency behind the foundation of the new magazine:
“Integral wanted to be a movement, wanted to have
a standpoint. One more constructive and modern.”1
Maxy, together with ex-Dada pillar Marcel lancu, was
in fact the curator of the First International Exhibi-
tion of Contimporanul, and a regulär contributor to
the Contimporanul magazine too. Yet, to him “those
from Contimporanul were too bourgeois...they
were not a movement or a tendency, but a kind of
forum where all the movements cohabitate.”2 The
Splitting of the local avant-garde meant the sépara-
tion from an originally ecumenical gathering (around
Contimporanul) of a more “progressive” (or ag-
gressive) element, intending to promote a coherent
ideology and artistic practice. Such a phenomenon
DRISCU, M.: Rétrospective: M. H. Maxy (interview). In: Arta,
1971, No. 4-5, Bucharest, p. 53. Itwas the last interview given
by Maxy.
is characteristic of the late avant-garde expansion,
after WW1. It is the reverse of the original, early
avant-garde development. Then the founders were
either individuals or very small, and extremely co-
herent groups, either like the first Cubists, Picasso
and Braque, working at the beginning almost se-
cluded, isolated by the visionary protectionism of
Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, or like Der Blaue Reiter
Expressionist team, so cohesive in its Output. The
Futurist junta Works like a paragon too, as it was
made up almost exclusively of Italian artists rallying
around one single figure, F. T. Marinetti. The deeds
of those small factions were afterwards endlessly
replicated and developed across the world through
exhibitions, publications and events. Contrariwise,
numberless ecumenical avant-garde events prolifer-
ated after the Great War. The avant-garde, activist
ecumenism had the Communist internationalism as
a model. The Novembergruppe in Berlin, for example,
had among its leading figures Expressionists such as
Max Pechstein, Dadaists such as Viking Eggeling,
Constructivists such as El Lissitzky, and Abstract
artists such as Wassily Kandinsky. Their Expression-
ist cubo-constructive-futurism was a paragon of the
avant-garde melting pot after WW 1, when the major
priority seemed to be less the artistic cohérence but
the activist and démocratie, missionary impetus
(the subséquent Juryfrei exhibitions will peak this
trend). The same is valid for the First International
Exhibition of Contimporanul, in late 1924, when,
2 Ibidem, p. 53
134