H2SO4, Tiflis, 1924, original printed wrappers

H2SO4 GROUP

H2SO4 [number] 1. Tiflis, 1924

4to (287 x 205mm.), print run of 1,000 copies, 48ff., printed paper wrappers, wrappers torn and detached

The H2SO4 Group, a Futurist-Dadaist movement, formed in Tiflis (Tblisi) in 1924, included Iraklii Gamrekeli, Beno Gordeziani, Niko Chachava and Simon Chikovani. This was its first and only publication, created with a dynamic typographic design by Gamrekeli, a set designer at the Rustaveli Theatre.

Tiflis had been a centre of avant-garde activity thanks to Ilya Zdanevich and his brother Kirill, natives of Tiflis, whose group 41 Degrees had included Kruchenykh and Terentev in the immediate post-revolutionary period; the Bolshevik invasion of Georgia in 1921 effectively put an end to this group, but their influence on local artists endured. Soviet control of Georgia was cemented in 1924, which perhaps explains why only one issue of H2SO4 was produced.

LITERATURE:

The Russian Avant-Garde Book 534