A Home for Hominstructs – John Ross and Russian Constructivism
(High Tide Press) A Home for Hominstructs. Prints by John Ross. Text by Selected Authors. New York. [1997.] 14″ x 10″. Multi-color collagraph images in a cut paper accordion that folds into a 3-D house. 20″ x 15″ x 14″. Plates made in Venice in 1994 and printed on an etching press in the High Tide print shop in 1995 and 1996. Text printed from Linotype Helvetica on a Vandercook proofing press, with display letters from wood type; printed on Coventry. In a tan cloth portfolio box with magnetized covers that open in the middle; the two front boards each have two recesses with a matching wood veneer and two flat knobs – giving the effect of a cupboard with opening front doors. Boxing made by James DeMarcantonio. No. 5 in an edition of 15 copies, signed by John Ross. Fine.
Colophon: “The collagraph plates for this project show the metamorphosis of structures into people, or hominstructs, with a text from early Russian Constructivist architects.” The whole opens to form a marvelous, vibrant structure of a house. Text by Russian Constructivist authors – Lazar Lissitsky, Ilya Golosov, Alexander Nikolsky, Nikolai Ladovsky, Alexander Vesnin, Moisei Ginzburg.
Ross writes: “A Home for Hominstructs is based on the same principles of transformation and regeneration, [as in An Architectural Bestiary] with a title page and text influenced by Russian Constructivist architects of the 1920s and 1930s. It is my hope to be able to develop some sculpture from these images.”
Related items: Artists' Books, Catalogue 37 - Summer 2009, High Tide Press, John Ross