G

G. The title of a magazine founded by Hans Richter in Berlin in 1923 with the intention of making it ‘the organ of the Constructivists in Europe'. There were six issues before it folded in 1926. Lissitsky, who had himself published a short-lived Constructivist journal called Vesch, suggested the single-letter title: ‘G’ stands for ‘Gestaltung’ (Formation). The first number contained an article by van Doesburg entitled ‘Elemental Formation', in which he discussed two opposing modes of expression. The art of the past, which he called ‘decorative', depended on individual taste and intuition. In contrast to this, the art of the present (by which he meant Constructivism) he called ‘monumental’ or ‘formative'. He claimed that Constructivist art is no longer impulsive or intuitive but done in accordance with objective aesthetic principles and that the Constructivist has ‘conscious control of his elemental means of expression'. Other contributors to the magazine included Arp, Hausmann, Man Ray, and Schwitters.