Visual Geometry: El Lissitzky and the Establishment of Conceptions of Space–Time in Avant-garde Art

The development of new spatial and temporal conceptions in twentieth-century art is examined through the prism of the ideas of El Lissitzky’s text “Art and Pangeometry.” A comparative analysis of space–time models in art, mathematics and physics indicates that at the beginning of the twentieth century, artistic experiments “had fallen behind” in the intensity of their conceptual construction of space. This text analyzes the ways in which irrational spaces were modeled in the theory and practice of El Lissitzky and the avant-garde in tandem with the move towards an artistic image of space–time.