Institute of Izostat (Soviet ISOTYPE)

Avant-garde Center on Shabolovka
2018

This exhibition marked the first attempt to reconstruct the history of the Institute of Pictorial Statistics of Soviet Construction and Economy (IZOSTAT), which was established in Moscow in 1931. That same year, the creators of the "Viennese method of visual education"—later known internationally as ISOTYPE—the philosopher Otto Neurath and the graphic artist Gerd Arntz, were invited to Moscow as scientific consultants.

The IZOSTAT Institute was originally conceived as a scientific and methodological center, but its most lasting legacy lies in its publishing activities. Over the course of ten years, the institute produced dozens of albums, brochures, and posters. After 1935, its earlier democratic visual language gave way to more ceremonial and propagandistic publications. The most well-known example from this later period is the album "Moscow Under Reconstruction" (1938) by Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova. In 1940, the IZOSTAT Institute was dissolved.

The exhibition presented original publications by IZOSTAT and by the Visual Statistics Department of LENIZOGIZ, materials from the Vienna Social and Economic Museum, examples of pictorial statistics and infographics from the 1920s–1930s, and both copies and original archival documents belonging to one of the institute’s former staff members.

Curators
Nadezhda Andrianova
Evgenia Khaet

Exhibition Architecture
Aleksandra Selivanova

Graphic Design
Nadezhda Andrianova

Photography
Elena Balakireva