Cover for Roztočené Jeviště (The Turned Staged) 1925

The Czech artist Jindrich Styrsky made this book cover, Roztočené Jeviště, sometime before 1942. The palette's pretty muted—blues and blacks—and the collage-like layout feels both playful and unsettling. I'm thinking about Styrsky in his studio, cutting and pasting, trying to piece together this weird, almost theatrical scene. There's this tension between the mechanical figure on the left and the, like, showgirl on the right. They're almost touching, but not quite. The composition is so interesting, the verticality and the geometric shapes versus the organic curves of the figures. I wonder if he was thinking about the relationship between man and machine, or maybe it was about performance and artifice? The title is in bold, almost shouting, and adds another layer of intrigue. It makes me think about other surrealist artists like Hannah Höch or Man Ray, who were also experimenting with collage and photomontage. These artists are all in conversation with each other, playing off one another's ideas and pushing the boundaries of what art can be. And I love how this book cover is all about leaving you with more questions than answers.