An acronym for “Project for the Affirmation of the New,” Proun referred to El Lissitzky’s desire to merge art and life—a process that he believed would occur in a new, utopian society. Inspired by the idealist fervor of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the abstract, avant-garde compositions of the Proun series were conceived by Lissitzky as “stations” that combined two-dimensional painting and three-dimensional architecture. Proun 3A rejects traditional standards of perspective: its various geometric elements appear to hover weightlessly and lack any sense of relative scale. The absence of a horizon line suggests that the composition stretches to infinity.

Wall label, 2021.