Timing is an important element for those wishing to see transition and evolution first hand. In Benjamin H.D. Buchloh’s “From Faktura to Factography” he chronicles and details the initial MOMA’s (Museum of Modern Art) director Alfred Barr’s journey to the Soviet Union as one last adventure to discover the extent of the avant-garde in order to collect a large spectrum of work done in this field for its presentation in the United States. During this trip his timing could not have been more perfect as the Russian Avant-Garde was in the middle of one of the biggest swings of artistic creation in its history. The preceding decades in Russian art had been rich with bold new innovators to the genre of avant-garde art. But at this time the totalitarian Soviet Regime was about to take the Russian art scene out of this era of monumental artistic flare. It seems tragic that such a wonderfully free and lively environment of art was too alter itself underneath Socialist oppression. But Barr made use out of this encounter as he could then first hand witness such a change taking place. Not many people can live to see significant evolution transpire before them and Barr realized he must document this. So he describes in detail what he experienced as famed avant-garde artists like Tatlin or Malevich and rich novel genre’s like Laboratory Constructivism and late Suprematism gave way to what became known as factography, hence the name of the piece being from faktura to factography. His delineation of all of Faktura borne artists is what intrigued me most. He defines the origin of Faktura starting with Burliuk’s futurist manifesto “A Slap In the Face of Public Taste.” From there he chronologically lists the succeeding Faktura arts and artists. It almost gives a clear image of the timeline of Russian avant-garde which of course in and of itself is an interesting concept. Starting with cubism and futurism and rayonism Faktura evolved into Laboratory Constructivism at one end of the spectrum and arts like Suprematism at another end. I find this genology fascinating and it definitely heavily made possible by the passionate pursuit of Barr in his goal to document this momentous period in art history.