Isidore Isou (1925–2007)

Isidore Isou was born Ioan-Isidor Goldstein to a Jewish family in Botoşani, Romania. He left school at age 15 and began his career as an avant-garde art journalist during World War II. With the future social psychologist Serge Moscovici, he founded the magazine Da, which was soon after closed down by the authorities. In 1945, he escaped to Paris, France, where he became a poet, painter, film critic, playwright, novelist, film director, economist, and visual artist. He was the founder with Gabriel Pomerand of Lettrism, an art and literary movement inspired by Dadaism and Surrealism. Isou's political writings eventually influenced the events of May 1968 in France. Many of his works, and those of the other Lettrists, have recently been reprinted in new editions, together with much previously unpublished material. These include Isou's massive theoretical book La Créatique ou la Novatique ("Creatics," 1941-1976, 1,390 pages). In 2007, Kino International released a DVD collection Avant-Garde 2: Experimental Films 1928-1954, which included Isou's revolutionary 1951 film Traité de bave et d'éternité ("Venom and Eternity").