Raves wk 5 term 1
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Modernity - the social conditions that are seen as the effects of the processes of modernisation (ie the range of technological, economic and political processes associated with the Industrial Revolution and its aftermath) - the modes of experience of those social conditions (ie the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age; a general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of
description
Transcript of Raves wk 5 term 1
Modernity- the social conditions that are seen as the effects of the processes of modernisation (ie the range of technological, economic and political processes associated with the Industrial Revolution and its aftermath)- the modes of experience of those social conditions (ie the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age; a general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of the period
It is instructive to consider some of the other significant
ideas emerging in the 19th century which influenced
thinking significantly:
• Karl Marx + Friedrich Engels (1848) The Communist Manifesto
• Charles Darwin (1872) On the Origin of Species
• Sigmund Freud (1900) The Interpretation of Dreams
some features of Modernity:
• Industrialisation• Urbanisation and the growth of cities• The growth of capitalism• Communication - telegrams and telephones• Technology - cinema and photography
Modernism?
Modernism:
the cultural movements that arose within the changes in Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The term covers art, architecture, music, literature and the applied arts.
The term ‘Modernism’ tends not to be used as a blanket term to cover all the art of the modern period. Rather, it is a form of quality or value normally associated with certain works only and serving to distinguish these from others.
ModernismModernism was a broad movement,encompassing numerous sub-
movements(-isms, eg Cubism, Fauvism,
Impressionism...)
Even though many of the groups were not
compatible with one another, what they all
tended to agree on was a rejection of theprevious notion of the purpose of art,
that ofserving or reflecting nature. Instead, theydeveloped experimental approaches toart/design/ architecture, looked towards Art itself and the human experience; art for the sake of art.
Piet Mondrian,Composition No VI,1914
modernism - the rejection of naturalism
Pablo Picasso (1907)Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
George Braques (1910)Violin and Candlestick
Henri Matisse (1905)Green Stripe
Modernism
Key Modernist expressions: experimental, radical, readymade, primitive, the unconscious, spiritualism, expressive truth, art & industry, internationalism
Key Modernist artists: Pablo Picasso, Jean Arp, Marc Chagall, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Max Ernst, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, Egon Schiele, Fernand Léger, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Barbara Hepworth, Frida Kahlo, Joan Miró, Yves Tanguy, Lucio Fontana, Mark Rothko, etc.
Christian Schad, Shadograph, 1919
modernism - in search of modernity
Camille Pisarro (1897)Boulevard Montmartre at Night
Pierre Bonnard (1906/7)Place Clichy
• What is an art manifesto?– Often associated with the avant-garde movements
of Modernism– A declaration of set artistic goals, purposes
and ideas• What purpose does an art manifesto serve?
– A symbol, differentiates the group from other groups– A record; an historical mark (art history)– Bringing groups of people together, esp. with
Modernism’s international associations in mind
Tristan Tzara
“A manifesto is a communication made to the whole world, whose only pretension is to the discovery of an instant cure for political, astronomical, artistic, parliamentary, agronomical and literary syphilis.”
Avant-garde:Cutting-edge, forefront, progressive, experimental, radical, unconventional, breaking ground...
Art Manifestos
Art ManifestosA range of art manifestos can be found in relation to various 20th Centurymodernist art movements:
Futurist Manifesto (1909)Vorticist Manifesto (1914)Dada Manifesto (1916)de Stijl (1918)Surrealist Manifesto (1924)
Research task:
• Each group is to read [extracts from] and discuss a specific art manifesto.
Futurist Manifesto (1909)Vorticist Manifesto (1914)Dada Manifesto (1916)de Stijl (1918)Surrealist Manifesto (1924)
Futurism (1909-16)
Futurism (1909-16)
F.T. Marinetti (1909)The Futurist Manifesto
MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM (extracts)
4. We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.
5. We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses the earth, itself hurled along its orbit.
8. We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries! What is the use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed.
9. We want to glorify war — the only cure for the world — militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.
10. We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.
Futurism (1909-16)
Umberto Boccioni (1915)Charge of the Lancers
Futurism (1909-16)
Umberto Boccioni (1913)Unique Forms of Continuity in Space
‘Futurists have abolished quietness and statism’
Umberto Boccioni
Futurism (1909-16)
Antonia Sant’Elia (1914) La Citta Nuova
Luigi Russolo, Ugo Piatti (1914)intonarumori
Futurism (1909-16)
“Repelled by the slaughterhouses of the world war, we turned to art. We searched for an elementary art that would, we thought, save mankind from the furious madness of these times ... we wanted an anonymous and collective art.” (Hans Arp)
Dada (1916-22)
Dada (1916-22)
Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich
Hugo Ball (1917) Karawane
HOW TO MAKE A DADAIST POEM (T.Tzara)
Take a newspaper.Take some scissors.Choose from this paper an article of the length you want to make your poem. Cut out the article.Next carefully cut out each of the words that makes up this article and put them all in a bag.Shake gently.Next take out each cutting one after the other.Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.The poem will resemble you.And there you are - an infinitely origial author of charming sensibility, even though unapprecia-ted by the vulgar herd.
Dada (1916-22)
Raoul Hausmannf m s b w t ö z ä u
1918
Dada (1916-22)
Hans ArpCollage made according to the Laws of Chance1916
Dada (1916-22)
Dada (1916-22)
Hannah Höch (c1919) Cut with the Cake Knife
Marcel Duchamp (1917)Fountain
Dada (1916-22)
Dada (1916-22)
‘Art for us is an occasion for social criticism, and for a real understanding of the age we lived in.’ Hugo Ball
Dictionary: Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation.
Encyclopedia: Surrealism. Philosophy. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life.
Andre Breton (1924) The Surrealist Manifesto
Surrealist Manifesto
Andre Masson (c1924)Automatic Drawing
Surrealism
Surrealism
Oscar Dominguez (1936)Decalcomania without Preconceived Object 1
Andre Breton (c1924)Poeme
Surrealism
Surrealism
Rene Magritte (1937)Not to be reproduced
Modernism = Avant-Garde?
Modernism represents a withdrawal from politics and the public realm (art for art’s sake), which the avant-garde sought to reverse through the formation of a new politicized institution of art merged with life.
The introduction of the Box Brownie“You press the button, we do the rest”
1902
• Alfred Stieglitz organizes "Photo Secessionist" show in New York City, a movement concerned with recognising and embracing photography as a fine art. Acknowledging the possibilities of the contribution of the photographer (through soft focus, dark room manipulation etc) in the creation of the artwork.
Battleship Potemkin, The Stenberg Bros Film Posters, 1929
Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907
Hine, Lewis, Glass Factory, 1908
Lewis Hine hired by US National Child Labour Committee to photograph children working mills,1909
Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring 1913
1914, Outbreak of War
1917 Russian Revolution
Constructivism (1919-22)
El Lissitzky (1919) Beat the Whites with the Red wedge
‘Lissitsky’s vision for photography was both anti-pictorialist and multi- faceted. Above all, photography was to be at the service of the proletariat, part of the modernist revolution in which all art would act as a catalyst for social change. The artist, as Margit Rowell has written, would function firstly, ‘as a “worker” comparable to the proletarian worker, and eventually as a “constructor” or “engineer”. The notion of art as the expression of individual genius was officially proscribed, and replaced by an art that would be politically effective, socially useful and mass produced.’Badger, G. The Genius of Photography: How
photography has changed our lives, Quadrille Publishing Limited, 2007, p.59
