Art1100 LVA 21-3 Modernism to WWII Online

Art 1100

Joan Jonas“They Come to Us without a Word”U.S. Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2015

Modernism Between WWI and WWII

Dead French soldiers in the Argonne.

WWI remains one of the bloodiest and most destructive wars ever. Its global impact on humanity was devastating. The allied powers -- Germany, France, and Britain - did not make any great gains and suffered and inflicted extraordinary casualties.

The Battle of Verdun, for example, lasted nine months and resulted in 300,000 dead and 750,000 injured.

The war resulted in nearly 9 million deaths

WWI

American railroad artillery detachment posed on a 14in. rail gun near Bassons, Gironde, France after the war.

WWIPart of the severity of World War I came from the influence of industry and science. New weapons; tanks, machine guns, poison gas, and larger artillery, with old style tactics lead to slaughter.

The promise of modernism just delivered more efficient ways to kill people quickly.

Modernism Escape the influence of history.Belief in cultural progress (linear history).Belief in science as a virtue (objectivity).Belief in universal truths that can be discovered.Fascination with the “Primitive” or elemental.

In painting this was interpreted as “paint” being independent from image thus “escaping” its roleas an imitation of life.

Motto: “Make it new!”

Bauhaus: Movement based on the belief that good art and design promote good society.UtopiaA perfect and just societyBuilt by man

Between the Wars

Dada: Movement based on distrust of rationality and “progress”.DystopiaExploitive and unjust societiesAlso built by human hands.

The dark side of science and technology was revealed when every major power in Europe was drawn into World War I beginning in 1914. The ideal of progress was shown to be utterly hollow, and 9 million people lost their lives in one of the bloodiest wars in history.

DADA:A group of artists waiting out the war in Zurich, in neutral Switzerland, banded together in a protest art movement called Dada.

Dada is a nonsense word, which these artists felt embraced the irrationality and chance of humanity itself.

Dada: anti-modernism

"In principle I am against manifestos, as I am also against principles."

- Tristan Tzara, 1919

DadaChance compositionsBelief in the irrationality of chance.A definitely anti-modernist point of view.

Hannah Höch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through Germany’s Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch, 1919.



Collage: Art technique, incorporating the use of pre-existing materials or objects attached as part of a two-dimensional surface. Closely associated with 20th-century art, as a metaphor for the pace and discontinuity of the modern world.

Hannah Höch: Astronomy and Movement Dada, 250×190 mm,

drawing and collage, 1922

To make a Dadaist poem:

• Take a newspaper.• Take a pair of scissors.• Choose an article as long as you are planning to

make your poem.• Cut out the article.• Then cut out each of the words that make up

this article and put them in a bag.• Shake it gently.• Then take out the scraps one after the other in

the order in which they left the bag.• Copy conscientiously.• The poem will be like you.• And here you are a writer, infinitely original and

endowed with a sensibility that is charming though beyond the understanding of the vulgar.

-Tristan Tzara

The Author of the Book "Fourteen Letters of Christ" in His Home, Johannes Baader (1920).

Indestructible Object (or Object to Be Destroyed)

Man Ray 1964 (replica of 1923 original).


http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=262


• Experimented with Cubism early in his career.

• Associated with Dada and Surrealist artists.

• Created the idea of the artistic “ready-made”.

• One of the most influential artists of the modern era.

Marcel Duchamp

(b 1887; d 1968)

French painter, sculptor and writer, active also in the USA.

Marcel Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q., 1919. Rectified ready-made, pencil on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa,


“L.H.O.O.Q.,” when read aloud sound phonetically similar to the French slang phrase elle a chaud au cul, politely translated as “she’s hot for it,”

Duchamp writing in”The Blind Man” NYC 1917


Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1963 replica

of 1917 original.

“Readymade”: an everyday object used as art.

Marcel Duchamp


Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1951. Third version, after lost original of 1913.

Assemblage,


"One can shout out through refuse."- Kurt Schwitters, 1919

Duchamp’s Readymade

To accept the readymade as art would mean that the work of the artist can be only selection. This implies that art is not the result of a crafting process, but rather a naming process.

Realize that photographer’s don’t really “craft” the images that they “find”, rather they select them from the world with their viewfinders, and the camera (a machine) crafts the image. Duchamp “readymade” is just a sculptural version of this same process.

Leads to new types of questions...“What is art?”“How do we know it’s art?”“Who determines if it’s art?”

Bottlerack, 1961 (replica of 1914 original)Marcel Duchamp


Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)Founder of “psychoanalysis”. Provided a critique of human consciousness, that modern life was hard because of sexual repression in early life.

Major concepts:•The “unconscious” or the drives.•Therapy based on self-realization of trauma and free association to reveal the unconscious. “Catharsis”•“Oedipus complex”•The divided human mind.

•Ego - Conscious self - reality principle•Id - Unconscious self - pleasure principle.•Superego- Unconscious internal societal norms- ego ideal.

Major Works: The Interpretation of Dreams, 1900

The randomness and irrationality that the Dada movement perceived in modern life was given an explanation by Sigmund Freud and the popularization of psychoanalysis.

Instead of being truly random, the world instead showed the movement of the “drives” in the subconscious mind. Only by becoming more aware of the actions of your own mind, and the minds of others could you really understand the world.

Hence a majority of Dada’s followers become Surrealists.

Surrealism

Surrealism

Salvador Dali (1904- 1989)Spanish artist from Madrid who traveled to Paris in 1928, where he met the Surrealists. Dalí’s contribution to Surrealist theory was the “paranoid-critical method,” a.k.a. the mind’s ability to misread ordinary appearances.

Other ArtistsAndre BretonJuan MiroYves TanguyMax Ernst

Key themes: sexuality, violence, and decay.

Includes more recognizable figures and forms but they also reveal the visual wonders of a subconscious mind run wild.

The Accommodations of Desire, 1929Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904–1989)

Surrealism

Andre Breton’s Definition of Surrealism

“Psychic automatism in its pure state... Dictated by thought, in absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.”

Two methods...1). automatic writing a.k.a. “stream of consciousness”2). using the irrational narratives of dreams.3). walking with no destination.

Goals....Greater truthfulness in depicting the actions of the unconscious than conscious mind.

Portrait of Gala

Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904-1989)

1935.

Surrealism


Surrealism

Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1931.

It epitomizes Dalí's theory of "softness" and "hardness", which was central to his thinking at the time. It is possible to recognize a human figure in the middle of the composition, in the strange "monster" that Dalí used in several period pieces to represent himself – the abstract form becoming something of a self-portrait, reappearing frequently in his work.

The orange clock at the bottom left of the painting is covered in ants. Dalí often used ants in his paintings as a symbol for death, as well as a symbol of female genitalia.

The clocks may symbolize the passing of time as one experiences it in sleep or the persistence of time in the eyes of the dreamer .

Surrealism

Illumined Pleasures, Salvador Dalí, 1929

Surrealism

Enigma of Desire: My ...Dali, Salvador, 1929

Surrealism

Great Masturbator, Dali, Salvador, 1929

Surrealism

Joan Miro, Person Throwing a Stone at a Bird, 1926.

Joan Miró, Carnival of the Harlequin, 1924-1925

Cadavre Exquis (French) with André Breton (French, 1896-1966), Max Morise (French, 1900-1973), Jeannette Tanguy, Pierre Naville (French, 1900-1993), Benjamin Péret (French, 1899-1959), Yves Tanguy (American, born France. 1900-1955) and Jacques Prévert (French, 1900-1977) 1928.

The Portrait

René Magritte, 1935

Surrealism










René MagritteBelgian, 1898–1967Time Transfixed, 1938

Surrealism

SurrealismOur unconscious orders our thoughts and “real life”.

By losing oneself, through dreaming, automatism or getting lost on a walk the unconscious object of desire is revealed.

The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí, 1952-54.

Surrealism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disintegration_of_the_Persistence_of_Memory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954

Man Ray, Champs delicieux, second rayogram, 1922.

RayogramMade by placing objects directly on the negative and exposing it to light.

Surrealism and Photography

Composition, 1929Maurice Tabard (French, 1897–1984)

Surrealism and Photography

Bunuel and Dali, An Andalusian Dog, 1928.

Film

Artists and Film

Salvador Dalí. Venus de Milo with Drawers. 1936. Original plaster of 1936 with metal knobs on the drawers and white fur tuft covers.

Surrealism

Lobster Phone by Salvador Dalí, 1938.

Surrealism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD

Mae West's Lips. Produced by Green & Abbott; artist Salvador Dali; Edward James, 1938, Felt and wood

Surrealism

Meret Oppenheim, Fur-covered Cup, Saucer, and Spoon (Le Déjeuner en Fourrure), 1936.

Surrealism

Meret Oppenheim ‘my nurse' 1936

Bauhaus: Movement based on the belief that good art and design promote good society.UtopiaA perfect and just societyBuilt by man

Between the Wars

Dada: Movement based on distrust of rationality and “progress”.DystopiaExploitive and unjust societiesAlso built by human hands.

Building New Societies

Across Europe a more optimistic approach to the postwar landscape emerged. It tried to use industrialization to positively influence human behavior by making better and more beautiful objects and buildings.

•Bauhaus: German design school•Constructivists: Russian academic art•De Stilj: Dutch art and design

Created Modern versions of fine art, typography [fonts], graphic and industrial design and architecture.

Building New Societies: Constructivism

Suprematist Composition: White on White, 1918Kazimir Malevich (Russian, 1878–1935)

Oval Hanging Construction Number 12, ca. 1920Aleksandr Rodchenko (Russian, 1891–1956)

Modernist artists thought that through a process of getting rid of the superficial elements, an artist could get down to the “bare bones” reality of the universe.

Abstraction: The opposite of representation.Removing recognizable images.Simplifying shapes

For Mondrian and the Bauhaus, the essential (primal) element was Geometry, particularly the square, circle and triangle.

Building New Societies

Samovar, Kazimir Malevich (Russian, born Ukraine. 1878-1935) 1913.

Suprematist Composition: Airplane Flying. Kazimir Malevich (Russian, born Ukraine. 1878-1935), 1915





Rechevik. Stikhi

Aleksandr Rodchenko (Russian, 1891-1956)

Pamiatnik III Internatsionala, Vladimir Tatlin (Russian, 1885-1953)




Demitasse Cup and Saucer, 1923

Nikolai Suetin (Russian, 1897-1954)


Building New Societies: De Stijl

Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, and Gray

Piet Mondrian1921

Tableau I: Lozenge with Four Lines and Gray

Piet Mondrian 1926.



Building New Societies: De Stijl

Gerrit Rietveld INTERIOR ,SCHRÖDER HOUSE , WITH “ RED - BLUE ” CHAIR, 1925.

Bauhaus: (“House of Building”) An influential school of avant-garde art and design active from 1919- 1933 in Germany, and then later in Chicago.

•Founded by Walter Gropius (1883-1969).•Brought together German artists, architects, designers, and craft workers.•Their goal was to create an integrated system of design and production.• Gropius developed a craft-based curriculum that would turn out artisans and designers capable of creating useful and beautiful objects appropriate to this new system of living.

Bauhaus: renewing Modernism

Bauhaus FacultyPaul Klee, Josef and Anni Albers, Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Static-Dynamic Gradation, 1923Paul Klee (German, 1879–1940)

Homage to the Square: With Rays, 1959Josef Albers

The Garden of Love (Improvisation Number 27), 1912Wassily Kandinsky

Paul Klee, Landscape with Yellow Birds, 1923

Building New Societies: Bauhaus

The Bauhaus combined elements of both fine arts and design education. The curriculum commenced with a preliminary course that immersed the students, who came from a diverse range of social and educational backgrounds, in the study of materials, color theory, and formal relationships in preparation for more specialized studies.

This partnership between fine art and industry became a model for interior design, architecture and design in general.Many of the recognizable pieces of furniture and our built environment have their origin in the Bauhaus.


Nesting Tables Model ...Marcel Breuer

Design date: 1925-26



"MR" armchair, 1927Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (American, born Germany, 1886–1969), DesignerTubular steel, painted caning

Tea infuser and strainer, ca. 1924Marianne Brandt (German, 1893–1983)Silver and ebony

"Wassily" chair, 1925Marcel Breuer


Sought a unity of the art, craft, typography, architecture etc. through design.

Believed that designed objects could influence behavior.

Helps bring about important “modern” innovations in typography, design and architecture.

Barcelona chairLudwig Mies van der Rohe1929/ca. 1950s


Staatliches Bauhaus, Weimar, 1919–1923, 1923Walter Gropius (German, 1883–1969) et al.Book-printed halftone, photographs, and lithograph


Neuer Kunstsalon am Neckartor (New Art Salon at Neckartor)

Oskar Schlemmer (German, 1888-1943)


Bauhaus Lettering Set (Kombinations-Schrift)

Josef Albers (American, born Germany. 1888-1976)

1926-31


Kandem Bedside Table Lamp

Marianne Brandt (German, 1893-1983) and Hin Bredendieck (German, 1904 - 1995)

1928




Herbert Bayer, (graphic designer)Catalog of goods from the Bauhaus Workshops, 1925

By working with local industry the Bauhaus could make the designs broadly available.

WallhangingAlbers, Anni1924


Walter Gropius, Workshop wing, Bauhaus building, Dessau, Germany, 1925-1926


Kandinsky/Klee House, 1926Gropius, Walter

Cast-Iron Construction

Alexandre Gustav Eiffel, Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1889.

The introduction of a new building material, iron, in the 19th century created a breakthrough in structural systems. Iron had not been used in architecture prior to this.

Gutav Eiffel, a French engineer, created the centerpiece for the Paris World’s Fair of 1889. The Eiffel Tower rises on four arched columns, which curve inward until they meet in a single tower, thrusting up boldly above the Parisian cityscape. It was a skeleton that proudly showed itself without benefit of any cosmetic embellishment, or skin. Metal in and of itself can make beautiful architecture, as well as a solid framework for a very large structure.


The modern sky-scraper required two late-19th century inventions, the elevator and steel-frame construction, another true skeleton-and-skin arrangement.

1). Builders erect a steel “cage” that is capable of sustaining the entire weight of the building.

2). They apply an exterior “skin” of some other material.

Steel-Frame Construction

Steel-Frame Construction

Louis Sullivan,Wainwright Building, St. Louis, 1890-91.

The first modern building employed a steel framework sheathed in masonry. Sullivan broke new ground by making his sheathing light.

Regular bays of windows Strong, vertical lines

Gordon Bunshaft, Lever House, New York, 1952

In 1932 The Museum of Modern Art in New York held an influential exhibition of modernist architecture called the “International Style”

•Walter Gropius [Bauhaus]•Mies Van der Rohe [Bauhaus]•Le Corbusier

The Lever House is an example of this style with understated form.

Modernism

Walter Gropius, Workshop wing, Bauhaus building, Dessau, Germany, 1925-1926

International Style Architecture

International StyleSimplified formsEmphasized volume over massEmphasized the flow of the space rather than symmetryRejected ornamentationFrequently used facades

Stressed that the function of the building or community plan should determine the shape or form of the building.

“Form follows function.”

Modernism

Walter Gropius “Friend’s Convalescent Center”, 1957 (demolished)


Villa Savoye, in Poissy-sur-Seine, France, Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret ) 1929-31



Open interior plan

Raised the building on pillars

Facade separate from interior

Horizontal windows

Rooftop garden or interior atrium

Le Corbusier’s “Five Points Toward a New Architecture”houses = "machines for living in."


Berg Instructional Center BICThe Rodney K. Berg Instructional Center (BIC) was completed in 1974. A four-level structure designed in the modern style of architecture constructed of cor-ten steel.

International StyleHorizontal windows.Unadorned steel facadeInterior courtyards.Open floor plans.Form follows function.


The Rodney K. Berg Instructional Center (BIC)

June 12, 1973: A building under construction at the College of DuPage boasts two floors above ground and steel that never needs refinishing. — Hardy Wieting

/ Chicago Tribune, July 25, 2014

Re-skinning of the BIC. Creates a Postmodern emphasis on color, decoration and place onto a thoroughly Modernist building built only for functionality.

Mies Van der Rohe, 860-880 N. Lakeshore Drive, 1951



Deceptively simple in appearance, these twin apartment towers set the standard by which all subsequent glass-and-steel highrises are judged. Few, if any, have come even close to these buildings' perfection in form, proportions, and detailing. They are featured in every book on modern architecture, and they are among the best known of the city's post-World War II architecture.

Mies Van der Rohe, Crown Hall, (3360 S. State St), 1956


Mies van der Rohe designed Crown Hall to house Illinois Institute of Technology's departments of architecture, planning, and design, the building's dramatic form resulted from the need to create an open interior space that could be flexibly adapted for changing needs and uses. Instead of interior columns, the roof is hung from exposed steel trusses bridging the depth of the building. It was named for S. R. Crown, a co-founder of the Material Service Corporation.

S. R. Crown Hall, Mies van der Rohe, 1956



Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin, Paris 1925

International Style architects not only designed buildings but practiced urban planning. They created layouts for large housing developments around the world. Many of these same types of buildings and plans became the models for US housing developments.

Building New Societies: Modernist Architecture

Robert Taylor Homes, completed 1962

Upon completion in 1962, Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes became the largest public housing project in the United States.


Robert Taylor Homes,(1962-2000)

The International Style buildings were created in a utopian belief that ideal architecture could help create ideal societies.

While in some cases this was true, in Chicago the usage of high density housing was undermined by the history of housing discrimination and segregation.

http://namhenderson.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/768px-robertaylorhome.jpg

Cabrini Green, completed 1962


The battle between skepticism of the idea of social progress (in Dada) and the belief in it’s possibility (in the Bauhaus) is still a feature of the Modern movement.

In the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s Modernism itself comes under attack as being out of touch, unforgiving and brutal. This is the advent of Postmodernism.


Art1100 LVA 21-3 Modernism to WWII Online

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