"This struggle must be organised, according to “all the rules of the art”, by people who are professionally engaged in revolutionary activity."
Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, “The Primitiveness of the Economists and the Organization of the Revolutionaries” (1901)
Saturday, 15 January 2011
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Essay Feedback
Issues discussed
lots of research done so far.
quotes to back up points!
try to find quote from Lenin about the importance of art and its new role.
400-socio cultural context
400-construction as a response
500-2 examples
make sure to reference all research sources.
Student action
have done by 25th Jan
lots of research done so far.
quotes to back up points!
try to find quote from Lenin about the importance of art and its new role.
400-socio cultural context
400-construction as a response
500-2 examples
make sure to reference all research sources.
Student action
have done by 25th Jan
Communism!
com·mu·nism
n.
1. A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.
2. Communism
a. A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
b. The Marxist-Leninist version of Communist doctrine that advocates the overthrow of capitalism by the revolution of the proletariat.
Definition from :
www.thefreedictionary.com, (accessed 11th January 2011)
Definition from :
www.thefreedictionary.com, (accessed 11th January 2011)
Monday, 10 January 2011
Essay Research
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION.
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917 (March in the Gregorian calendar; the older Julian calendar was in use in Russia at the time). In the second revolution, during October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with a Bolshevik (Communist) government.
A period of dual power ensued, during which the Provisional Government held state power while the national network of Soviets, led by socialists, had the allegiance of the lower-class citizens and the political left. During this chaotic period there were frequent mutinies and many strikes. When the Provisional Government chose to continue fighting the war with Germany, the Bolsheviks and other socialist factions campaigned for the abandonment of the war effort. The Bolsheviks formed workers militias under their control into the Red Guards (later the Red Army) over which they exerted substantial control.
In the October Revolution (November in the Gregorian calendar), the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the workers' Soviets, overthrew the Provisional Government in St Petersburg. The Bolsheviks appointed themselves as leaders of various government ministries and seized control of the countryside, establishing the Cheka to quash dissent. To end the war, the Bolshevik leadership signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in March 1918.
Civil war erupted between the "Red" (Bolshevik), and "White" (anti-Bolshevik) factions, which was to continue for several years, with the Bolsheviks ultimately victorious. In this way the Revolution paved the way for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). While many notable historical events occurred in Moscow and St Petersburg, there was also a broad-based movement in cities throughout the state, among national minorities throughout the empire, and in the rural areas, where peasants took over and redistributed land.
(www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_(1917))
THE WINTER PALACE
CONSTRUCTIVISM
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural movement that originated in Russia from 1919 onward which rejected the idea of "art for art's sake" in favour of art as a practice directed towards social purposes. Constructivism as an active force lasted until around 1934, having a great deal of effect on developments in the art of the Weimar Republic and elsewhere, before being replaced by Socialist Realism. Its motifs have sporadically recurred in other art movements since. (Franz Ferdinand?)
The technique of constructing sculpture from separate elements, as opposed to modelling or carving, was developed by Pablo Picasso in 1912, extending the planar language of Cubism into three dimensions. This method was elaborated in Russia, initially by Vladimir Tatlin from 1914 onwards and then by his many followers, who, like him, made abstract sculptures that explored the textural and spatial qualities of combinations of contemporary materials such as metal, glass, wood and cardboard.
Russian artists did not begin to call their work ‘constructions’ and themselves ‘constructivists’ until after the Revolution of 1917. Coining the latter term, the First Working Group of Constructivists, also known as the Working Group of Constructivists, was set up in March 1921 within Inkhuk (Institute of Artistic Culture) in Moscow. The group comprised Aleksey Gan (1893–1942), Aleksandr Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, Konstantin Medunetsky, Karl Ioganson (1890–1929) and the brothers Georgy Stenberg and Vladimir Stenberg.
‘Construction’ was seen to have connotations of technology and engineering and therefore to be characterized by economy of materials, precision, clarity of organization and the absence of decorative or superfluous elements.
In order to give their work the quality of ‘construction’, the artists increasingly renounced abstract painting in favour of working with industrial materials in space. Sculptures they showed displayed a strong commitment to the materials and forms of contemporary technology. The Stenbergs, for instance, created skeletal forms from materials such as glass, metal and wood, evoking engineering structures such as bridges and cranes. Rodchenko showed a series of hanging constructions based on mathematical forms; they consisted of concentric shapes cut from a single plane of plywood, rotated to create a three-dimensional geometric form that is completely permeated by space.
As much as involving itself in designs for industry, the Constructivists worked on public festivals and street designs for the post-October revolution Bolshevik government. Perhaps the most famous of these was in Vitebsk, where Malevich's UNOVIS Group painted propaganda plaques and buildings, the best known being El Lissitzky's poster Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919). Inspired by Vladimir Mayakovsky's declaration 'the streets our brushes, the squares our palettes', artists and designers participated in public life throughout the Civil War. A striking instance was the proposed festival for the Comintern congress in 1921 by Alexander Vesnin and Liubov Popova, which resembled the constructions of the OBMOKhU exhibition as well as their work for the theatre. There was a great deal of overlap in this period between Constructivism and Proletkult, the ideas of which concerning the need to create an entirely new culture struck a chord with the Constructivists. In addition some Constructivists were heavily involved in the 'ROSTA Windows', a Bolshevik public information campaign of around 1920. Some of the most famous of these were by the poet-painter Vladimir Mayakovsky and Vladimir Lebedev.
As a part of the early Soviet youth movement, the constructivists took an artistic outlook aimed to encompass cognitive, material activity, and the whole of spirituality of mankind. The artists tried to create works that would take the viewer out of the traditional setting and make them an active viewer of the artwork. In this it had similarities with the Russian Formalists' theory of 'making strange', and accordingly their leading theorist Viktor Shklovsky worked closely with the Constructivists, as did other formalists like Osip Brik. These theories were tested in the theatre, particularly in the work of Vsevolod Meyerhold, who had set up what he called 'October in the theatre'. Meyerhold developed a 'biomechanical' acting style, which was influenced both by the circus and by the 'scientific management' theories of Frederick Winslow Taylor. Meanwhile the stage sets by the likes of Vesnin, Popova and Stepanova tested out Constructivist spatial ideas in a public form. A more populist version of this was developed by Alexander Tairov, with stage sets by Aleksandra Ekster and the Stenberg Brothers. These ideas would go on to influence German directors like Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator, as well as the early Soviet cinema.
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_%28art%29)
Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin (December 28 [O.S. December 16] 1885 – May 31, 1953) was a Russian and Soviet painter and architect. With Kazimir Malevich he was one of the two most important figures in the Russian avant-garde art movement of the 1920s, and he later became the most important artist in the Constructivist movement. He is most famous for his attempts to create the giant tower, The Monument to the Third International.
The Monument is generally considered to be the defining expression of architectural constructivism, rather than a buildable project. Even if the gigantic amount of required steel had been available in revolutionary Russia, in the context of housing shortages and political turmoil, there are serious doubts about its structural practicality.
The Constructivists' main political patron early on was Leon Trotsky, and it began to be regarded with suspicion after the expulsion of Trotsky and the Left Opposition in 1927-8. The Communist Party would gradually come to favour realist art over the course of the 1920s (as early as 1918 Pravda had complained that government funds were being used to buy works by untried artists). However it wasn't until around 1934 that the counter-doctrine of Socialist Realism was instituted in Constructivism's place. Many Constructivists continued to produce avantgarde work in the service of the state, such as in Lissitzky, Rodchenko and Stepanova's designs for the magazine USSR In Construction
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Tatlin)
RODCHENKO & POPOVA
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/rodchenkopopova/
The Bolshevik Revolution aimed to transform an entire civilisation, and artists were among the first to show their support. There was already a distinct strain of utopianism in the Russian avant-garde – a determination to reinvent art, as if from zero. Kasimir Malevich's abstract paintings freed art from what he called 'the dead weight of the real world'. Equally radical were Vladimir Tatlin's Counter-Reliefs, made by assembling real materials, such as wood, glass and metal into three-dimensional constructions.
Following these examples, the Constructivists rejected all ideas of illusory representation. Rodchenko focused on faktura, the physical qualities of the painting: the use of different paints and different textures, and how these related to other elements such as the painting surface, or the choice of colour. His experiments led to the 'Black on Black' series, in which the elimination of colour focused attention on the texture of the painting's surface, and its interaction with light. In these works, Stepanova wrote, 'nothing but painting exists'.
Popova's Painterly Architectonics respond to some of Malevich's ideas, but push them further. Geometric shapes jostle together, overlapping,intersecting, their edges pressing beyond the frame. A dynamic sense of instability and movement is matched by her use of strong colour. As the title suggests, Popova was already looking beyond painting, into architecture and three-dimensional structures, yet cramming that expansive energy onto the flat surface of a painting.
Rodchenko made his first freestanding abstract sculptures in 1918, and later suggested that these geometric constructions, made using everyday materials, 'signified the abandonment of painting for the move toward real space'. While Tatlin’s Counter-Reliefs were mounted on the wall, he noted, his own Spatial Constructions could be looked at from all sides. Their extravagant configuration of geometric forms in space would be echoed in his architectural designs.
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917 (March in the Gregorian calendar; the older Julian calendar was in use in Russia at the time). In the second revolution, during October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with a Bolshevik (Communist) government.
A period of dual power ensued, during which the Provisional Government held state power while the national network of Soviets, led by socialists, had the allegiance of the lower-class citizens and the political left. During this chaotic period there were frequent mutinies and many strikes. When the Provisional Government chose to continue fighting the war with Germany, the Bolsheviks and other socialist factions campaigned for the abandonment of the war effort. The Bolsheviks formed workers militias under their control into the Red Guards (later the Red Army) over which they exerted substantial control.
In the October Revolution (November in the Gregorian calendar), the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the workers' Soviets, overthrew the Provisional Government in St Petersburg. The Bolsheviks appointed themselves as leaders of various government ministries and seized control of the countryside, establishing the Cheka to quash dissent. To end the war, the Bolshevik leadership signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in March 1918.
Civil war erupted between the "Red" (Bolshevik), and "White" (anti-Bolshevik) factions, which was to continue for several years, with the Bolsheviks ultimately victorious. In this way the Revolution paved the way for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). While many notable historical events occurred in Moscow and St Petersburg, there was also a broad-based movement in cities throughout the state, among national minorities throughout the empire, and in the rural areas, where peasants took over and redistributed land.
(www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_(1917))
THE WINTER PALACE
The Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia, was, from 1732 to 1917, the official residence of the Russian Tsars. The present and fourth Winter Palace was built and altered almost continuously between the late 1730s and 1837, when it was severely damaged by fire and immediately rebuilt. The storming of the palace in 1917 became an iconic symbol of the Russian Revolution.
(www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_palace)
(www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_palace)
CONSTRUCTIVISM
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural movement that originated in Russia from 1919 onward which rejected the idea of "art for art's sake" in favour of art as a practice directed towards social purposes. Constructivism as an active force lasted until around 1934, having a great deal of effect on developments in the art of the Weimar Republic and elsewhere, before being replaced by Socialist Realism. Its motifs have sporadically recurred in other art movements since. (Franz Ferdinand?)
The technique of constructing sculpture from separate elements, as opposed to modelling or carving, was developed by Pablo Picasso in 1912, extending the planar language of Cubism into three dimensions. This method was elaborated in Russia, initially by Vladimir Tatlin from 1914 onwards and then by his many followers, who, like him, made abstract sculptures that explored the textural and spatial qualities of combinations of contemporary materials such as metal, glass, wood and cardboard.
Russian artists did not begin to call their work ‘constructions’ and themselves ‘constructivists’ until after the Revolution of 1917. Coining the latter term, the First Working Group of Constructivists, also known as the Working Group of Constructivists, was set up in March 1921 within Inkhuk (Institute of Artistic Culture) in Moscow. The group comprised Aleksey Gan (1893–1942), Aleksandr Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, Konstantin Medunetsky, Karl Ioganson (1890–1929) and the brothers Georgy Stenberg and Vladimir Stenberg.
‘Construction’ was seen to have connotations of technology and engineering and therefore to be characterized by economy of materials, precision, clarity of organization and the absence of decorative or superfluous elements.
In order to give their work the quality of ‘construction’, the artists increasingly renounced abstract painting in favour of working with industrial materials in space. Sculptures they showed displayed a strong commitment to the materials and forms of contemporary technology. The Stenbergs, for instance, created skeletal forms from materials such as glass, metal and wood, evoking engineering structures such as bridges and cranes. Rodchenko showed a series of hanging constructions based on mathematical forms; they consisted of concentric shapes cut from a single plane of plywood, rotated to create a three-dimensional geometric form that is completely permeated by space.
As much as involving itself in designs for industry, the Constructivists worked on public festivals and street designs for the post-October revolution Bolshevik government. Perhaps the most famous of these was in Vitebsk, where Malevich's UNOVIS Group painted propaganda plaques and buildings, the best known being El Lissitzky's poster Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919). Inspired by Vladimir Mayakovsky's declaration 'the streets our brushes, the squares our palettes', artists and designers participated in public life throughout the Civil War. A striking instance was the proposed festival for the Comintern congress in 1921 by Alexander Vesnin and Liubov Popova, which resembled the constructions of the OBMOKhU exhibition as well as their work for the theatre. There was a great deal of overlap in this period between Constructivism and Proletkult, the ideas of which concerning the need to create an entirely new culture struck a chord with the Constructivists. In addition some Constructivists were heavily involved in the 'ROSTA Windows', a Bolshevik public information campaign of around 1920. Some of the most famous of these were by the poet-painter Vladimir Mayakovsky and Vladimir Lebedev.
As a part of the early Soviet youth movement, the constructivists took an artistic outlook aimed to encompass cognitive, material activity, and the whole of spirituality of mankind. The artists tried to create works that would take the viewer out of the traditional setting and make them an active viewer of the artwork. In this it had similarities with the Russian Formalists' theory of 'making strange', and accordingly their leading theorist Viktor Shklovsky worked closely with the Constructivists, as did other formalists like Osip Brik. These theories were tested in the theatre, particularly in the work of Vsevolod Meyerhold, who had set up what he called 'October in the theatre'. Meyerhold developed a 'biomechanical' acting style, which was influenced both by the circus and by the 'scientific management' theories of Frederick Winslow Taylor. Meanwhile the stage sets by the likes of Vesnin, Popova and Stepanova tested out Constructivist spatial ideas in a public form. A more populist version of this was developed by Alexander Tairov, with stage sets by Aleksandra Ekster and the Stenberg Brothers. These ideas would go on to influence German directors like Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator, as well as the early Soviet cinema.
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_%28art%29)
Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin (December 28 [O.S. December 16] 1885 – May 31, 1953) was a Russian and Soviet painter and architect. With Kazimir Malevich he was one of the two most important figures in the Russian avant-garde art movement of the 1920s, and he later became the most important artist in the Constructivist movement. He is most famous for his attempts to create the giant tower, The Monument to the Third International.
The Monument is generally considered to be the defining expression of architectural constructivism, rather than a buildable project. Even if the gigantic amount of required steel had been available in revolutionary Russia, in the context of housing shortages and political turmoil, there are serious doubts about its structural practicality.
The Constructivists' main political patron early on was Leon Trotsky, and it began to be regarded with suspicion after the expulsion of Trotsky and the Left Opposition in 1927-8. The Communist Party would gradually come to favour realist art over the course of the 1920s (as early as 1918 Pravda had complained that government funds were being used to buy works by untried artists). However it wasn't until around 1934 that the counter-doctrine of Socialist Realism was instituted in Constructivism's place. Many Constructivists continued to produce avantgarde work in the service of the state, such as in Lissitzky, Rodchenko and Stepanova's designs for the magazine USSR In Construction
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Tatlin)
RODCHENKO & POPOVA
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/rodchenkopopova/
The Bolshevik Revolution aimed to transform an entire civilisation, and artists were among the first to show their support. There was already a distinct strain of utopianism in the Russian avant-garde – a determination to reinvent art, as if from zero. Kasimir Malevich's abstract paintings freed art from what he called 'the dead weight of the real world'. Equally radical were Vladimir Tatlin's Counter-Reliefs, made by assembling real materials, such as wood, glass and metal into three-dimensional constructions.
Following these examples, the Constructivists rejected all ideas of illusory representation. Rodchenko focused on faktura, the physical qualities of the painting: the use of different paints and different textures, and how these related to other elements such as the painting surface, or the choice of colour. His experiments led to the 'Black on Black' series, in which the elimination of colour focused attention on the texture of the painting's surface, and its interaction with light. In these works, Stepanova wrote, 'nothing but painting exists'.
Popova's Painterly Architectonics respond to some of Malevich's ideas, but push them further. Geometric shapes jostle together, overlapping,intersecting, their edges pressing beyond the frame. A dynamic sense of instability and movement is matched by her use of strong colour. As the title suggests, Popova was already looking beyond painting, into architecture and three-dimensional structures, yet cramming that expansive energy onto the flat surface of a painting.
Rodchenko made his first freestanding abstract sculptures in 1918, and later suggested that these geometric constructions, made using everyday materials, 'signified the abandonment of painting for the move toward real space'. While Tatlin’s Counter-Reliefs were mounted on the wall, he noted, his own Spatial Constructions could be looked at from all sides. Their extravagant configuration of geometric forms in space would be echoed in his architectural designs.
Saturday, 8 January 2011
Research imagery
Images sourced from www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/rodchenkopopova, date accessed: 8th january 2011
Essay initial structure notes...
1500 words
Constructivism - Russian revolution
1917 - 1934ish chosen period of the revolution.
*DEFINE SOCIO-CULTURAL CONTEXT
-looking at the October Revolution
-Removal of provisional government for a Communist, Bolshevik government. Led by Vladimir Lenin (tried not to portray himself as a leader)
-Defined by policies meant to create an equal country, based around worker... a workers revolution.
-Main event of the revolution being the storming of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg
-"Peace, bread and land."
- A government in which Lenin's Bolshevik party held power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally distributed by the people.
*CONSTRUCTIVISM AS A RESPONSE
-Rejecting "art for arts sake" in favour of art as a practice directed towards social purposes.
-Belief in progress
-Belief in workers
Bolshevik views reflected in Art & Design
-Constructivisms use of geometric forms supposed to reflect workers and industrialism. Also used as communication aids because of high illiteracy in Russia.
'Beat the whites with the red wedge' recognised and repeated frequently.
-many constructivist artists commisioned to push their new and radical aesthetic in form of propaganda.
-Truth to contemporary materials and technology.
*IMAGE ANALYSIS
-Tatlin's monument of the third international.
-El lissitzky's 'beat the whites with the red wedge'
Constructivism - Russian revolution
1917 - 1934ish chosen period of the revolution.
*DEFINE SOCIO-CULTURAL CONTEXT
-looking at the October Revolution
-Removal of provisional government for a Communist, Bolshevik government. Led by Vladimir Lenin (tried not to portray himself as a leader)
-Defined by policies meant to create an equal country, based around worker... a workers revolution.
-Main event of the revolution being the storming of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg
-"Peace, bread and land."
- A government in which Lenin's Bolshevik party held power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally distributed by the people.
*CONSTRUCTIVISM AS A RESPONSE
-Rejecting "art for arts sake" in favour of art as a practice directed towards social purposes.
-Belief in progress
-Belief in workers
Bolshevik views reflected in Art & Design
-Constructivisms use of geometric forms supposed to reflect workers and industrialism. Also used as communication aids because of high illiteracy in Russia.
'Beat the whites with the red wedge' recognised and repeated frequently.
-many constructivist artists commisioned to push their new and radical aesthetic in form of propaganda.
-Truth to contemporary materials and technology.
*IMAGE ANALYSIS
-Tatlin's monument of the third international.
-El lissitzky's 'beat the whites with the red wedge'
Friday, 7 January 2011
Essay question
I will be tackling question 2 for the year 1 essay question.
Choosing a particular period from 1800 to the present, in what ways has art & design responded to the changing social and cultural forces of that period?
Choosing a particular period from 1800 to the present, in what ways has art & design responded to the changing social and cultural forces of that period?
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Post Modernism
Critics say we live in a post modern society/era.
Almost a belief that everything has been done before.
"ironic"
Modernism
-Born out of optimism, sense of positivity, aspiration.
ART & DESIGN BUILDING A UTOPIAN WORLD.
Le Corbusier.
Modernist practice.
Experimental, innovative, individualism, progress, originality, purity.
Postmodern Condition.
Exhaustion, pluralism, pessimism, disillusionment, idea of absolute knowledge.
Modernism was a celebration or expression of new technologies etc.
Post modernism is a response or reaction to this.
Belief that the modern world will ultimately self destruct.
1917 - German Pannwitz spoke of 'nihilistic, post modern men'
1964 - Leslie Fielder described a 'Post' culture, elitist view.
Postmodernism gathers pace in the 1960s.
Dominant in the 1980s and 90s --- has become tired over recent years.
(jameson) 'late capitalism'
After modernism, contra modernism, stylistic ecclecticism.
Rap and hip hop could be seen as postmodern...
'global village' globalization of everything.
Charles Jencks. 1515 July, 1972, 3 : 32 demolition of Pruitt.
Pruitt epitomises the failings of Modernist architecture.
questions conventions (those set by modernism particularly)
Utopian and technological determinism of modernism have failed.
Postmodern aesthetic is about individualism and difference.
-only rule in postmodernism is that there are no rules.
-celebrates the Kitsch
Park Hill flats - Sheffield. 1960s.
became a slum, horrible! yet still a listed building.
AT & T building
Philip Johnson - 1982 - modernist style.
GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM
James Stirling- neue staffisgalerie. selfridges - birmingham
Robinson Library - downing college - 1992 reaction to modernism
J-F LYOTARD
-incredulity towards metanarratives
-total belief system - vision of world showing new strategy
-visions of elites imposing ideas become ideology as it won't work.
Crisis in confidence...undermining of structures of the past.
Postmodern aesthetic
one of complexity and chaos. - Roy Lichtenstein (1965) attacks seriousness.
High art/low art divide crumbles.
LAS VEGAS
the ultimate postmodern city.
postmodern dystopia - loss of order and self
BLADERUNNER...
Andy Warhol , elevation to celebrity
attack on artist as superior, leader.
as Warhol said, he didn't know anything about art.
yet his work hangs in galleries.
Jackson Pollock.
Rejection of the values of art.
David Shrigley
'Art lovers'
PIERO MANZONI-'artists shit'
taking the piss out of those so wrapped up in art they think canning poo is a good idea.
NEW DEPTHLESSNESS
waning of effort. face value.
Culture of retro styles. Never new or innovative.
"advertising is the greatest artform of the 20th century" Mcluhan
MEMPHIS group.
Sotsass
founded 1981
adbusters - design anarchy.
an inconclusion...
-a vague disputed term
-attitude of questioning conventions
-space for 'new voices'
-rejection of technological determinism
Almost a belief that everything has been done before.
"ironic"
Modernism
-Born out of optimism, sense of positivity, aspiration.
ART & DESIGN BUILDING A UTOPIAN WORLD.
Le Corbusier.
Modernist practice.
Experimental, innovative, individualism, progress, originality, purity.
Postmodern Condition.
Exhaustion, pluralism, pessimism, disillusionment, idea of absolute knowledge.
Modernism was a celebration or expression of new technologies etc.
Post modernism is a response or reaction to this.
Belief that the modern world will ultimately self destruct.
1917 - German Pannwitz spoke of 'nihilistic, post modern men'
1964 - Leslie Fielder described a 'Post' culture, elitist view.
Postmodernism gathers pace in the 1960s.
Dominant in the 1980s and 90s --- has become tired over recent years.
(jameson) 'late capitalism'
After modernism, contra modernism, stylistic ecclecticism.
Rap and hip hop could be seen as postmodern...
'global village' globalization of everything.
Charles Jencks. 1515 July, 1972, 3 : 32 demolition of Pruitt.
Pruitt epitomises the failings of Modernist architecture.
questions conventions (those set by modernism particularly)
Utopian and technological determinism of modernism have failed.
Postmodern aesthetic is about individualism and difference.
-only rule in postmodernism is that there are no rules.
-celebrates the Kitsch
Park Hill flats - Sheffield. 1960s.
became a slum, horrible! yet still a listed building.
AT & T building
Philip Johnson - 1982 - modernist style.
GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM
James Stirling- neue staffisgalerie. selfridges - birmingham
Robinson Library - downing college - 1992 reaction to modernism
J-F LYOTARD
-incredulity towards metanarratives
-total belief system - vision of world showing new strategy
-visions of elites imposing ideas become ideology as it won't work.
Crisis in confidence...undermining of structures of the past.
Postmodern aesthetic
one of complexity and chaos. - Roy Lichtenstein (1965) attacks seriousness.
High art/low art divide crumbles.
LAS VEGAS
the ultimate postmodern city.
postmodern dystopia - loss of order and self
BLADERUNNER...
Andy Warhol , elevation to celebrity
attack on artist as superior, leader.
as Warhol said, he didn't know anything about art.
yet his work hangs in galleries.
Jackson Pollock.
Rejection of the values of art.
David Shrigley
'Art lovers'
PIERO MANZONI-'artists shit'
taking the piss out of those so wrapped up in art they think canning poo is a good idea.
NEW DEPTHLESSNESS
waning of effort. face value.
Culture of retro styles. Never new or innovative.
"advertising is the greatest artform of the 20th century" Mcluhan
MEMPHIS group.
Sotsass
founded 1981
adbusters - design anarchy.
an inconclusion...
-a vague disputed term
-attitude of questioning conventions
-space for 'new voices'
-rejection of technological determinism
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)