Early 20th Century ArtChallenging Artistic Conventions & Transatlantic Artistic

Dialogue

Chapter 33AP Art History

Mr. English

Dada• Marcel Duchamp,

Fountain, 1950, Ready-made glazed sanitary china with black paint.

• Refused from a non-juried show.

• Urinal rotated and signed by made up artist name.

• Ready-made sculpture

Marcel Duchamp

VIDEOS

Dada• Hannah Höch, Cut with

the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany, 1919-20, photomontage, 3’9”x 2’11”.

• Photomontage – collage of photographic images.

• Comments on women’s social roles in Germany.

• Combines German leaders’ heads with women dancers’ bodies.

Dada (1916-25)• So what is Dada?– A movement against art, challenging the idea of

what can be considered art.– Protest against the ongoing war, industrialization

and conventional art.– Often absurd, whimsical, satirical or just plain

nonsense.– Ready-made, collage & photomontage were

popular mediums– Conceptual – about the idea not the technique. – Inspires future movements in minimalism and

surrealism

Transatlantic Artistic Dialogue• Many Americans are still painting realist and representational images in

the early 20th c. while the European art scene is going through abstraction.

• The Armory Show (1913) showcases over 1600 artworks in New York of European and American artists – cross exposure.

The Armory Show• Marcel Duchamp, Nude

Descending a Staircase, No. 2, 1912, oil on canvas, 4’10”x 2’11”.

• What style does this appear to be done in?

• Monochromatic color scheme• Shows movement and time

like a motion film.• Controversial – “an explosion

in a shingles factory” – subject of newspaper cartoons.

Gallery 291• Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage,

1907, photograph.• Opened Gallery 291 to

showcase contemporary art & photo from US & Europe.

• Founded Photo-Secession group – curated traveling photo shows across the country.

• Believed in raw images for viewers to relive as he saw it.

• Focused on strong formal photography, design principals & composition.

• Depicts poor passengers who were rejected entrance to the US.

Alfred Stieglitz

Abstract Photography

• Edward Weston, Nude, 1925, platinum print.

• Explored abstraction in photography.

• How has Weston abstracted the figure? How does this relate to what’s going on in painting?

1920’s Culture & Music in Art

Stuart Davis, Lucky Strike, 1921, oil on canvas.

Aaron Douglas, Noah’s Ark, 1927, oil on masonite.

Precisionism• Charles Demuth, My

Egypt, 1927, oil on board, 3’ x 2’6”.

• Inspired by machines, cubists and futurists.

• Depicts grain elevators with structural lines broken up with cubist like shapes/lines.

Precisionism• Georgia O’Keefe, New

York, Night, 1929, oil on canvas, 3’4”x 1’7”.

• Moves to NYC and meets Stieglitz – more involved - influenced her art.

• Depicts the complexity of the city in a rhythm of precise planes and shapes.

Georgia O’Keefe