MODERNISM IN ART: AN

INTRODUCTION

Revolution and Rebuilding: Constructivism, De Stijl and the

Bauhaus

Recap

Form follows Function

Recap

Recap

Ornament and Crime – Adolf Loos“The child is amoral. To us the Papuan is also amoral [...] The Papuan tattoos his skin, his boat, his oar, in short, everything that is within his reach. He is no criminal. The modern man who tattoos himself is a criminal or a degenerate. There are prisons where eighty percent of the inmates bear tattoos.”

“...the man of our time who daubs the walls with erotic symbols to satisfy an inner urge is a criminal or a degenerate. It is obvious that this urge overcomes man; such symptoms of degeneration most forcefully express themselves in public conveniences. One can measure the culture of a country by the degree to which its lavatory walls are daubed [...] what is natural to the Papuan and the child is a symptom of degeneration in the modern man.”

“The evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament from objects of daily use.”

(Loos 1908)

Avant-Garde

Triumvirate

Artist leader

ScientistIndustialist

The idea of the Avant-garde by Saint-Simon, 1820s

“The ambition [of the artistic-social avant-garde] was to create a new social role for art, one that made the artist a significant participant in the organization and building of social life”

(Margolin 1997, p.2)

Giacomo Balla (1914)Design for Futurist Suit

Wassily Kandinsky (1922) White Cross

Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1914): http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/phil%20of%20art/kandinskytext2.htm#1

Revolution and Rebuilding: Constructivism, De Stijl and the Bauhaus

Examine the desire for art and design to be socially engaged within the context of:Russian ConstructivismDe Stijl, in Holland Bauhaus, Germany

What about America?

This lecture should:

Before Constructivism

Natalia Goncharova, left: (1911) Peasants Dancing, right, (1911-12) Cats, bottom (1912-13) The Cylist.

Kasimir Malevich, left (1904-5) Flower Girl, right: Chiropodist in the Bathroom, bottom: (1911) The Woodcutter

Kasimir Malivich (1913) Black Square

From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Realism in Painting (1916)http://www.mariabuszek.com/kcai/ConstrBau/Readings/MlevchSupr.pdf

“Only with the disappearance of a habit of mind which sees in pictures little corners of nature, madonnas and shameless Venuses, shall we witness a work of pure living art. I have transformed myself in the zero of form and dragged myself out of the rubbish-filled pool of Academic art”

Kasimir Malevich (1916) Suprematist Construction

“The artist can be a creator only when the forms in his picture have nothing in common with nature [...] art is the ability to construct [...] on the basis of weight, speed and the directions of movement.”

Vladimir Tatlin (1914) Painting Relief, above: (1915) Complex Corner Relief.

October Revolution 1917

Constructivism

Aleksandr Rodchenko (1919)The Future – Our Only Goal

Constructivism Manifesto

“The Group of Constructivists has set itself the task of finding the communistic expression of material structures.”

Varvara Stepanova, left: (1923) poster for the agitational play Through Red and White Glasses. Right: (1923) design for sports clothing.

Aleksandr Rodchenko (1925) workers’ clud interior

Vladimir Tatlin (1920) Monument to the Third International

El Lissitsky (1919/20) Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge

Utopia

Vladimir Tatlin (~1930s) Letatlin

De Stijl

Theo Van Doesburg (1883 – 1931)

“the style”, “support”, “element”, “component”

The constructivist manifesto connected the new to the universal, the old with the individual. It aimed at an “international unity in Life, Art and Culture”.

Piet Mondrian (1917) Composition in Line Bart van der Leck (1918) Composition

Theo van Doesburg (1923) drawing for Maison Particuliere

Gerrit Rietveld (1923) red and blue chair

Gerrit Rietveld (1924) Scroder House, Utrecht

Bauhaus

Aims: Unite the arts. Elevate the status of craft. Establish a connection with

industry.

Manifesto available at: http://www.dmoma.org/lobby/Bauhaus_manifesto.html Walter Gropius (1920)

Bauhaus

Walter Gropius. Above, (with Adolf Meyer) Fagus Shoe Factory (1910-1911), Right, Office building ar the Cologne Werkbund Exhibition (1914)

BauhausEarly days

Left, a wondering apostle called gustav nagel,Right, Johannes Itten.

Work from the prelimenary course (Eugen Batz)

Early days

Joost Schmidt door and surround for the Sommerfield House, designed by Gropius and Meyer (1921).

Oscar Schlemmer (1926-7) Characters from Triadic Ballet

Change at the Bauhaus (1923 -1925)

Lazlo Moholy-Nagy

Georg Muche (1923) Haus a Horn

BauhausLászló Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers were important figures at the Bauhaus (from about 1923 onwards), encouraging a much more rational approach to design and an understanding of materials. Moholy-Nagy’s employment in particular demonstrates the director, Walter Gropius’, determination to reform the Bauhaus.

Left, Examples from Albers paper cutting exercises. Above, the functional products of the metal workshop after it was taken over by Moholy-Nagy.

Bauhaus

Marcel Breuer, Club chair (1925/7)

In 1925 the Bauhaus was forced to move to Dessau. This move coincides with the schools commitment to designing for industry.

Lazlo Moholy-Nagy (1924) Photogram Joseph Albers (1929) Beaker

Bauhaus

Marianne Brandt, push-button table lamp, (1928)

The end of social-avant garde?

Modern ideas:

Individuality Progress Truth Rational Thinking New Technologies

Activity – in pairs

1. Think of ideas for your own Utopia. What would it be like? What role would artists have in designing this Utopia and what might it look like?

2. Create an Ism to reflect some of your ideas. What would your manifesto state?

The United States

The United States was seen as a testament to the wonders of the machine and industrialisation. Though it didn’t foster the same relationship between the artist and industry, producing very few ‘machine modernist’ works, its economy was a source of great inspiration for many European Designers.

The United States

Margaret Bourke-White, Construction Of Giant Pipes Which Will Be Used to Divert A Section Of The Missouri River During The Building Of The Fort Peck Dam, Montana (1936)

“Scientific Management”

Factories towards the end of the 19th Century tended to reflect a disorganized range of old and new production methods. Scientific Management refers to the re-structuring and Modernization of these methods for greater efficiency.

TaylorismFrederick Winslow Taylor emphasized the importance of making the workers more efficient:“We can see and feel the waste of material things. Awkward, inefficient, or ill-directed movements of men, however, leave nothing visible or tangible behind them… And for this reason, even though our daily loss from this source is greater than our waste of material things, the one has stirred us deeply, while the other has moved us but little. ”

Taylor, F W. (1911) Principles of Scientific Management.

Taylorism

For Taylor the tasks of the worker should be planned in incredible detail, minimising the responsibility of the worker. In this way Taylor could even talk of the Science of bricklaying, for example, drawing heavily upon the work of those dedicated to ‘motion and time study’ such as Frank B. Gilbreth (Pictured, Motion Study Film (~1920))

Taylorism

“[Handling pig iron] is so crude and elementary in its nature that the writer firmly believes that it would be possible to train an intelligent gorilla so as to become a more efficient pig-iron handler than any man can be… And the further illustrations to be given will make it clear that in almost all of the mechanical arts the science which underlies each workman’s act is so great… that the workman who is best suited to do the work is incapable … of understanding [it].”

Taylor, F W. (1911) Principles of Scientific Management.

Fordism

Ford Motor Company’s Highland Park Plant in 1913.

Dehumanising?

Revolutionary?

Higher Wages

Increased Productivity

Mindless, Repetitive Work

The Machine is Boss!

Advertising Walter Dill Scott’s The Psychology of Advertising (1908)

Streamlining“Within a decade the term streamlining had been transformed from the description of a scientific principle into a design idiom that was applied to virtually any object, whether or not the streamlined form actually contributed to its functioning.”Wright, J L (1987) Streamlining America. Walter Dorwin Teague, Spartan radio (1936)

Charlie Chaplin (1936) Modern Times

Fritz Lang (1927) Metropolis

References Allison, Nicholas H. (1990) Art Into Life: Russian Constructivism. Rizzoli International Publications, New York. Becker, Lutz and Richard Hollis (2004) Avant-Garde Graphics: 1918-1934. Hayward Gallery Publishing,

London. Borchardt-Hume, Achim (ed.) Albers and Moholy-Nagy: From the Bauhaus to the New World. Tate, London Brettell, Richard (1999) Modern Art: 1851 – 1929. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Champa, Kermit S. (1985) Mondrian Studies. The University of Chicago Press, London. Droste, Magdalena (2006) Bauhaus. Taschen, Berlin. Fabre, Gladys and Doris Wintens Hotte (eds.) (2009) Constructing a New World: Van Doesburg & the

International Avant-Garde. Tate Modern, London. Gray, Camilla (1986) The Russian Experiment in Art: 1863- 1922. Thames & Hudson, London. Hollis, Richard (2001) Graphic Design: A Concise History. Thames & Hudson, London. Kandinsky, Wassily (2003 [1912]) Concerning the Spiritual in Art. In Harrison, Charles and Paul Wood (eds.)

(2003) Art in Theory: 1900 – 2000. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford. Kiaer, Christian (2005) Imagine no Possessions: The Socialist Objects of Russian Constructivism. The MIT

Press, Cambridge USA. Loos, Adolf (1908) Ornament and Crime [excepts]. Available at:

http://www.mariabuszek.com/kcai/Design%20History/Design_readings/LoosOrnamentCrime.pdf . Margolin, Victor (1997) The Struggle for Utopia. The University of Chicago Press, London. Overy, Paul (2000) De Stijl. Thames and Hudson, London. Whitford, Frank (2006) Bauhaus. Thames & Hudson, London. Wilks, Christopher (2003) Modernism: Designing a New World. V&A, London.Reading: Woodham, Jonathan M. (1997) Design and Modernism, in Twentieth-Century Design. Oxford University

Press, Oxford.