Response To Mechanism

Both artistic movements Dadaism and surrealism both depicted the human form in varying ways. The pieces Monument II: Vanity (1926) by Hannah Hoch and Untitled Photogram (1929) by Maurice Tabard, both exemplify the attempts made by each respective movement to depict human bodies in unconventional ways. Following the war, an expansion of industrial innovations emerged and had a significant impact on the content produced by Dada artists. The mechanization of the human form was developed out of the post-war industrialization and is most significantly apparent in Hoch’s work where her rendering of the human body appears mechanized or manufactured, this was achieved by the artist through her unique use of the collage technique which would reconstruct

Though the start of the modernisation may trace back to the beginning of Industrial Revolution. “Modernism in the design world did not exist in a fully developed form, until well after First World War.” (Wilk, 2006) Causing the great loss of lives and other countless damage to the world, it reshaped many people’s way of thinking the world. With the inspiration of early avant-garde movement, the modernism began to emerge advocating an utopian future and shared certain core principles by various styles of modernists: rejecting the past and applied ornament; forms follow function, a preference for

During the beginning of the 20th century the world was developing at an unprecedented, intense speed, artists were looking for a new Avant garde way to create works. Hence, cubism came to life- “a truly revolutionary style of modern art developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braques” (Lance 2010 :2). Many critics challenged this new style due to its unconventional use of semiotics and lack of social sense. However, this is exactly what Cubists wanted to be, unconventional- challenging the traditions of Western art which they believed had become tired and run its course.

Marshall Berman’s take on modernity is presented in his book All That Is Solid Melts into Air whereby he focuses on its issues and the cultural attitudes and philosophies towards the modern condition. In doing so he shares his experiences of modernity post WWII in New York in the height of an economic boom and then more specifically of his childhood neighbourhood, the Bronx. In addition to expanded austerity, industrial and architectural development, the end of WWII proved to be a key period in world history and by extension the history of art. A talented group of artists emerged in result that had been influenced by an influx of established European artist who had fled to New York to escape fascist regimes in their homelands. More importantly these artists produced art that was at the heart of maelstrom Berman describes in regards to his experience of modernity. I aim to highlight the correlation between Berman’s experience of modernity and the emergence of a new American modernism. Modernity throughout this period was broken into two different compartments, hermetically sealed off from one another: "modernisation" in economics and politics, "modernism" in art, culture and sensibility. It’s through the lens of this dualism in which we recognise that both Berman and these artists try to make sense of the world around them by making their individual expressions that would re-conceptualise what it is to be modern in the twentieth century.

Unsatisfied with Italy’s dilatory transition to modern styles of art, Marinetti called for a movement lead by youth conducting constant upheaval of traditional art. These highly avant-garde notions lead him to relegate museums to the level of graveyards; perhaps to be visited annually in tribute to the past, but never to be copied or exalted. He expresses that youth, still untired and fueled by rage, can offer the most to great art. He possesses a genuine desire for constant change, and in suggesting that only those younger than forty can create change in the arts, he claims, “When we are forty, the younger and stronger men will probably throw us in the wastebasket like useless manuscripts-we want it to happen!” In an extreme example of his push forward, he propounds that artists not only adopt pejorative attitudes towards libraries, academies, and museums from the art world, but also incinerate and flood these institutions. In his manifesto, as well as in futurist paintings such as Giacomo Balla’s Street Light, the juxtaposition of celestial light sources with overpowering man-made lamps suggests the superiority of progress, technology, and machine power over that of historical insight and nature. Several times, Marinetti alludes to a transition from mythology, past knowledge, and logical thought in replacement of the life of speed and revolution sought by the futurists and succeeding movements. For example, he claims, “Let us give ourselves utterly to the unknown, not in desperation but only to replenish the wells of the absurd!” This break from adherence to previously acquired knowledge in pursuit of a rediscovery of the nature of life and a study of the illogical aspects of life is in accordance with contemporaneous avant-garde movements such as Dada. (Despite the Dadaists’ opposition to

He explains how various disciplines – such as photography, film, and typography – were not “immune to the programme of Modernism”1. The author uses an example of such through a photographer called Aleksandr Rodchenko, who viewed photography as a chance to shift away from conventional painting through objective realism. He discusses the ‘belly-button’ viewpoint, and how this paved the way for objective realism in photography: “this viewpoint gave me an impression of its massiveness [the Eiffel Tower] and constructiveness.” . Ultimately, Rodchenko was advocating for an extension for the way in which photography defined reality. At this time, other artists used photography in purely abstract forms, for instance, experimentation in paintings. Pop art is also outlined in the book as a major reaction against the elitism of International Modernism in the 1950s and 1960s. Pop Art is distinguished as an extension of the Dadaism movement, through its socially concerned

Although brutalism functioned as a movement in modern architecture, it shared many ideas with the pop movement, including that of the “valuation of materials as found” (Potts 2014). Paolozzi sees the “mystery and magic in the everyday”, which Kirkpatrick calls the “schizophrenic quality” of western urban life (Kirkpatrick 1969, p. 24). This idea would be important for Paolozzi as he developed and revised his methods for gathering, selecting, and arranging found printed images of modern mass media into collages. As much as Paolozzi valued found materials, he also insisted on the transformation of those materials. For him, finding materials did not preclude their manipulation. He was not rigid in his artistic thought. Unlike some theory-based dada artists of the time, Paolozzi embraced uncertainty and was open to the unknown synergies that only collage could produce (Potts 2014). Elements of the mechanized human, of magic, and of damaged man (not without hope however!) permeate his early work, reactions to an age where mass communication rendered death and destruction available daily in newspapers, on Television, and in magazines (Kirkpatrick

In terms of graphic design, there seems to be an ebb and flow between breaking boundaries and returning to a comfortable box of formality and normality. Much like art movements in general, there seems to be a yearning to return to the “classics,” or whatever movements that have come before, except this time they make it better, somewhat different, in order to keep up with the new technological advancements. As such, I feel that the graphic design style that David Carson exhibits is an elaboration of what the Futurists, such as Filippo Marinetti, had begun 71 years earlier. And though there is a fairly large gap between the two movements, they are more alike than you would think.

In this essay, I will be discussing the two movements ‘Dada’ and ‘Futurism’, with reference to their conceptual contexts and representative plays, there will also be analysis to how these two movements contrast to realism/ naturalism. Links will also be made to the plays, with the use of scholarly sources to back up the argument and then coming to a final conclusion at the end of the essay.

Through the 20th century’s proliferation of popular art, a binary opposition was created with the dominant pre-existing European aesthetics. Artists using nontraditional tools challenged the canon’s notions of value and, in this way, fought against repressive desublimation, in which high culture and art become commodified and absorbed into a material capitalistic society. The purpose of this paper is to address the juxtaposed values of “high” and “pop” art to determine if their values should be equalized. This paper is divided into three sections. The first section examines intent. The second section examines the effects of the environment in which an artwork is created and viewed. The third section examines changes and continuities as they

At the same time, Baroque has influenced not every medium of art in the works of contemporary artists of the 21st century. Such elements as sculpture, architecture, and music have been hardly influenced by the inspirations of the previous centuries. Indeed, the style that has emerged during the period of discoveries in new sciences, exploration of new lands, increased trade and the reformation of church, could barely provide any solutions for artists born three centuries later, especially in those mediums of art, where the reference for the past signifies of the regression of an art element development.

Kulten discusses how Epstein destroyed The Rock Drill (1913-15) because in its complete form, it was “almost too symbolic” and in order to cope with his work, had to reduce it to an aesthetic work only (1969 65). Epstein took the synthetic man and removed the legs and parts of the arms, leaving only the torso which he cast into a bronze bust in 1916. Having been involved in sculpture his entire artistic career, Epstein reverted back to the traditional methods of creating sculptures in order to gain familiarity in his work again. As a result of returning to traditional themes, Epstein’s work lost a majority of the revolutionary aspects that made The Rock Drill (1913-15) an important work for the recurring theme of mechanisation that enveloped society in the early half of the 20th century (Kulten, 1969 65). Torso in Metal from ‘The Rock Drill’ (1916) is an important work to consider when exploring the machine aesthetic, as it is the expression of a frightful artist, unable to cope with the mechanical world, thus turning his greatest creation into a lifeless bust with minimal meaning or

Umberto Boccioni was one of the most noticeable and powerful artists among the Italian Futurists, an art movement that arose in the years before the First World War. Boccioni was educated from 1898 to 1902 in the studio of the painter Giacomo Balla, where he learned to paint in the style of the Pointillists. In 1907, he settled in Milan, where he progressively came under the influence of the poet Filippo Marinetti, who hurled the Futurist movement, which adored the dynamism of modern technology. Boccioni’s first major Futurist painting, Riot in the Gallery, endured close to pointillism and displayed an affiliation with Futurism mainly in its violent substance matter and dynamic configuration. In 1912, he published the “Manifesto of Futurist

The beginning of 20th century was a time of drastic change. New developments were made in the arenas of the classical sciences, social science, psychology and philosophy - each challenging traditional thought. Industrialization and the introduction of many new, challenging concepts in the fields of politics as well as the development of new technologies gave artist more freedom to innovate and break the rules of traditional art. By using new materials, techniques and the new approach artists were pushing boundaries of what has previously been accepted art practice in order to invent radically new styles.

“Modern painting, breaking through old conversation, has released countless suggestions which are still waiting to be used by the practical world.”(Gropius) The birth of modernism and modern art goes back to the Industrial Revolution, a period that lasted from the 18th to the 19th century, in which rapid changes in manufacturing, transportation, and technology profoundly affected the social, economic, and cultural conditions of life in Western Europe, North America, and eventually the world. Before the 19th century, artists created art pieces for wealthy people and institution places like the church where they can create art works about storytelling of religious or mythological scenes . These arts were there to instruct the viewers.However, this changed when during the 19th century many artists began to create works that were about people, places, or ideas that interested them, and of which they had direct experience. With the popularization of the idea of a subconscious mind, many artists began exploring dreams, symbolism, and personal iconography as avenues for the depiction of their subjective experiences.Challenging the notion that art must realistically depict the world, some artists experimented with the expressive use of color, non-traditional materials, and new techniques and mediums.