Central European Avant-Gardes Exchange and Transformation, 1910-1930

by Benson, Timothy O.; Nadas, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780262025225
• ISBN10: 0262025221
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-03-01
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

Winner of the 2004 Philip Johnson Award presented by the Society of Architectural Historians Central European Avant-Gardespresents the first interpretive overview of the complex webs of interaction among the artists and intellectuals of early twentieth-century Central Europe. The key stylistic transformation of the period was from Expressionism to Constructivism, as artists and writers, against a volatile background of war and revolution, saw the opportunity literally to construct a new world through their work. The borders between the visual arts, photography, film, architecture, poetry, and typography were obliterated, as artists sought to transcend the forces of traditionalism to forge an elemental visual language that would overcome national and linguistic boundaries. Yet at the same time that these artists advocated pluralism and unity, their work engaged issues such as nationalism and tradition that still resonate in artistic circles today. The book, which accompanies a major exhibition organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and curated by Timothy Benson, assisted by Monika Krol, is arranged around events and situations rather than by linear, art historical categories. It features hundreds of color plates and reproductions of documents; discussions of movements from Artificialism to Zenitism; essays on figures, publications, and exhibitions; and shorter "city views" of Belgrade, Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest, Cracow, Dessau, Ljubljana, £odz, Poznao, Prague, Vienna, Warsaw, Weimar, and Zagreb.

Author Biography

Timothy O. Benson is Curator of the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Table of Contents

Foreword	8	(4)
Andrea L. Rich
Introduction	12	(10)
Timothy O. Benson
A Careful Definition of the Locale: Walking Around and Around a Solitary	22	(12)
Wild Pear Tree
Peter Nadas
Exchange and Transformation: The Internationalization of the Avant-Garde(s) in Central Europe	34	(34)
Timothy O. Benson
Nationalism and Modernity	68	(13)
Anthony D. Smith
Prague	81	(60)
Lenka Bydzovska
The First Skupina Exhibition, Prague, 1912	87	(3)
Surrealities	90	(18)
Derek Sayer
Poetry in the Midst of the World: The Avant-Garde as Projectile	108	(24)
Karel Srp
Central Europe: The Linguistic Turn	132	(9)
Michael Henry Heim
Budapest	141	(24)
Lee Congdon
Between Cultures: Hungarian Concepts of Constructivism	146	(19)
Eva Forgacs
Vienna	165	(34)
Pat Dereky
Art into Life: International Constructivism in Central and Eastern Europe	172	(27)
Christina Lodder
Berlin	199	(6)
Krisztina Passuth
Weimar	205	(12)
Eva Bajkay
The First Bauhaus Exhibition, Weimar, 1923	213	(4)
Dessau	217	(30)
Eva Bajkay
The Exhibition as a Work of Art: Avant-Garde Exhibitions in East Central Europe	226	(21)
Krisztina Passuth
Bucharest	247	(8)
Ioana Vlasiu
Zagreb	255	(24)
Zelimir Koscevic
Ljubomir Micic and the Zenitist Utopia	260	(19)
Esther Levinger
Belgrade	279	(4)
Misko Suvakovic
Ljubljana	283	(24)
Lev Kreft
Methodology and Meaning in the Modern Art of Eastern Europe	288	(19)
S. A. Mansbach
Poznan	307	(20)
Jerzy Malinowski
Modernity and Nationalism: Avant-Garde Art and Polish Independence, 1912-1922	312	(15)
Piotr Piotrowski
Cracow	327	(6)
Tomasz Gryglewicz
Warsaw	333	(24)
Dorota Folga-Januszewska
Collaboration and Compromise: Women Artists in Polish-German Avant-Garde Circles, 1910-1930	338	(19)
Monika Krol
Lodf	357	(17)
Jaromir Jedlinsky
The Phenomenon of Blurring	362	(12)
Andrzej Turowski
Checklist and Artist Biographies	374	(42)
Selected Bibliography	416	(15)
Acknowledgments	431	(5)
Lenders to the Exhibition	436	(1)
Illustration Credits	437	(3)
Index	440