DOCSLIB.ORG

PIET MONDRIAN. PROTO-FASHION THEORIST// ------SUBMISSION DATE: 08/01/2015 // ACCEPTANCE DATE 13/05/2015 // PUBLICATION DATE: 15/06/2015 (Pp

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
PIET MONDRIAN. PROTO-FASHION THEORIST// ------SUBMISSION DATE: 08/01/2015 // ACCEPTANCE DATE 13/05/2015 // PUBLICATION DATE: 15/06/2015 (Pp CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert LAUREN PALMOR // PIET MONDRIAN. PROTO-FASHION THEORIST //PIET MONDRIAN. PROTO-FASHION THEORIST// ---------------------------------------------- SUBMISSION DATE: 08/01/2015 // ACCEPTANCE DATE 13/05/2015 // PUBLICATION DATE: 15/06/2015 (pp. 39-50) LAUREN PALMOR UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON [email protected] /// KEYWORDS: Fashion theory, Piet Mondrian, J.C. Flügel, Thorstein Veblen, Georg Simmel, Sonia Delaunay. ABSTRACT: This paper attempts to contextualize Mondrian‘s few writings on fashion within his larger interest in oppositions and the work of early fashion theorists, who similarly framed dress in terms of binaries and antonyms. Like Mondrian, early fashion theorists were invested in ideas of opposition and universality, similarities that suggest that Mondrian may find conceptual allies in the first generation of fashion theorists, particularly J. C. Flügel, Thorstein Veblen, and Georg Simmel. Mondrian‘s largely overlooked approach to fashion theory sheds light on the understanding of his complex aesthetic philosophy, and, while much has been written about Mondrian‘s influence on fashion, there remains a need to navigate Mondrian‘s own inspiration by fashion. /// Piet Mondrian‘s legacy has escaped the historical limits of his own discipline—his influence has been felt in nearly every sphere of the visual arts, seemingly by osmosis. He has had a demonstrable visual impact on graphic design, home decor, and fashion, and his presence can be experienced by any hapless shopper who finds himself in a department store surrounded by handbags decorated with divided planes of red, yellow, and blue. Mondrian‘s uncompromisingly abstract, neoplastic style has long oscillated between high art and popular culture (Troy 2006: 15-36), and when one is determined to find an elegant intersection between Mondrian and design, the most frequently cited example is that of his influence on fashion. REVISTA FORMA //VOL 11 PRIMAVERA 2015 // ISSN 2013-7761 // 39 LAUREN PALMOR // PIET MONDRIAN. PROTO-FASHION THEORIST The most famous instance of Mondrian‘s impact on dress is undoubtedly Yves Saint Laurent‘s application of the artist‘s motifs in a collection of minimalist sack dresses, which debuted in the 1960s. One magazine reported, ―The Mondrian style in fashion has existed precisely since August 2, 1965. On this day, Yves Saint Laurent showed his Winter Collection in Paris for the first time‖ (MacKrell, 2005: 148). The collection of spare, playful, primary-colored dresses was first inspired by a book on Mondrian given to the young Saint Laurent by his mother, and the designer‘s tribute to neoplasticism resulted in a collection he credited with the feat of ―opening him up‖ as a designer for the first time (Life Magazine, 1965: 46-53). Saint Laurent was also inspired by the simple construction of the sack dress, a minimalist shape which easily leant itself to a design method which utilized the planes and lines employed by Mondrian. The dresses were, like the painter‘s own canvases, far more complex than they seemed. Saint Laurent reworked Mondrian‘s motifs to investigate different parts of a woman‘s body and the way they could interact with dress in the simplest way possible (Rubenstein, 2012: 128). The planarity of the dresses was ideal for a color block technique, which required piecing together individual squares of colored wool jersey in order to build a garment in a sensitive and logical way. This approach simultaneously allowed seams to be hidden by the structure of black lines. In this manner, Saint Laurent‘s black lines function similarly to Mondrian‘s own, shaping the spaces between the planes and the form of the canvas or garment. This practical construction method reveals a great attention to the details of Mondrian‘s own working methods and demonstrates Saint Laurent‘s esteem for De Stijl experimentation. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000) Mondrian‘s investigations helped Saint Laurent infuse the simple look of the 1960s with intellectual seriousness and a concern with minimalism. His frocks were referred to ―the dresses of tomorrow‖(Harper’s Bazaar, 1965) and Saint Laurent‘s concept of treating garments like canvases was a radical departure for fashion and its relationship to art (Mackrell, 2005: 148). The Mondrian dress succeeded in bringing the concepts of planarity and line that had preoccupied the artist throughout his life to the boutiques of Fifth Avenue. The relationship between Mondrian and fashion is usually limited to these types of dialogues about Saint Laurent‘s design, and nearly any investigation of De Stijl and fashion will engage with the YSL 1965 Winter Collection. However, Mondrian also held his own beliefs about fashion, ideas that predated the ―Mondrian dress,‖ sometimes by almost fifty years. Restricting the relationship between Mondrian and fashion to Saint Laurent‘s work is reductive, and does not serve the process of evaluating the artist‘s own complex perspectives on the practices of fashion.1 While Mondrian‘s writings have been analyzed to reveal his thoughts on art, philosophy, and spirituality, the artist‘s ideas about fashion and the meaning of dress still demand more attention. This seems like a serious omission, as Mondrian‘s few documented ideas on dress can serve as concrete examples of his sometimes-esoteric perspectives on form. Mondrian was fascinated by the idea of dress as a referent to the larger world. In 1932 he wrote: ―people do not see why a painter should concern himself with the laws of 1 In her book Couture Culture, Nancy Troy describes the way in which the connection between art and fashion has traditionally been underestimated and limited to surface connections, like designers visually responding to art in their garments. Couture Culture is rare in its hesitance to compare art with clothing in this way, which Troy prefaces by stating, ―Settling for a narrow definition of the relationship between art and fashion in terms of garments designed by artists or clothing that qualifies as art, (previous approaches) privileged formal similarities that are often visually powerful but, nevertheless, generally lack substance when it comes to the exploration of deeper, structural relations which, in turn, do not necessarily result in any stylistic or formal resemblances between particular items of clothing and specific works of art.‖ (Troy, 2003: 3). REVISTA FORMA //VOL 11 PRIMAVERA 2015 // ISSN 2013-7761 // 40 LAUREN PALMOR // PIET MONDRIAN. PROTO-FASHION THEORIST life; they do not understand that the laws of life realize themselves perhaps most clearly in art‖ (Lipsey, 1988: 67). Is fashion not a system within which the laws of life are expressed? Mondrian wrote ceaselessly about his quest for unity in a single outlet. Does this impulse not find its most convenient expression in the study of dress, which is essentially the study of externalization as it is written on the body? Mondrian‘s few writings on fashion complement his larger interest in oppositions, ideas that can be placed in a conversation with those of the early fashion theorists, who also framed dress in terms of binaries and antonyms. Like Mondrian, many early fashion theorists were similarly invested in ideas of opposition and universality, and these similarities suggest that Mondrian may find allies in his conceptual investigations among proto-fashion theorists like J. C. Flügel, Thorstein Veblen, and Georg Simmel.2 In her essay on Mondrian‘s late style, Nancy Troy writes, ―It is not certain that Mondrian himself would have been entirely unhappy with the uses to which his work has been put in the popular domain‖ (Troy, 2006: 25). Mondrian‘s adoration of popular culture was well documented, both in his own writings and in the accounts of friends. His ideas on dress, while generally overlooked, can be found in the same sphere as his praise for these other popular arts, most of which can be found in The New Art—The New Life: The Collected Writings of Piet Mondrian, the definitive source for English translations of the artist‘s essays (Mondrian, 1993)3. In this collection of texts, it is clear that Mondrian approached his experience of life and art with a regulatory compulsion, and this impulse extended to his thoughts on dress. Mondrian has been characterized by his interest in searching for the inherent character of things (James, 1963-4: 108) and his utopian aims held that the progressive development of culture should eventually express itself in the culmination of the total suppression of the natural, simultaneously aiding the expression of absolute beauty. The same inclinations that fueled his drive towards the exploration of the plane is shared by his impulse towards finding the pure and universal in other cultural products, like fashion. Mondrian‘s organizational inclination, most often articulated in his writings as systems of dualities, is mirrored in his thoughts on fashion, which are structured around oppositions. His ideas on dress are shaped like the ideas of conflict he expresses in pairs like inward/outward, spirit/nature, mind/matter, abstract/real, universal/individual, expansion/limitation, joy/suffering, and male/female (Crowther, 1997: 130). In addition to a system of oppositions, Mondrian‘s ideas on dress also mirror the Theosophist notions that every person and object has a reason for existence and an intrinsic necessity (Ibid, 129). While fashion is not often regarded in terms of its role in the spiritual progressions found in Theosophy, it is Mondrian‘s unique perspective that allows him to expand dress in this way. Mondrian‘s personal philosophies elude fixity (Troy, 2006: 15) in ways that are in turn unpredictable and sometimes disconcerting, and his ideas on dress are suspect to such characterization. One of his earlier ideas on dress falls in line with his predilection for the unexpected: in 1917 he wrote in The New Plastic in Painting: ―In all fields, life grows increasingly abstract while remaining real.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Origins and Meanings of Non-Objective Art by Adam Mccauley
    The Origins and Meanings of Non-Objective Art The Origins and Meanings of Non-Objective Art Adam McCauley, Studio Art- Painting Pope Wright, MS, Department of Fine Arts ABSTRACT Through my research I wanted to find out the ideas and meanings that the originators of non- objective art had. In my research I also wanted to find out what were the artists’ meanings be it symbolic or geometric, ideas behind composition, and the reasons for such a dramatic break from the academic tradition in painting and the arts. Throughout the research I also looked into the resulting conflicts that this style of art had with critics, academia, and ultimately governments. Ultimately I wanted to understand if this style of art could be continued in the Post-Modern era and if it could continue its vitality in the arts today as it did in the past. Introduction Modern art has been characterized by upheavals, break-ups, rejection, acceptance, and innovations. During the 20th century the development and innovations of art could be compared to that of science. Science made huge leaps and bounds; so did art. The innovations in travel and flight, the finding of new cures for disease, and splitting the atom all affected the artists and their work. Innovative artists and their ideas spurred revolutionary art and followers. In Paris, Pablo Picasso had fragmented form with the Cubists. In Italy, there was Giacomo Balla and his Futurist movement. In Germany, Wassily Kandinsky was working with the group the Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter), and in Russia Kazimer Malevich was working in a style that he called Suprematism.
    [Show full text]
  • Parcours Pédagogique Collège Le Cubisme
    PARCOURS PÉDAGOGIQUE COLLÈGE 2018LE CUBISME, REPENSER LE MONDE LE CUBISME, REPENSER LE MONDE COLLÈGE Vous trouverez dans ce dossier une suggestion de parcours au sein de l’exposition « Cubisme, repenser le monde » adapté aux collégiens, en Un autre rapport au préparation ou à la suite d’une visite, ou encore pour une utilisation à distance. réel : Ce parcours est à adapter à vos élèves et ne présente pas une liste d’œuvres le traitement des exhaustive. volumes dans l’espace Ce dossier vous propose une partie documentaire présentant l’exposition, suivie d’une sélection d’œuvres associée à des questionnements et à des compléments d’informations. L’objectif est d’engager une réflexion et des échanges avec les élèves devant les œuvres, autour de l’axe suivant « Un autre rapport au réel : le traitement des volumes dans l’espace ». Ce parcours est enrichi de pistes pédadogiques, à exploiter en classe pour poursuivre votre visite. Enfin, les podcasts conçus pour cette exposition vous permettent de préparer et d’approfondir in situ ou en classe. Suivez la révolution cubiste de 1907 à 1917 en écoutant les chroniques et poèmes de Guillaume Apollinaire. Son engagement auprès des artistes cubistes n’a jamais faibli jusqu’à sa mort en 1918 et a nourri sa propre poésie. Podcasts disponibles sur l’application gratuite du Centre Pompidou. Pour la télécharger cliquez ici, ou flashez le QR code situé à gauche. 1. PRÉSENTATION DE L’EXPOSITION L’exposition offre un panorama du cubisme à Paris, sa ville de naissance, entre 1907 et 1917. Au commencement deux jeunes artistes, Georges Braque et Pablo Picasso, nourris d’influences diverses – Gauguin, Cézanne, les arts primitifs… –, font table rase des canons de la représentation traditionnelle.
    [Show full text]
  • The Futurist Moment : Avant-Garde, Avant Guerre, and the Language of Rupture
    MARJORIE PERLOFF Avant-Garde, Avant Guerre, and the Language of Rupture THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO AND LONDON FUTURIST Marjorie Perloff is professor of English and comparative literature at Stanford University. She is the author of many articles and books, including The Dance of the Intellect: Studies in the Poetry of the Pound Tradition and The Poetics of Indeterminacy: Rimbaud to Cage. Published with the assistance of the J. Paul Getty Trust Permission to quote from the following sources is gratefully acknowledged: Ezra Pound, Personae. Copyright 1926 by Ezra Pound. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. Ezra Pound, Collected Early Poems. Copyright 1976 by the Trustees of the Ezra Pound Literary Property Trust. All rights reserved. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. Ezra Pound, The Cantos of Ezra Pound. Copyright 1934, 1948, 1956 by Ezra Pound. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. Blaise Cendrars, Selected Writings. Copyright 1962, 1966 by Walter Albert. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 1986 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 1986 Printed in the United States of America 95 94 93 92 91 90 89 88 87 86 54321 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Perloff, Marjorie. The futurist moment. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Futurism. 2. Arts, Modern—20th century. I. Title. NX600.F8P46 1986 700'. 94 86-3147 ISBN 0-226-65731-0 For DAVID ANTIN CONTENTS List of Illustrations ix Abbreviations xiii Preface xvii 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Groups 3 and 6 David Sequeira Cubism and Expressionism Gallery
    Groups 3 and 6 David Sequeira Cubism and Expressionism Gallery Sonia Delaunay DUBONNET 1914. Look at the work for a minute or so in silence. COLOUR (our eye follows the colours) and MOVEMENT. Largely secondary colours – (plum) red . Blue (ultramarine) . Yellow (mustardy) . Subtle contrasts . Rainbow palette . Appear to be spontaneous but carefully organised and balanced. e.g. red Geometry in the movement – circular but last quarter is different in colour and shape giving a fixed or static feel. “O” drops down, D and B also move. The “U” is like a wineglass (full). Two “N”s are Russian(?) Painting is joyful, happy, carefree (and yet so careful and contrived) celebratory, a sense of kicking up the heels. It is also hopeful, energetic, creating a feeling of change and excitement. The word Dubonnet is rhythmic. The jingle for the drink was Du beau, du bon, dubonnet…….. We do not really need to know what the word means as it is not really the focus. The painting is not a poster but it may well be an advertisement for the Delaunay’s studio itself – Aetelier “Simultane” which they established. They were intrigued by the notion of simultaneity – esp. of colours and the effects achieved. (Seurat and mixed colours). Friends and colleagues created the Orphism movement around them but they did not accept this label. Sonia came to Paris from Russia in 1905 as a young woman still in her teens. She had been brought up by a wealthy Uncle in St.Petersburg. In 1908 she made a marriage of convenience to a gay art dealer, Wilhem Uhde, who introduced her to “everyone” in the avant garde.
    [Show full text]
  • Piet Mondrian, Early Neo-Plastic Compositions, and Six Principles of Neo-Plasticism
    Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities (ISSN 0975-2935) Indexed by Web of Science, Scopus, DOAJ, ERIHPLUS Vol. 11, No. 3, October-December, 2019. 1-18 Full Text: http://rupkatha.com/V11/n3/v11n312.pdf DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v11n3.12 Piet Mondrian, early Neo-Plastic compositions, and six principles of Neo-Plasticism Ali Fallahzadeh1 & Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof2 1Visual Art Department, Cultural Center, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaya, Malaysia. ORCID: 0000-0002-0414-8702. Email: [email protected] 2(Corresponding author) Visual Art Department, Cultural Center, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaya, Malaysia. ORCID: 0000-0003-3567-6812 Email: [email protected] Abstract In spite of the prominent role of Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) as a pure abstract painter and writer of his theories who developed the abstract art into what he called Neo-Plasticism, little has been written about him compared to other painters such as Picasso and Matisse. Examining the past and recent literature published about Mondrian, some scholars examined the aesthetic evolution of Mondrian’s vision toward his Neo-Plastic art and theory within a historical context by depending on the influences he received from circle of thinkers, artists, and friends during his life. While other scholars analyzed the components of Neo- Plastic theory through formal tenets of De Stijl or a metaphysical lens through premises of western philosophies such as Theosophy, Hegel, and Platonism. Nevertheless, despite the emphasis of the majority of scholars on close relation between Mondrian’s paintings and writings, researchers showed little tendency to examine the development of core formal theories of Neo-Plasticism through a parallel analysis of his Neo-Plastic paintings and his theoretical writings.
    [Show full text]
  • Read Book Kazimir Malevich
    KAZIMIR MALEVICH PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Achim Borchardt-Hume | 264 pages | 21 Apr 2015 | TATE PUBLISHING | 9781849761468 | English | London, United Kingdom Kazimir Malevich PDF Book From the beginning of the s, modern art was falling out of favor with the new government of Joseph Stalin. Red Cavalry Riding. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. The movement did have a handful of supporters amongst the Russian avant garde but it was dwarfed by its sibling constructivism whose manifesto harmonized better with the ideological sentiments of the revolutionary communist government during the early days of Soviet Union. What's more, as the writers and abstract pundits were occupied with what constituted writing, Malevich came to be interested by the quest for workmanship's barest basics. Black Square. Woman Torso. The painting's quality has degraded considerably since it was drawn. Guggenheim —an early and passionate collector of the Russian avant-garde—was inspired by the same aesthetic ideals and spiritual quest that exemplified Malevich's art. Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description matches Wikidata Use dmy dates from May All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from June Lyubov Popova - You might like Left Right. Harvard doctoral candidate Julia Bekman Chadaga writes: "In his later writings, Malevich defined the 'additional element' as the quality of any new visual environment bringing about a change in perception Retrieved 6 July A white cube decorated with a black square was placed on his tomb. It was one of the most radical improvements in dynamic workmanship. Landscape with a White House.
    [Show full text]
  • Piet Mondrian
    Piet Mondrian “Always further” Vica Hicks "I wish to approach truth as closely as is possible, and therefore I abstract everything until I arrive at the fundamental quality of objects." -Piet Mondrian Avond (Evening): The Red Tree [1908] Oil on canvas 70 x 99 cm (27 1/2 x 39 in) Mill in Sunlight: The Winkel Mill [1908] Oil on canvas 114 x 87 cm (44 7/8 x 30 1/4 in) The Red Mill [1911] Oil on canvas 150 x 86 cm The Gray Tree [1912] Oil on canvas 78.5 × 107.5 cm. Still Life with Gingerpot 2 [1912] Oil on canvas 37 1/2 x 47 1/4 inches (91.5 x 120 cm) Amaryllis [1910] Watercolour 49.2 x 31.5 cm Composition in Color A [1917] Oil on canvas. 50 x 44 cm Composition: Light Color Planes with Grey Contours [1919] Oil on canvas 49 x 49 cm Composition A [1923] Oil on canvas. Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue [1937] Oil on canvas. 23 3/4 x 21 7/8" (60.3 x 55.4 cm) Broadway Boogie Woogie [1942] Oil on canvas. 50 x 50" (127 x 127 cm) “To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual.” - Piet Mondrian Bibliography Slide number - Citation 1. "15 Things You Should Know About Piet Mondrian." Mental Floss. N.p., n.d. Web. http://mentalfloss.com/article/66842/15-things-you-should-know-about-piet-mondrian 2. "Piet Mondrian. Pier and Ocean 5 (Sea and Starry Sky).
    [Show full text]
  • Piet Mondrian's Modern Masterpiece
    PRESS RELEASE | NEW YORK FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE : 9 A P R I L 2 0 2 1 PIET MONDRIAN’S MODERN MASTERPIECE COMPOSITION: NO II, WITH YELLOW, RED AND BLUE, 1927 IN CHRISTIE’S NY 20TH CENTURY EVENING SALE THIS MAY ON VIEW AT CHRISTIE’S HONG KONG APRIL 12-14 ON VIEW AT CHRISTIE’S LONDON APRIL 20-22 Property from an Important Private Collection PIET MONDRIAN (1872-1944) Composition: No. II, with Yellow, Red and Blue signed and dated 'PM 27' (lower right); signed and inscribed 'P. MONDRIAN HAUT No II Bovenzijde' (on the stretcher) oil on canvas 19 3/4 x 14 in. (50.5 x 35.2 cm.) Painted in 1927 Estimate on request NEW YORK - Christie’s is pleased to announce the inclusion of Piet Mondrian’s Composition: No. II, with Yellow, Red and Blue, 1927 in it’s upcoming, newly-introduced 20th Century Evening Sale at Christie’s New York on May 11, 2021 (estimate on request; in the region of US$25M). The painting is a rare and exceptional example of the artist’s revolutionary abstract aesthetic, made during a pivotal time in his career. Composition: No. II, with Yellow, Red and Blue will be unveiled for viewing at Christie’s Hong Kong from April 12-14 and at Christie’s London April 20-22 before returning to New York for the full exhibition of May sales property at Rockefeller Center in May. In Hong Kong, this modern masterpiece will be exhibited alongside Claude Monet’s Waterloo Bridge, effet de brouillard, 1899-1903, (estimate in the region of US$35 million) and Pablo Picasso’s iconic portrait Femme assise près d'une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse), 30 October 1932 (estimate in the region of US$55 million).
    [Show full text]
  • Sonia Delaunay's Yellow Nude, 1908
    © COPYRIGHT by Laura Ryan 2019 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED SUBVERTING ORIENTALISM AND PRIMITIVISM? SONIA DELAUNAY'S YELLOW NUDE, 1908 BY Laura Ryan ABSTRACT In this thesis, I demonstrate that Yellow Nude includes a number of pointed references to historic stereotypes and contemporaneous tropes that embroil the artist’s identity in the primitivist ideologies she apparently appropriates. I first identify the background design within the painting as that of a turn of the century ikat textile, with Central Asian, Jewish, and Russian production histories that mimic the biographic transnationality of Delaunay herself. Delaunay therefore invites viewers to conflate the figure in the painting with the woman who made it, capitalizing on the perceived “exoticism” of her “primitive” cultural upbringing. From this perspective, the featured figure’s mask-like face, disjunctive body, and gender ambiguity further implicate, interrogate, and perhaps undermine international fascination with the “primitive.” I argue that in Yellow Nude Sonia Delaunay both recreated the popular type of the exotic foreign woman and subtly undercut the ideologies behind the genre through specific references likely legible to those who shared her background. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ......................................................................................................... iv INTRODUCTION: THE VANGUARD NUDE,
    [Show full text]
  • Art in the Fourth Dimension: Giving Form to Form – the Abstract Paintings of Piet Mondrian
    Art in the Fourth Dimension: Giving Form to Form – The Abstract Paintings of Piet Mondrian Runette Kruger Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa Citation: Runette Kruger, “ Art in the Fourth Dimension: Giving Form to Form – The Abstract Paintings of Piet Mondrian ”, Spaces of Utopia: An Electronic Journal , nr. 5, Summer 2007, pp. 23-35 <http://ler.letras.up.pt > ISSN 1646-4729. The aim of this paper is to explore the art and utopian ideology of early-twentieth- century Dutch artist Piet Mondrian. As an idealist, Mondrian believed that his art would be instrumental in establishing the utopia he conceived of, and his writings and art are the painstaking and eloquent manifestations of his efforts in this regard. Mondrian is a key figure in Modernist art, as co-founder, with Theo van Doesburg, of the Dutch De Stijl movement (1917-1924), and as a pioneer in the development of twentieth-century abstraction – it was Mondrian who took non- representation further than even the revolutionary Picasso, with his cubist compositions, had. The background against which Mondrian formulated his notions on utopia is markedly dystopian. The turn of the twentieth century was a time in which the gap left by loss of faith in the Church could be only partially filled by a belief in positivism. The result was a fin de siècle characterised by a pervasive nihilism (Tuchman 1986: 19). This ideological impasse was exacerbated by the outbreak of the First World War. The turmoil and cruelty engendered by this event created a Spaces of Utopia 5 (Summer 2007) 24 fertile basis for the development of new and radical ideologies (Long 1986: 206).
    [Show full text]
  • Misfired Canon (A Review of the New Moma)
    NEW YORK NEW MOMA WINTER 2020 WINTER / OPENED OCTOBER 21 news ART At the new MoMA, Faith Ringgold’s 1967 painting American People Series No. 20: Die (below) is paired with Picasso’s famed 1907 canvas Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Misfred Canon A feminist curator fnds the rehang seriously lacking. BY MAURA REILLY URING THE 1990S, WHILE and, ultimately, Jackson Pollock. According by my boss from cheekily offering a tour of pursuing my graduate art history to Barr, “modern art” was a synchronic, “women artists in the collection” at a time degree at New York University, I linear flow of “isms” in which one (hetero- when there were only eight on view. worked in the Education Depart- sexual, white) male “genius” from Europe or By the turn of the 21st century, the rele- Dment of the Museum of Modern Art, where the U.S. influenced another who inevitably vance of mainstream modernism was being I led gallery tours of the museum’s perma- trumped or subverted his previous master, challenged, and anti-chronology became nent collection for the general public and thereby producing an avant-garde progres- all the rage. The Brooklyn Museum, the VIPs. At that time, the permanent exhibition sion. Barr’s story was so ingrained in the High Museum of Art, and the Denver Art galleries, representing art produced from institution that it was never questioned as Museum all rehung their collections accord- 1880 to the mid-1960s, were arranged to problematic. The fact that very few women, ing to subject instead of chronology, and a tell the “story” of modern art as conceived artists of color, and those not from Europe much-anticipated inaugural exhibition at by founding director Alfred H.
    [Show full text]
  • Sonia Delaunay, Dossier Pédagogique
    Dossier pédagogique 1 Dossier pédagogique Sonia Delaunay Les couleurs de l’abstraction Sommaire Introduction 3 Plan/ parcours 4 Présentation par salle 5-12 Biographique de l’artiste 13-14 Mots-clefs 15 Citations 16-17 Pédagogie 18-22 Activités groupes du service culturel 23-26 Publications/ programmation 27 Sélection d’œuvres 28-31 Informations pratiques 32 2 Dossier pédagogique Sonia Delaunay - Octobre 2014 - Service culturel du Mam Introduction Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979) figure parmi les pionniers de l’abstraction et a marqué de son empreinte un siècle entier de création. Sa proximité avec Robert Delaunay a pourtant souvent oblitéré l’extrême richesse de ses recherches. Cette exposition première rétrospective française d’envergure consacrée exclusivement à l’artiste propose de relire cet œuvre dans sa globalité de la peinture à la mode au design et à l’architecture. Cette rétrospective de près de 400 œuvres s’attache à montrer l’approche originale de la couleur développée par l’artiste à partir d’une sélection de ses premiers portraits, peintures et dessins. Soulignant l’importance de ses origines russes, l’exposition mets en lumière l’implication de Sonia Delaunay dans les arts appliqués et son rôle, majeur, dans les débuts de l’abstraction ainsi que sa place spécifique au sein des avant-gardes européennes . Les activités développées pendant l’entre-deux-guerres dans les domaines de la mode et du design font l’objet d’une présentation conséquente et de reconstitutions inédites. L’exposition réunit un ensemble exceptionnel de peintures monumentales de 1937, et insiste également sur le rôle clé de l’artiste, « passeur » entre la génération des pionniers de l’abstraction et celle des abstraits de l’après-guerre : sont ainsi évoqués les participations de Sonia Delaunay aux Salons des Réalités Nouvelles et aux expositions du groupe Espace, mais aussi la présence de l’artiste au sein de la galerie Denise René et les nombreux projets d’édition développés dès les années 1950.
    [Show full text]