Leger and the City Press Release 6-18-13 AV Edits

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Leger and the City Press Release 6-18-13 AV Edits EXHIBITION EXAMINES A MASTERPIECE BY FERNAND LÉGER IN CONTEXT Léger: Modern Art and the Metropolis October 14, 2013 - January 5, 2014 Returning to Paris after military service in World War I, the French painter Fernand Léger (1881– 1955) encountered a changed city, infused with a new boisterous energy that would inspire him to create one of his landmark achievements, the monumental painting The City (1919). The creation of this work signaled the beginning of the most experimental period in Léger’s work, lasting through the 1920s, when the artist challenged and redeMined the practice of painting by bringing it into active engagement with the urban popular and commercial arts. Léger: Modern Art and the Metropolis will examine the centrality of this masterpiece in Léger’s career and the European avant- garde in the years immediately after World War I. Comprising approximately 160 works, including loans from public and private collections in Europe and the United States, this multimedia exhibition will unite The City with other important paintings from this period by Léger, and with key works in Milm, theater design, graphic and advertising design, and architecture by the artist and his avant-garde colleagues, including Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, Cassandre, Amédée Ozenfant, Le Corbusier, Francis Picabia, Alexandra Exter, Gerald Murphy, and others. “Léger’s The City, donated to the Museum by the artist and collector A.E. Gallatin, is one of the greatest works in our collection and a landmark in the history of modern art,” notes Timothy Rub, the George D. Widener Director and Chief Executive OfMicer of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “This exhibition examines this painting in context and marks the Mirst time that the culture of the modern metropolis is explored as a catalyst for Léger’s pursuits in a variety of media.” In the United States, the exhibition will be seen only in Philadelphia. Following its presentation at the Museum, it will travel to Venice where it will be on view at the Correr Museum in the Piazza San Marco. (To conMirm). The City was a threshold work in Léger’s oeuvre. A monumental painting in a post-Cubist style, it was intended by the artist to convey viscerally the density and spatial complexity of the urban environment. Léger considered The City a “mural” painting both because of its grand scale and because he believed it spoke to a mass audience. With its composition characterized by montage- like cross-cuts from one scene to the next and dramatic “close-ups,” The City emulated the most popular of modern urban entertainments, the cinema. Starting with The City, Léger’s paintings likewise emulated, rather than illustrated, distinctive features of urban visual culture: his paintings acquired the formal qualities of street signs or billboards, frames of a Milm, theatrical backdrops, or walls of buildings. Léger also expanded his range of production into Milmmaking, theater design, graphic design, and mural decoration, while at the same time his avant-garde friends and collaborators—artists, poets, architects, and Milmmakers—were also seeking new social relevance by taking inspiration from the urban popular arts and the metropolitan environment. The exhibition will be organized thematically to reMlect the fertile relationships between painting and urban culture during this period. The Mirst section of the exhibition will examine the notion of “publicity” and the excitement Léger felt for the evolving visual language of mass communication in the city: the bustle of billboards, trafMic signs, and shop window displays. Léger’s paintings, his designs for advertising posters, and his print illustrations will be seen alongside work by other artists and designers, such as Gerald Murphy, Cassandre, and Jean Carlu. The exhibition will also explore Léger’s interest in public entertainment and staged performance, mainly the theater and cinema, highlighting the set and costume designs produced by Léger for Milm and ballet. This part of the exhibition will survey avant-garde activities around cinema and the stage, and include works by Francis Picabia, Alexandra Exter, Georgii Yakoulov, and others. The exhibition’s Minal section will address the theme of “space” by presenting the artist’s abstract mural compositions of the mid-1920s, intended as decorative architectural panels, in the context of the avant-garde’s exploration of integrating architectural and pictorial space. This section of the exhibition will include works by artists, architects, and designers such as Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, Robert Mallet-Stevens, Alexander Archipenko and Le Corbusier. “For many artists, the metropolis imposed a new way of seeing and demanded new practices of artmaking,”comments exhibition curator Anna Vallye, the Museum’s Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow in Modern and Contemporary Art. “It inspired Léger to probe the boundaries between the arts, and between Mine art and common culture.” The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in collaboration with Yale University Press. Featuring essays by scholars of art, architecture, and Milm history, a selection of historical texts by Léger and others not previously published in English, and more than 250 full-color illustrations, the catalogue conveys the experimental spirit of the 1920s. A wide range of public programming will accompany the exhibition, including lectures, activities for families with children, a Milm series, music performances, and a scholarly conference. A full schedule will be available on the Museum’s website at a later date. Léger: Modern Art and the Metropolis is generously supported by The Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Annenberg Foundation for Major Exhibitions, and Sotheby’s. The catalogue is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Fund for Scholarly Publications at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and by Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund. About Fernand Léger The son of a cattle farmer, Léger was born in Argentan, Orne, Basse-Normandie, in 1881. From 1897-1899, he trained as an architect and in 1900 he moved to Paris where he became an architectural draftsman. After military service, in1902–1903, he enrolled at the School of Decorative Arts while also attending classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and studying at the Académie Julian. Léger began painting seriously at the age of 25. his early work was inMluenced by Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. In 1909 Léger moved to Montparnasse, where he met leaders of the artistic avant-garde including Alexander Archipenko, Jacques Lipchitz, Marc Chagall, and Robert Delaunay. In 1910 Léger and several other artists, including Marcel Duchamp, Delaunay, Jacques Villon, henri Le Fauconnier, Albert Gleizes, and Francis Picabia formed an offshoot of the Cubist movement, the Puteaux Group, also called the Section d'Or (The Golden Section). During this period of Cubist inMluence, Léger’s paintings became increasingly abstract. While in the French Army during World War I, Léger produced sketches of artillery pieces, airplanes, and fellow soldiers. In 1919 he married Jeanne-Augustine Lohy, and in 1920 he met the architect Le Corbusier, who would remain a lifelong friend. During the 1920s, Léger, with his enthusiasm for modernity and urban culture continuing to grow, considered abandoning painting for Milmmaking. In 1922–24 he designed, produced, and directed for the cinema and theater. During this time, in collaboration with Amédée Ozenfant, Léger established a free school where he taught from 1924, with Alexandra Exter and Marie Laurencin. In 1924, inMluenced by the work and theories of Theo van Doesburg and Le Corbusier, Léger produced the Mirst of his entirely abstract "mural paintings.” During World War II Léger lived in the United States, inding inspiration in industrial refuse found in the nation’s landscape—the juxtaposition of natural forms and mechanical elements. It was around this time that he painted his acclaimed Three Musicians (1944). After the war, Léger returned to France and joined the Communist party. his work became less abstract and he produced many monumental Migure compositions. In his Minal years, Léger lectured, designed mosaics and stained-glass windows, and continued painting. Works he produced during this time include his series The Big Parade. In 1954 he began a project for a mosaic for the São Paulo Opera, which he would not live to Minish. Fernand Léger died at his home in 1955. Social Media: Facebook: philamuseum; Twitter: philamuseum; Tumblr: philamuseum; YouTube: PhilaArtMuseum; Instagram: @philamuseum Exhibition Hours: Tuesday–Sunday: 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.; Wednesday and Friday: 10:00 a.m.–8:45 p.m. The Philadelphia Museum of Art is one of the largest museums in the United States, with a collection of more than 227,000 works of art. The Museum’s many galleries present painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography, decorative arts, textiles, and architectural settings from Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States. Its facilities include a landmark main building; the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building; the Rodin Museum, and two historic houses in Fairmount Park, Mount Pleasant and Cedar Grove. The Museum offers a wide variety of activities for public audiences, including special exhibitions, programs for children and families, lectures, concerts, and Milms. For additional press information and images, contact the press ofLice at [email protected] or 215-684-7860. For general information, call 215-763-8100, or visit the Museum’s website at philamuseum.org. .
Recommended publications
  • Dada Bros Man Ray & Picabia
    MAN RAY & PICABIA DADA BROS MAN RAY & PICABIA The Avant-Garde Masters at Vito Schnabel Gallery By Ines Valencia April 26, 2021 Man Ray, The Tortoise, 1944. Oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61 cm) © Man Ray 2015 Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris 2021. Vito Schnabel Gallery, in New York, is hosting the historical different media types (including painting, photography, exhibition Man Ray & Picabia. This show brings together collage, and sculpture,) although he considered himself a two of the most legendary artists of the avant-garde and painter. In Paris, he joined the Dadaist group and became essential contributors to the Dada movement. It runs well known for his photography (his subjects included through May 15, 2021. some of the biggest names in the art world, including Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Peggy Guggenheim, Gertrude Stein, Man Ray & Picabia focuses on nine carefully selected and Jean Cocteau). However, he abandoned the medium for paintings produced between the late 1920s and mid-1950s painting in 1937. (some of which have not been on display to the public for decades.) Both artists did meet briefly in 1915 (Marcel Francis Picabia (1879-1953) was a French artist specializing Duchamp introduced them). Still, the dialogue presented in in painting, poetry, and typography. Like Man Ray, he was the exhibition is an imaginary one between the two, one one of the central figures in the Dada movement. Having that uses juxtaposition to bring their similarities to light. moved on from Impressionism, Pointillism, and Cubism, Both were prominent figures in the Dada and Surrealist Picabia identified with the provocative spirit of Dada and movements, and breaking rules played significant roles was active in both Paris and Zürich but renounced his ties in redefining what can be considered art and what it can to the movement in 1921, the same year Man Ray arrived in contain and do.
    [Show full text]
  • Cubism in America
    University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Sheldon Museum of Art Catalogues and Publications Sheldon Museum of Art 1985 Cubism in America Donald Bartlett Doe Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/sheldonpubs Part of the Art and Design Commons Doe, Donald Bartlett, "Cubism in America" (1985). Sheldon Museum of Art Catalogues and Publications. 19. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/sheldonpubs/19 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Sheldon Museum of Art at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sheldon Museum of Art Catalogues and Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. RESOURCE SERIES CUBISM IN SHELDON MEMORIAL ART GALLERY AMERICA Resource/Reservoir is part of Sheldon's on-going Resource Exhibition Series. Resource/Reservoir explores various aspects of the Gallery's permanent collection. The Resource Series is supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. A portion of the Gallery's general operating funds for this fiscal year has been provided through a grant from the Institute of Museum Services, a federal agency that offers general operating support to the nation's museums. Henry Fitch Taylor Cubis t Still Life, c. 19 14, oil on canvas Cubism in America .".. As a style, Cubism constitutes the single effort which began in 1907. Their develop­ most important revolution in the history of ment of what came to be called Cubism­ art since the second and third decades of by a hostile critic who took the word from a the 15th century and the beginnings of the skeptical Matisse-can, in very reduced Renaissance.
    [Show full text]
  • A Stylistic and Contextual Analysis of Juan Gris' Cityscape Imagery, 1911-1912 Geoffrey David Schwartz University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
    University of Wisconsin Milwaukee UWM Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations December 2014 The ubiC st's View of Montmartre: A Stylistic and Contextual Analysis of Juan Gris' Cityscape Imagery, 1911-1912 Geoffrey David Schwartz University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.uwm.edu/etd Part of the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Recommended Citation Schwartz, Geoffrey David, "The ubC ist's View of Montmartre: A Stylistic and Contextual Analysis of Juan Gris' Cityscape Imagery, 1911-1912" (2014). Theses and Dissertations. 584. https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/584 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by UWM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UWM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE CUBIST’S VIEW OF MONTMARTRE: A STYISTIC AND CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF JUAN GRIS’ CITYSCAPE IMAGERY, 1911-1912. by Geoffrey David Schwartz A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Art History at The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee December 2014 ABSTRACT THE CUBIST’S VIEW OF MONTMARTE: A STYLISTIC AND CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF JUAN GRIS’ CITYSCAPE IMAGERY, 1911-1912 by Geoffrey David Schwartz The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2014 Under the Supervision of Professor Kenneth Bendiner This thesis examines the stylistic and contextual significance of five Cubist cityscape pictures by Juan Gris from 1911 to 1912. These drawn and painted cityscapes depict specific views near Gris’ Bateau-Lavoir residence in Place Ravignan. Place Ravignan was a small square located off of rue Ravignan that became a central gathering space for local artists and laborers living in neighboring tenements.
    [Show full text]
  • Cubo-Futurism
    Notes Cubo-Futurism Slap in theFace of Public Taste 1 . These two paragraphs are a caustic attack on the Symbolist movement in general, a frequent target of the Futurists, and on two of its representatives in particular: Konstantin Bal'mont (1867-1943), a poetwho enjoyed enormouspopu­ larityin Russia during thefirst decade of this century, was subsequentlyforgo tten, and died as an emigrein Paris;Valerii Briusov(18 73-1924), poetand scholar,leader of the Symbolist movement, editor of the Salles and literary editor of Russum Thought, who after the Revolution joined the Communist party and worked at Narkompros. 2. Leonid Andreev (1871-1919), a writer of short stories and a playwright, started in a realistic vein following Chekhov and Gorkii; later he displayed an interest in metaphysicsand a leaning toward Symbolism. He is at his bestin a few stories written in a realistic manner; his Symbolist works are pretentious and unconvincing. The use of the plural here implies that, in the Futurists' eyes, Andreev is just one of the numerousepigones. 3. Several disparate poets and prose writers are randomly assembled here, which stresses the radical positionof the signatories ofthis manifesto, who reject indiscriminately aU the literaturewritt en before them. The useof the plural, as in the previous paragraphs, is demeaning. Maksim Gorkii (pseud. of Aleksei Pesh­ kov, 1�1936), Aleksandr Kuprin (1870-1938), and Ivan Bunin (1870-1953) are writers of realist orientation, although there are substantial differences in their philosophical outlook, realistic style, and literary value. Bunin was the first Rus­ sianwriter to wina NobelPrize, in 1933.AJeksandr Biok (1880-1921)is possiblythe best, and certainlythe most popular, Symbolist poet.
    [Show full text]
  • The Artwork Caught by the Tail*
    The Artwork Caught by the Tail* GEORGE BAKER If it were married to logic, art would be living in incest, engulfing, swallowing its own tail. —Tristan Tzara, Manifeste Dada 1918 The only word that is not ephemeral is the word death. To death, to death, to death. The only thing that doesn’t die is money, it just leaves on trips. —Francis Picabia, Manifeste Cannibale Dada, 1920 Je m’appelle Dada He is staring at us, smiling, his face emerging like an exclamation point from the gap separating his first from his last name. “Francis Picabia,” he writes, and the letters are blunt and childish, projecting gaudily off the canvas with the stiff pride of an advertisement, or the incontinence of a finger painting. (The shriek of the commodity and the babble of the infant: Dada always heard these sounds as one and the same.) And so here is Picabia. He is staring at us, smiling, a face with- out a body, or rather, a face that has lost its body, a portrait of the artist under the knife. Decimated. Decapitated. But not quite acephalic, to use a Bataillean term: rather the reverse. Here we don’t have the body without a head, but heads without bodies, for there is more than one. Picabia may be the only face that meets our gaze, but there is also Metzinger, at the top and to the right. And there, just below * This essay was written in the fall of 1999 to serve as a catalog essay for the exhibition Worthless (Invaluable): The Concept of Value in Contemporary Art, curated by Carlos Basualdo at the Moderna Galerija Ljubljana, Slovenia.
    [Show full text]
  • Cubism Futurism Art Deco
    20TH Century Art Early 20th Century styles based on SHAPE and FORM: Cubism Futurism Art Deco to show the ‘concept’ of an object rather than creating a detail of the real thing to show different views of an object at once, emphasizing time, space & the Machine age to simplify objects to their most basic, primitive terms 20TH CENTURY ART & ARCHITECTURE Cubism & Picasso Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 Considered most influential artist of 20th Century Blue Period Rose Period Analytical Cubism Synthetic Cubism 20TH CENTURY ART & ARCHITECTURE Cubism & Picasso Early works by a young Picasso Girl Wearing Large Hat, 1901. Lola, the artist’s sister, 1901. 20TH CENTURY ART & ARCHITECTURE Cubism & Picasso Picasso’s Blue Period Blue Period (1901-1904) Moves to Paris in his late teens Coping with suicide of friend Paintings were lonely, depressing Major color was BLUE! 20TH CENTURY ART & ARCHITECTURE Cubism & Picasso Picasso’s Blue Period Pablo Picasso, Blue Nude, 1902. BLUE PERIOD 20TH CENTURY ART & ARCHITECTURE Cubism & Picasso Picasso’s Blue Period Pablo Picasso, Self Portrait, 1901. BLUE PERIOD 20TH CENTURY ART & ARCHITECTURE Cubism & Picasso Picasso’s Blue Period Pablo Picasso, Tragedy, 1903. BLUE PERIOD 20TH CENTURY ART & ARCHITECTURE Cubism & Picasso Picasso’s Blue Period Pablo Picasso, Le Gourmet, 1901. BLUE PERIOD 20TH CENTURY ART & ARCHITECTURE Cubism & Picasso Picasso’s work at the National Gallery (DC) 20TH CENTURY ART & ARCHITECTURE Cubism & Picasso Picasso’s Rose Period Rose Period (1904-1906) Much happier art than before Circus people as subjects Reds and warmer colors Pablo Picasso, Harlequin Family, 1905. ROSE PERIOD 20TH CENTURY ART & ARCHITECTURE Cubism & Picasso Picasso’s Rose Period Pablo Picasso, La Familia de Saltimbanques, 1905.
    [Show full text]
  • Pablo Picasso, One of the Most He Was Gradually Assimilated Into Their Dynamic and Influential Artists of Our Stimulating Intellectual Community
    A Guide for Teachers National Gallery of Art,Washington PICASSO The Early Ye a r s 1892–1906 Teachers’ Guide This teachers’ guide investigates three National G a l l e ry of A rt paintings included in the exhibition P i c a s s o :The Early Ye a rs, 1 8 9 2 – 1 9 0 6.This guide is written for teachers of middle and high school stu- d e n t s . It includes background info r m a t i o n , d i s c u s s i o n questions and suggested activities.A dditional info r m a- tion is available on the National Gallery ’s web site at h t t p : / / w w w. n g a . gov. Prepared by the Department of Teacher & School Programs and produced by the D e p a rtment of Education Publ i c a t i o n s , Education Division, National Gallery of A rt . ©1997 Board of Tru s t e e s , National Gallery of A rt ,Wa s h i n g t o n . Images in this guide are ©1997 Estate of Pa blo Picasso / A rtists Rights Society (ARS), New Yo rk PICASSO:The EarlyYears, 1892–1906 Pablo Picasso, one of the most he was gradually assimilated into their dynamic and influential artists of our stimulating intellectual community. century, achieved success in drawing, Although Picasso benefited greatly printmaking, sculpture, and ceramics from the artistic atmosphere in Paris as well as in painting. He experiment- and his circle of friends, he was often ed with a number of different artistic lonely, unhappy, and terribly poor.
    [Show full text]
  • Joan of Arc and Francis Picabia's La Sainte-Vierge." Dada/ Surrealism 22 (2018): N
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Iowa Research Online Dada/Surrealism ISSN 0084-9537 No. 22 DOI: 10.17077/0084-9537.1321 Dada, War and Peace Article 5 The Blood of France: Joan of Arc and Francis Picabia's La Sainte- Vierge Simon Marginson University of York accessible Copyright © 2018 Simon Marginson Recommended Citation Marginson, Simon. "The Blood of France: Joan of Arc and Francis Picabia's La Sainte-Vierge." Dada/ Surrealism 22 (2018): n. pag. Web. Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0084-9537.1321 Hosted by Iowa Research Online This Theme Essay is brought to you for free and open access by Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dada/Surrealism by an authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Blood of France: Joan of Arc and Francis Picabia’s La Sainte-Vierge Simon Marginson Francis Picabia’s blasphemously titled drawing La Sainte-Vierge first appeared in the twelfth issue of his journal 391 (fig. 1). Originally published in May 1920, Picabia’s iconoclastic gesture is now canonical. An icon in its own right, La Sainte-Vierge continues to serve as the ubiquitous visual shorthand for Dada’s nihilistic, anti-art tendencies within general accounts of modernism, despite the existence of a large body of specialist literature that expands the significance of the drawing well beyond these persistent clichés. Indeed, La Sainte-Vierge has been subject to such wide- ranging interpretations that George Baker has complained that it is in danger of becoming the Rorschach blot of art history (38).
    [Show full text]
  • Dada and Surrealist Journals in the Mary Reynolds Collection
    Documents of Dada and Surrealism: Dada and Surrealist Journals in the Mary Reynolds Collection... Page 1 of 26 Documents of Dada and Surrealism: Dada and Surrealist Journals in the Mary Reynolds Collection IRENE E. HOFMANN Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, The Art Institute of Chicago Dada 6 (Bulletin The Mary Reynolds Collection, which entered The Art Institute of Dada), Chicago in 1951, contains, in addition to a rich array of books, art, and ed. Tristan Tzara ESSAYS (Paris, February her own extraordinary bindings, a remarkable group of periodicals and 1920), cover. journals. As a member of so many of the artistic and literary circles View Works of Art Book Bindings by publishing periodicals, Reynolds was in a position to receive many Mary Reynolds journals during her life in Paris. The collection in the Art Institute Finding Aid/ includes over four hundred issues, with many complete runs of journals Search Collection represented. From architectural journals to radical literary reviews, this Related Websites selection of periodicals constitutes a revealing document of European Art Institute of artistic and literary life in the years spanning the two world wars. Chicago Home In the early part of the twentieth century, literary and artistic reviews were the primary means by which the creative community exchanged ideas and remained in communication. The journal was a vehicle for promoting emerging styles, establishing new theories, and creating a context for understanding new visual forms. These reviews played a pivotal role in forming the spirit and identity of movements such as Dada and Surrealism and served to spread their messages throughout Europe and the United States.
    [Show full text]
  • 1. Tristan Tzara, 'The Gas Heart'
    Notes Dates of reviews in newspapers are given in brackets as in note 5, chapter 3 (11.11.46). PART 1: DADA, SURREALISM AND THE THEATRE OF CRUELTY 1. Andre Breton, Manifeste du Surrealisme, p. 51. 2. Ibid., p. 11. 3. Louis Aragon, 'Une vague de reves', Commerce, automne, 1924. 4. From Nadeau, Surrealisme, p. 45. 1. Tristan Tzara, 'The Gas Heart' 1. J. H. Matthews, Theatre in Dada and Surrealism, p. 18. 2. Michel Corvin, Revue d'Histoire du Theatre, 1971-73. Le Theatre existe-t-il?', p. 21. 3. Elmer Peterson, Tristan Tzara, p. 43. 4. Ibid., p. 35. 5. Micheline Tison-Braun, Tristran Tzara inventeur de l'homme nouveau, p. 7. 6. Corvin, p. 228. 171 French Theatre 1918-1939 7. Matthews, pp. 19-22. 8. Ibid., pp. 22-30. 9. Corvin, p. 255. 10. Ibid., p. 260. 11. Matthews, pp. 3(}..38. Quotes Henri Behar, Etude sur le Theatre Dada et Surrealiste, p. 159. 12. Ibid., p. 32. 13. Matthews, pp. 3(}..35. 14. Ibid., p. 20. 2. Andre Breton 1. Andre Breton,Manifeste du Surrealisme, p. 37. 2. Ibid., p. 34. 3. Andre Breton, Les Pas perdus, p. 9. 4. J. H. Matthews, Theatre in Dada and Surrealism, p. 88. 5. Ibid., p. 90. 6. Ibid., pp. 97-100. 3. Roger Vitrac, 'Victor' 1. Henri Behar, Roger Vitrac, p. 18; 42-47. 2. Antonin Artaud, Oeuvres completes, II, p. 14. 3. Ibid., II, p. 12. 4. Ibid., II, p. 267. 5. See J. H. Matthews, Theatre in Dada and Surrealism, pp. 109-32. From Le Figaro litteraire (11.11.46).
    [Show full text]
  • Alexandra Exter's Dynamic City in 1913
    GEORGII KOVALENKO Alexandra Exter’s Dynamic City in 1913 Georgii Kovalenko is a Doctor of Art History, head of the Department of 20th century Russian Art at the Research Institute of the Theory and History of Fine Arts at the Russian Academy of Art, and the lead scientist at the State Institute of Art History. He is the deputy chairman of the Commission for the Study of Avant-Garde Art of the 1910s and 1920s at the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as the editor of the series h!VANT 'ARDE!RTOFTHESANDSvINVOLUMES ANDh2USSIAN !RTTH#ENTURYvINVOLUMES (ISPUBLICATIONSINCLUDEAlexandra Exter – Farbrhytthmen (State Russian Museum, 2001) and iÝ>`À>Ê ÝÌiÀÊUÊÊ Retrospective (Moscow Museum of Modern Art, 2010). 34 Alexandra Exter painted one night landscape after into it, demanding to be remembered, as if in another minute another. Night time streets, buildings with darkened it will change unrecognizably, disappear, go out and be carried windows, deep shadows on gleaming sidewalks and sharp rays away along with the frantically flying lights. diverging in a cone shape – light from streetlamps and from car headlights, tram lights. Exter sometimes indicated the relevant city in the titles of her works – Kiev (Fundakleyevskaya Street), Florence – but more often it is just City at Night, just Night Time City. And geographical details add little, in essence, to the painting: speaking generally we are looking at one and the same city. And the important thing is that it is a city at night. And it so resembles the Paris described by Apollinaire: Night of Paris, drunk on gin, Filled with electric light.
    [Show full text]
  • Picabia. New York and Cologne
    EXHIBITION REVIEWS 51. Counter- burg as a painter, certain omissions were composition,by unfortunate. The most significant set of Theovan Does- paintings of the latter part of his career burg.1924-25. are the eleven made be- 50.7 Counter-compositions Gouache, by tween 1924 and of which were 50 cm. (Centraal 1926, eight Museum, Utrecht; included in the Otterlo section (Fig.51). exh. Kriller- With only a few extra loans we could have MullerMuseum, seen the entire group together, something Otterlo). not achieved before. Notably missing were the Tate Gallery's Counter-compositionVI and Peggy Guggenheim's Counter-compositionXIII. Similarly 'Arithmetic Composition', which had been in the 1968 exhibition, was miss- ing from the final room displaying Art Concret,although it is the only painting Van Doesburg ever made which fulfils the criteria he set out for concrete rather than abstract art. We were left with only the preparatory sketches for it. Perhaps the most interesting thread run- ning through the exhibition was the image of Van Doesburg himself. Not only were there the huge photographs of him already mentioned but a sequence of self-portraits ran from his earliest years through to the very end, often unfinished works not intend- ed for exhibition or public consumption. Their placement from room to room en- sured some continuity amidst the otherwise impenetrable twists and turns and demon- strated an unexpected anxiety concerning his identity that neatly paralleled the exhibi- tion, as the shift from one medium to the paintings. Given the sheer range of Van collaborated with would inevitably lead to next, the constant formulation and rejection Doesburg's activities, that was never going comparisons being made.
    [Show full text]