UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Ideologies of Pure Abstraction Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0m64w57q Author Kim, Amy Chun Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Ideologies of Pure Abstraction By Amy Chun Kim A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History of Art in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Whitney Davis, Chair Professor Todd Olson Professor Robert Kaufman Spring 2015 Ideologies of Pure Abstraction © 2015 Amy Chun Kim Abstract Ideologies of Pure Abstraction by Amy Chun Kim Doctor of Philosophy in History of Art University of California, Berkeley Professor Whitney Davis, Chair This dissertation presents a history of the development of abstract art in the 1920s and 1930s, the period of its expansion and consolidation as an identifiable movement and practice of art. I argue that the emergence of the category of abstract art in the 1920s is grounded in a voluntaristic impulse to remake the world. I argue that the consolidation of abstract art as a movement emerged out of the Parisian reception of a new Soviet art practice that contained a political impetus that was subsequently obscured as this moment passed. The occultation of this historical context laid the groundwork for the postwar “multiplication” of the meanings of abstraction, and the later tendency to associate its early programmatic aspirations with a more apolitical mysticism. Abstraction has a long and varied history as both a conceptual-aesthetic practice and as an ideal. In the first chapter, I provide a conceptual overview of the terms used by abstract artists and their contemporaries, as well as provide a historicization of the meaning of pure abstraction in terms of the relationship of modernism to its own eighteenth century beginnings and antiquity. The second chapter focuses on the “Soviet moment” of pure abstraction by looking at the Soviet contributions—primarily Konstantin Melnikov’s pavilion—to the 1925 Exposition International des Arts Décoratifs et Modernes in Paris and their enthusiastic reception. The third chapter continues the examination of pure abstraction but in the context of the Parisian art world. It begins with an examination of the L’Art d’Au’jourd’hui exhibit of December 1925 and the two paintings Mondrian contributed to it. I seek to demonstrate that while Mondrian’s practice cannot be assimilated to the revolutionary aesthetics of the previous chapter, it was, nevertheless fundamentally connected to a certain vision of capitalism as a problem of everyday life. I argue that it is within the historical context of a dialectic between a “Soviet moment” and a Parisian experience of daily life that the rise and fall of pure abstraction should be understood. In the final chapter, I present the work of Jean Hélion, a young, committed French painter, whose trajectory from geometric to figural abstraction provides an understanding of the aesthetic and political impasses, as well as defeats, of the period, a case that casts an unsettling light on the entire adventure of pure abstraction. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ii List of Abbreviations v Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 Chapter One. Abstract, abstraction, and other terms 6 Chapter Two. The “Soviet Effect”: L’Exposition internationale 21 des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes Chapter Three. The Neoplasticist Moment: L’Art d’Aujourd’hui, 54 Mondrian, and Paris Chapter Four. From Pure to Figural Abstraction: Jean Hélion 86 Conclusion 124 Illustrations 129 Select Bibliography 165 i List of Figures Figure 1. Overall plan of the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, 1925. Paris. Figure 2. Konstantin Melnikov, Soviet Pavilion, North side, 1925. Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Moderne, Paris. Figure 3. Aleksandr Rodchenko, Photograph of north side of Melnikov’s Soviet Pavilion, 1925. Figure 4. Konstantin Melnikov, Soviet Pavilion, West side (before the inauguration), 1925. Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Moderne, Paris. Figure 5. Aleksandr Rodchenko, Photograph of a detail of Melnikov’s Soviet Pavilion, 1925. Figure 6. Konstantin Melnikov, Soviet Pavilion, Detail of staircase and covered passage, 1925. Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Moderne, Paris. Figure 7. Konstantin Melnikov, Final perspective drawing (north), Soviet Pavilion, 1924. Pencil and watercolor on paper. Figure 8. Konstantin Melnikov, Final published Pavilion plan and longitudinal sections, Soviet Pavilion, 1924. Pencil and watercolor on paper. Figure 9. Aleksandr Rodchenko, Workers’ Club, Soviet Pavilion, 1925. Portrait of Lenin seen on back wall. Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Moderne, Paris. Figure 10. Aleksandr Rodchenko, Workers’ Club, Soviet Pavilion, 1925. Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Moderne, Paris. Figure 11. Aleksandr Rodchenko, Workers’ Club, Soviet Pavilion, 1925. Photo taken day of inauguration. Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Moderne, Paris. Figure 12. El Lissitzky, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1920. Lithograph on paper, 49 x 49 cm. Lenin Library, Moscow. Figure 13. Kazimir Malevich, Black Square, 1915. Oil on canvas, 79.2 x 79.5 cm. State Tret’iakov Gallery, Moscow. Figure 14. Kazimir Malevich, Red Square (Painterly Realism: Peasant Woman in Two ii Dimensions), 1915. Oil on canvas, 53 x 53 cm. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg. Figure 15. Kazimir Malevich, Black Square and Red Square (Painterly Realism: Boy with Knapsack – Color Masses in the Four Dimensions), 1915. Oil on canvas, 71.4 x 44.4 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Figure 16a-h. El Lissitzky, About 2 Squares, designed and produced at UNOVIS, 1920 (Berlin: Scythian Press, 1922). Figure 17a-d. Konstantin Melnikov, Preliminary Sketches, Soviet Pavilion, 1924. Pencil on paper. Figure 18. Vladimir Tatlin, Monument to the Third International, Second model prepared specifically for the Soviet exhibits, 1925. Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Moderne, Paris. Figure 19. Vladimir Tatlin, Monument to the Third International, Second model prepared specifically for the Paris Exposition Internationale, 1925. Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Moderne, Paris. Figure 20. Konstantin Melnikov, Preliminary variants of sarcophagus for V.I. Lenin, 1923. Figure 21. Photography of entrance to the Soviet Section in the Grand Palais, 1925. Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Moderne, Paris. Figure 22. Piet Mondrian, Tableau No. I: Lozenge with Three Lines and Blue, Gray, and Yellow, 1925. Oil on canvas, diagonal: 112 cm, sides: 80 x 80 cm. Kunsthaus Zurich. Figure 23. Piet Mondrian, Tableau No. II, with Black and Gray, 1925. Oil on canvas, 50 x 50 cm. Kunstmuseum Bern. Figure 24. Piet Mondrian, Sketchbook 1925, Sheet A, verso, 1925. Charcoal on paper, 23 x 29.8 cm. Private collection. Figure 25. Piet Mondrian, Sketchbook 1925, Sheet C, 1925. Charcoal on paper, 23 x 29.8 cm. Whereabouts unknown. Figure 26. Piet Mondrian, Tableau 2, with Yellow, Black Blue, Red, and Gray, 1922. Oil on canvas, 55.6 x. 53.4 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Figure 27. Piet Mondrian, Shilderij No. I: Lozenge with Two Lines and Blue, 1926. Oil on canvas, diagonals: 84.9 x 85 cm, sides: 60 x 60 .1 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Figure 28. Piet Mondrian, Lozenge Composition with Red, Black, Blue, and Yellow, 1925. iii Oil on canvas, diagonal: 109 cm, sides: 77 x 77 cm. Private collection. Figure 29. Photograph of an exposed wall with advertising on the rue du Départ. Figure 30. Piet Mondrian, Paris Courtyard Façades, Rue du Départ, 1913-14. Pencil on paper, 23.6 x 15.4 cm. Private collection. Figure 31. László Moholy-Nagy, Photograph of the view of the railway yard from Mondrian’s studio, c. 1925. Figure 32. Piet Mondrian, Lozenge Composition with Two Lines, 1931. Oil on canvas, diagonal: 112 cm, sides: 80 x 80 cm. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Figure 33. Jean Gorin, Composition No. 28, 1930. Oil on wood, 60 x 60 x 3 cm. Private collection. Figure 34. Jean Gorin, Composition No. 28, 1930, as published in Abstraction-Création, no. 2 (1933), 19. Figure 35. Jean Gorin, Composition No. 8, 1934. Oil on wood, 88 x 115 x 5 cm. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Liège. Figure 36. Jean Hélion, Composition Ouverte, 1930. Oil on canvas, 50 x 50 cm. Galerie Louis Carré, Paris. Figure 37. Jean Hélion, Composition Ouverte, 1930. Oil on canvas, 50 x 50 cm. Galerie Louis Carré, Paris. Figure 38. Jean Hélion, Équilibre, 1933. Oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm. Private collection. Figure 39. Jean Hélion, Équilibre sketch, 1934. Ink and watercolor on paper. Figure 40. Jean Hélion, Équilibre, 1933-34. Oil on canvas, 97.4 x 131.2 cm. Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. Figure 41. Jean Hélion, Figure bleue, 1935-36. Oil on canvas, 145 x 99 cm. Musée de l’art moderne de la ville de Paris. Figure 42. Fernand Léger, Three Women (Le Grand Déjeuner), 1921. Oil on canvas, 183.5 x 251.5 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Figure 43. Jean Hélion, Figure tombée, 1939. Oil on canvas, 126.2 x 164.3 cm. Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris. iv List of Abbreviations AEAR Association des Écrivains et des Artistes Révolutionnaires ASNOVA Association