THE AMERIKA MACHINE: ART AND TECHNOLOGY BETWEEN THE USA AND THE USSR, 1926 TO 1933. BARNABY EMMETT HARAN PHD THESIS 2008 DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY OF ART UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR ANDREW HEMINGWAY UMI Number: U591491 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U591491 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 I, Bamaby Emmett Haran, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 3 ABSTRACT This thesis concerns the meeting of art and technology in the cultural arena of the American avant-garde during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It assesses the impact of Russian technological Modernism, especially Constructivism, in the United States, chiefly in New York where it was disseminated, mimicked, and redefined. It is based on the paradox that Americans travelling to Europe and Russia on cultural pilgrimages to escape America were greeted with ‘Amerikanismus’ and ‘Amerikanizm’, where America represented the vanguard of technological modernity. They returned to America with examples of and reports on Constructivism and an attendant enthusiasm for American technology, which manifested as ‘machine art’. It proved deeply problematic when Leftist artists attempted to marry this notion of Amerika with a critique of the divisiveness of American industry and tried to construct a radical Americanism with the tools of Amerikanizm. This study covers work in several media, including photography, cinema, theatre, literature, printmaking, and architecture. I chart the introduction of Constructivism into America through publications and exhibitions during the period. The first chapter follows the emergence of Constructivism in Europe and its arrival in America, most notably at the 1927 Machine-Age Exposition, and its slow transformation into the apolitical International Style. Chapter Two assesses the impact of Constructivist theatre in America, with particular reference to the radical New Playwrights Theatre. The third chapter concerns the machine aesthetic in the photography of Ralph Steiner and Walker Evans. The final chapter addresses the discourse and practice of montage in the American experimental cinema. I am concerned with a period that straddles the Crash of 1929, but precedes the New Deal relief programmes. It is an analysis of culture at the blurred boundary of radical politics and experimentation. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Andrew Hemingway for his kind and thoughtful guidance of this project. His knowledge and understanding of American and European avant- garde culture and the political history of the period have made the research much easier than it should have been, and his insightful, rigorous, good-humoured, and above all encouraging commentary on the emerging thesis made the realization of the project much less tortuous than it could have been. This thesis began life in Andrew's MA course on art and politics in America from the 1920s to the 1950s, and the material discussed here stems from my MA dissertation on the Machine-Age Exposition, a project that Andrew supervised. Throughout his supervision Andrew has been very generous in sharing his own research materials, has tolerated barely legible drafts and occasional explorations into tangential material, and has patiently helped turn a vague idea of a potential area of research into a finished study. I would also like to thank Fred Schwartz for his assistance in supervising the thesis. Fred’s wide-ranging expertise in German culture and society of the interwar years has helped me develop an understanding of similar cultural artefacts from America during this time. His dynamic interdisciplinary approach to art history and theory have been greatly influential on the conception of this project. Tom Gretton’s periodic commentary has also been of considerable value. The passages in the opening section of this study that concern the tractor as a symbol of American and Russian technological exchanges are indebted to Tom’s remarks about my upgrade paper in 2004. Tom’s dedication to the materiality of works of art has also been of much importance to this thesis. In the Art History department at UCL, Warren Carter, Martin Perks, Ed Krcma, and Richard Taws assisted with producing visual materials at various stages of the project. The postgraduate community in general and the members of the Marxist reading group in particular have provided a useful forum for theoretical discussions and a necessary context for shared grumbles about and celebrations of postgraduate life. 5 The staff at the Film Department and the Photography Department of the Museum of Modem Art, the Photography Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, the Harvard Houghton Library, the Tamiment Library at New York University, and the Archives of American Art in New York all provided much help in the process of research. Murray Weiss, who looks after Ralph Steiner’s estate, was extremely generous in providing permission for image reproduction gratis, and patiently responded to obscure questions about Steiner’s life and career. His memories of Steiner added much colour to the work. Robert Haller at the Anthology Film Archives in New York, a wonderful and eccentric institution, was most helpful with his recollections of some of the protagonists of the thesis and was also generous with his time. The Arts and Humanities Research Council provided essential funding for maintenance and fees, which really made the project viable. The Graduate School at UCL supplied much-needed funds for travel to America. I would like to thank my parents for their support throughout the thesis. In particular, my mother Rusty Haran provided some crucial translations of German texts, which made some important material available to me. Above all, I want to thank Jo Haran for her unfailing support, remarkable patience, kind advice, and love. Our daughters, Molly and Bridie Haran, arrived at different points in the project, and whilst not providing any concrete help they have certainly enriched the years it took to produce this thesis. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT: 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS: 6 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS: 7 INTRODUCTION: 12 An Amerika Machine CHAPTER ONE: 32 From the Machine-Age Exposition to Machine Art: from International Constructivism to the International Style. CHAPTER TWO: 94 A Machine Age Theatre: Constructivism and the New Playwrights Theatre. CHAPTER THREE: 157 New and Old Visions in American Photography: Ralph Steiner, Walker Evans, and Americanism. CHAPTER FOUR: 212 Amerikino: Montage and the Machine in American Experimental Cinema. CONCLUSION: 270 Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 288 ILLUSTRATIONS: 343 7 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Louis Lozowick, Goat Ripping, Tajikistan , lithograph, 1932. 2. Louis Lozowick, Airport, Tajikistan , lithograph, 1932. 3. Louis Lozowick, Steam Shovel in Desert, Tajikistan , lithograph, 1932. 4. Louis Lozowick, Collective Farmer, lithograph, 1932. 5. Louis Lozowick, Coming For Cotton, Tajikistan , lithograph, 1932. 6. Louis Lozowick, Border Guards, Tajikistan, lithograph, 1932. 7. Sergei Eisenstein, The General Line, film still, 1929. 8. Alexander Dovzhenko, Earth, film still, 1929. 9. Don Brown, ‘Across the Globe: Tractors for our Fellow Workers’, drawing, Soviet Russia Pictorial, 1923. 10. Boris Ignatovich The First Tractor (American Fordson Tractor), photograph, 1927. 11. Margaret Bourke-White, The New Tractor, photograph, 1931. 12. Margaret Bourke-White, State Farm, No. 2, photograph, 1931. 13. Louis Lozowick, Machine-Age Exposition Poster, 1927. 14. Fernand Leger, Machine-Age Exposition Catalogue Cover, 1927. 15. Vesnin Brothers, Design for Labour Building, Moscow, 1923. 16. Konstantin Melnikov, Soviet Pavilion, Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modemes, 1925. 17. V. Tatlin, Monument For the Third International, wooden model, 1920, with Tatlin standing adjacent. 18. El Lissitzky, PROUN, oil on wood, 1923. 19. Stuart Davis, Eggbeater No. 7, oil on canvas, 1927. 20. Frederick Kiesler, City in Space, Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modemes, 1925. 21. Frederick Kiesler, L and T System, Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik (International Exhibition of New Theatre Techniques). Konzerrthaus, Vienna, 1924. 22. Gerrit Rietveld, Berlin Chair, 1933. 23. Frederick Kiesler, Window Design for Saks Fifth Avenue, New York, 1928. 24. Frederick Kiesler, Window Display Design for Saks Fifth Avenue, New York, 1928. 25. Louis Lozowick, Window Display Design for Lord and Taylor, New York, 1926. 26. Frederick Kiesler, Display for AUDAC, 1931. 27. Frederick Kiesler, Display for AUDAC, 1931. 28. Frederick Kiesler, Model for The Space Theatre, Woodstock, NY, 1932. 29. Frederick Kiesler, Film Guild Cinema, New York, 1929. 30. Frederick Kiesler, Design for the Institute