1. Lecture 3 Strategies of the Avant-Garde
SpatialStudies 7c:
Lecture 3 Strategies of the Avant-Garde
(from R. Krauss, Passages in Modern Sculpture)
1) Cubism, 2) Futurism, 3) Constructivism, comparison of Gabo + Tatlin, 4) Dada, 5) Surrealism, 6) Abstract Concretion
A comparison: Brancusi + Duchamp (Rosalind Krauss)
An avant-garde legacy- video The Way Things Go
D. Finish ‘Creativity: BBC, The Creative Brain, How Insight Works’
Jonathan Schooler, Dr. Simon Ritter, John Kounos
Pouring plaster for current project
Extra credit offering – play with food and photograph
(1pt. on exam, could depict scenario based on real life)

2. Midterm Feb. 3 during lecture 30 True/False questions, T/F = 60pts.
13 Multiple Choice = 26pts.
2 essay questions = 20pts.
(I subtract the three questions that most people missed).
T/F
Sergei Eisenstein, who filmed ‘October,’ thinks sculpture lacks inherent ideology.
Gotthold Lessing asserts that sculpture is about portraying bodies in space and that sculpture is distinct from poetry and music in that it is static and nonsequential.

3. Your reading for this lecture:
R. Krauss challenges the myth of originality in the Avant-garde – starts with Rodin – moves to Modernism in Passages in Modern Sculpture
Your reading for this lecture:
1) Naum Gabo’s writings on Constructivism: (new norms for sculpture: Mass, Space, and Time 1937)
Space as medium
Material – expressive qualities – determine limits
Any material is o.k.
Problem of time – sees it as necessitating kinetics
2) Arthur Danto: Playthings and
Boris Groys: The Speed of Art
Fischli and Weiss, legacy to avant-garde

4. This lecture: Strategies of the Avant-Garde (from R
This lecture: Strategies of the Avant-Garde (from R. Krauss, Passages…):
Avant-garde definition:
new and unusual or experimental ideas, esp. in the arts, or the people introducing them."works by artists of the Russian avant-garde”
synonyms: innovative, original, experimental, left-field, inventive, ahead of the times, cutting/leading/bleeding edge, new, modern, innovatory, advanced, forward-looking, state-of-the-art, trend-setting, pioneering, progressive, Bohemian, groundbreaking, trailblazing, revolutionary;
Cultural conditions for the Avant-Garde:
Industrial Revolution
Movement from an agrarian-based society to urban
Two world wars

5. 20th century ideological experimentation and conflicts re: role of art
objectivity vs. subjectivity
orthodoxy (convention) vs. absurd
autonomy vs. applied/utilitarian
real time and space vs. transcendent t & s

6. End of the 19th Century A.
Advent of photography. Industrial Revolution:
the Machine Age - a new plasticity, mechanization of material and form
Into the 20th Century
1900 Sigmund Freud - Psychoanalysis
1914 World War I Begins
1917 Russian Revolution
New social orders and shifting realities embodied in ideology and aesthetics
Cubism: (Central Europe) Picasso, Braque
Futurism: (Central Europe) Marinetti, Boccioni
Constructivism: (Russia) Tatlin, Gabo, Pevsner
Dada: (Zurich, Cabaret Voltaire) Tristan Tzara, Duchamp, Arp
Surrealism: Giacometti, Ray, Dali,
Oppenheim, Duchamp
Abstract-Concretion: Arp, Moore, Hepworth
Nude Descending a Staircase, Marcel Duchamp, 1912

7. A.1) Cubism: (Central Europe) Picasso
early 1900s
many young artists hear about and travel to see his painting, collage, and sculpture
Nude Descending a Staircase, Marcel Duchamp, 1912
Head of a Woman, Picasso

8. A.1) Cubism: (Central Europe) Picasso
Planar break-down
eliminates traditional perspectival space - not illusionistic, autonomous object
accepts photography as recording tool

9. A.2) Italian Futurism: Marinetti (manifesto 1909), Boccioni
“Oh, maternal ditch, half full of muddy water! A factory gutter! I savored a mouthful of strengthening muck which recalled the black teat of my Sudanese nurse!
As I raised my body, mud-spattered and smelly, I felt the red hot poker of joy deliciously pierce my heart. A crowd of fishermen and gouty naturalists crowded terrified around this marvel. With patient and tentative care they raised high enormous grappling irons to fish up my car, like a vast shark that had run aground. It rose slowly leaving in the ditch, like scales, its heavy coachwork of good sense and its upholstery of comfort.” Marinetti, 1909
Umberto Boccioni, The Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913

10. A.2) Italian Futurism: Marinetti (manifesto 1909), Umberto Boccioni
grows out of Cubism
added implied motion to the shifting planes and multiple observation points of Cubists
celebrated natural as well as mechanical motion and speed
glorified danger, war, and the machine age (in keeping with the martial spirit developing in Italy at the time)
“Marinetti, thrown from his automobile one evening in 1909 into a factory ditch filled with water, emerges as if from amniotic fluid to be born - without ancestors - a futurist. This parable of absolute self-creation that begins the first Futurist Manifesto functions as a model for what is meant by originality among early 20thC avant-garde.” RK
Umberto Boccioni, The Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913

11. a kind of synthetic vision (x-ray vision)
A.2) Italian Futurism: Marinetti, Boccioni
Italian Futurism: Umberto Boccioni ( ) Development of a Bottle in Space, Drawing and Bronze, 15" x 24”
a kind of synthetic vision (x-ray vision)
introducing movement to planar study
remains within traditional materials/means

12. A.2) Italian Futurism Greek, 3rdC b.c.
“… We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.”

13. vs. A.3) Constructivism: comparing Naum Gabo, Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Tatlin, Counter-Relief, 1915
Naum Gabo, Model for Constructed Torso, 1917

14. VOLUME OF MASS VOLUME OF SPACE
A.3) Constructivism: Naum Gabo
VOLUME OF MASS VOLUME OF SPACE
Naum Gabo, volumetric cube I, stereometric cube II

15. A.3) Constructivism: Naum Gabo
Stereometric figure sculpture from flat cardboard and plywood shapes ( ).
An “interlacing of shapes in 3 dimensions through the interior, or structural core, of the normally closed volume.…”
rt. Jacques Lipchitz
1916, bronze

16. A.3) Constructivism: Naum Gabo
Light Space Modulator, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
Naum Gabo, left, Construction in Space , right, Linear Construction no. 2, 1970
All materials can be used for sculpture
Sculptural space has become a malleable material element (Not dematerializing sculpture)
Space perception as new concept
Non-narrative ideal forms

17. Context for Tatlin’s career:
1910: Martinetti’s Futurist Manifesto translated into Russian.
1913: at age 28, goes to Europe to meet Picasso.
1915: Begins work on corner reliefs in the spirit of “Productivism”.
radical perceptual shift:
sculptures bring attention to the specific situation they inhabit
real time and real space
1917: Russian Revolution
A.3) Constructivism: Vladimir Tatlin
( ) ,
Corner Counter Relief, Vladimir Tatlin,

18. A.3) Vladimir Tatlin
Corner Relief, 1915, iron, aluminum, primer, 31”x60”x30” (original destroyed. Reconstruction by Martyn Chalk from photographs).

19. A.3) Tatlin’s corner reliefs:
radical because they reject transcendent (imagined) space in two ways:
Anti-illusionism of situation in space. Real time and space (meeting of two real architectural walls).
Attitude manifested toward the materials of which they are made. Real materials (truth to materials + their inherent characteristics)

20. A.3) Tatlin’s monument: Plans for real monument:
Taller than Eiffel Tower
Meant to be center of
Proletariat* communications
and activities
Each section rotates
*proletariat – industrial wage earners – not bourgeoisie

21. A.3) Tatlin’s monument: Plans for real monument:
Scaled-down London version
Plans for real monument:
Taller than Eiffel Tower
Meant to be center of
Proletariat* communications
and activities
Each section rotates
*proletariat – industrial wage earners – not bourgeoisie

22. A.3) Gabo’s column: Idealizing tower – like structure
Never meant to be built
Transcendent space and time

23. A.3)
Naum Gabo - ideology of art as autonomous: Column, 1923, plastic wood and metal: structural/material essense of object – transcendent time + space. A summary of vantage points. Toward an immediate legible geometry, transparency. (Pevsner, Gabo, Malevitch, Kandinsky, El Lissitzky)
Vladimir Tatlin - ideology of art as “of and for the people:” Monument to the Third International, Factual Reality. Steel Girders, 1/3 higher than Eiffel Tower. An aesthetic technology in real time, real space, real materials. Technology placed in service of revolutionary ideology. (Rodchenko, Tatlin)

24. Born out of the horror of WWI
A.4) Dada: Tristan Tzara, André Breton, Jean Arp, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray
(gives rise to Surrealism 1924)
Surrealism: Giacometti, Man Ray, Dali,
Oppenheim, Duchamp
Born out of the horror of WWI
“Dada: abolition of logic, the dance of the impotents of creation; Dada: abolition of all the social hierarchies and equations set up by our valets to preserve values; …
Dada: abolition of archaeology; Dada: abolition of the prophets; Dada: abolition of the future; Dada: absolute and unquestionable faith in every god that is the product of spontaneity.” TT
DADA: nihilistic, absurdist, shocking, unorthodox, decries bourgeois rationalism
involved poetry, music, sound, performance, painting, photography, sculpture

25. found object, readymade, altered readymade
Hausmann, Mechanical
Head Spirit of Our Time, Duchamp,
Bottle Rack, 1914
Surrealism
found object, readymade, altered readymade
Degas, Little Dancer, 1881
Degas, late 1800s
A.5) Marcel Duchamp, above, Bicycle Wheel, 1913, right, Fountain

26. Meret Oppenheim, Luncheon in Fur, 1936
A.5) Surrealism: Andre Breton, Giacometti, Man Ray, Dali, Oppenheim, Duchamp 1924
Meret Oppenheim, Luncheon in Fur, 1936
a means of joining dream and fantasy to everyday reality to form “an absolute reality, a surreality.”
influenced by Sigmund Freud, the unconscious was the wellspring of the imagination.
“beautiful as the chance encounter of an umbrella and a sewing machine on a dissecting table.” Lautreamont
Man Ray, Indestructible Object, 1923
Degas, Little Dancer, 1881

27. A.6)
Jean Arp:
“Abstract Concretions”
converts inert matter to living form….
Art belongs to a species of natural form
Head with Annoying Objects, Jean Arp, 1930

28. A.6) Abstract-Concretion: Arp, Moore, Hepworth
Henry Moore, Reclining Figures

29. B. Case study of two contemporaries: Duchamp/Brancusi (RK)
Marcel Duchamp ( ):
un-worked, anti-representational, cerebral…
Princess X, Brancusi, 1916
Constantin Brancusi: ( ) representational, raw material labored + polished to perfect reflectivity.
Like Duchamp, his polished surfaces “impenetrable” to analysis (narrative) - no relationships between parts exist.
In Advance of the Broken Arm, Duchamp, 1915

30. Constantin Brancusi: (1876-1957)
B. Marcel Duchamp ( ):
The Beginning of the World, 1924
Constantin Brancusi: ( )
Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel

31. B. Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) Rrose Selavy (Eros, c’est la vie):
Selected serial objects that did not bear the stamp of an act of creation from personally held ideas or emotions
Readymades beg the question: What is a work of art? Why do we think of art as statements that must convey or embody a certain content?
Not intended to hold the object up for examination, but to scrutinize the act of aesthetic transformation itself. RK
Odd similarity btwn. Duchamp and Brancusi - both end up with works that appear machine made
Both men stand out from movements
Constantin Brancusi: ( ) “There is a purpose in all things. To get to it one must go beyond oneself.” CB
Arduous and patient labor, reducing to refined elegant craft
Glossy surface deflects surface interpretations - courting the finish of machine-made objects

32. C. Der Lauf der Dinge, (The Way Things Go), Fischli and Weiss:
Cause and effect - celebrating the banal
Element of play (opposite of Freud), politics of childhood - calculated to annoy
The thingness of the thing (non-rep.) + things at hand - Heidegger, Tatlin, Duchamp
Found object inversion since Duch.:
Trompe l’oeil
Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes, 1964
Jasper Johns, Ale Cans, 1960

33. Arthur C. Danto –
“…as The Way Things Go makes manifestly clear, ordinary objects have their dark side, and the bland peaceful world of orderly routine which facilitates the conduct of ordinary life, is achingly fragile.”

34. C. Fischli and Weiss: Plötzlich diese Übersicht
(Suddenly This Overview),
Unfired clay
above, Small and Large
rt. Freeway

35. C. Fischli and Weiss: Plötzlich diese Übersicht
(Suddenly This Overview),

36. C. Fischli and Weiss: Plötzlich diese Übersicht
(Suddenly This Overview),
above, Mick Jagger and Brian Jones Going Home Satisfied after Composing “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”
rt. Mr. and Mrs. Einstein Shortly After Conceiving Their Genius Son Albert

37. Horizon: The Creative Brain, How Insight Works
D. BBC video (58 minutes):
Horizon: The Creative Brain, How Insight Works
Jonathan Schooler, Simone Ritter
Divergent Thinking
What avant garde movement/s influences this work?