notes: July 2011

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Germany reunited in 1871, due to merging and centralizing of industry
Bauhaus: bau meaning building, haus being house. meaning house building. OH REARRY?
consistently organized
Dessau
Berlin
bauhutte - building hut. lol.
germany became a republic
Walter Groplus 1883-1979
wanted the Bauhaus wanted modernist design, even though the town was conservative
Johannes Itten 1886-1967
left Bauhaus in 1992
Marianne Brandt 1893-1983
Coffee Pot Design
Weimar
Haus an Horn
Hannes Meyer
Ludwig Mies der Rohe
"Inside the Bauhaus"

Errr... very incomplete notes. But maybe if we combine the powers of all our notes we will get an ultimate collection of notes. Or something. .-.

Class Notes (Wk 10)

DADA
Switzerland was a popular retreat during WWI,
because it was a neutral country
German, Italian, French speaking

Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich:
Founders:
Hugo Ball, Emmi Hennings, Tristan Tzara
Marcel Ianco, Hans (jean) Arp, Sophie
Tauber Arp

(artists below are mostly collage artists)
Raoul Hausmann, 1886-1971
Men Are Angels and They Live In Heaven, 1919
The Art Critic, 1919
the art critic. powerful, makes or breaks careers
as indicated by the large pencil he holds
unnatural, like a zombie, sick
ABCD Self Portrait, 1922/23
Tatlin at Home, 1920
Hannah Hoch, 1889-1978
Cut with a Kitchen Knife
Pretty Girls, 1919
Dada Dolls, (mixed materials) 1920
The Tire Travels around the World, 1920
Kurl Schqitters 1887-1949
Merz Picture, 1920s

what is "Theosophy?"

Class Notes (Wk 9)

Brain/String Theory
Look at "the Dimensions Explained" on Youtube

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
cubism
Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1910
Portrait of Kahnwieler

Italian Futurists
Giacomo Balla 1871-1958
Street Lamp, 1908

Class Notes (Wk 7)

First Chapter of "Mrs. Dalloway"
no longer addressed as Clarissa, rather as Mrs. Dalloway
Mrs. Dalloway,
favoring reliability and fitting within the current social bracket,
meeting social standards and expectations, in contrast to
Peter Walsh, ex-lover, enigmatic and adventurous, out of the box, "poetic"
Mrs. Dalloway questions her current place in life ie. her husband choice
why did Woolf choose a upper class woman as her protagonist?
wanting to focus on psychological issues of someone of that status, without worries, but with many options

The New Associaiton of Artists
"The Spiritual" - higher concept, superseding materiality of life, dematerialization
high and strong colors
color blue was representation of dematerialization, of sky which was not material
Alexej von Jawlensky, (1864-1941)
Girl in Grey Apron, 1909
Helen in Dark Blue Turban
Autumn Landscape with Boats, 1908
Vassily Kadinsky (1866-1944)
Murnau. A Village Street, 1908
Murnau. The Garden, 1908
Mountain, 1908
Composition II, 1909-10
Improvisation No. 11, 1911
The Blue Rider + Variations
Framz Marc (1990-1916)
Blue Horses, 1911

Class Notes (Wk 6)

"Degenerate Art"

Hilter called modern artists degenerates, and vowed to eliminate them.
claustrophobic effect
graffiti over, behind around, criticizing the art
Adolf Hitler was rejected and not recognized as an artist
wanted to represent the world "as it really is"
modern art painted what was underneath what we see in the world
expressionists wanted to go beyond impressionism
inner world, psychological landscapes

Friday, July 29, 2011

Futurist manifesto Summary paper, (what the teacher seems to want)

Hey guys, Forgacs seemed to like this paper so i'm putting it up here. I think when i wrote this paper. I ended up formulating many of my own opinions instead of 100% summarizing and expressing my opinions with specific support from the text. Be as specific as possible and u should be good.

Thoughts on “The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism”

“The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism” written by Filippo Marinetti highlights the key ideas behind the Futurist movement in which Marinetti himself is the initiator. Marinetti starts his manifesto by describing old versus new, personifying various places and machines. He describes the old palaces as “sickly” while saying that myth and old ways of thinking are gone, “defeated at last”. Marinetti’s words are very forceful as he vividly personifies the engines in ships and locomotives. He portrays these engines as demonic. However his description sounds, he isn’t demonizing the technology, rather he is standing in awe of industrial might. Marinetti’s automobile is his steed that he fearlessly rides happily tempting death, but as he drove around a corner he had swerve to avoid two cyclists causing his car to flip over into a muddy ditch. Marinetti rose from the accident exhilarated by the near death experience.

He attributes his Futurist manifesto to this near death experience ushering in a movement that was inspired by the industrial energy and speed of the automobile. Marinetti, in his manifesto, encourages dangerous thrill-seeking and great struggle to achieve beauty saying that without struggle there is no beauty. Marinetti condemned all academies and museums that studied old works comparing them to cemeteries that aren’t worth focusing on, also condemning old moralities in favor of logic as well as feminism. The Futurist Manifesto was very much anarchistic.

Marinetti highlights a very interesting point about human nature which is the need for struggle. In literature, all stories require struggle, some kind of conflict for it to be interesting, whether the struggle is internal or external. Revolutions bring about change but are often violent. In that respect he is right, however this view is on the extremist side. He doesn’t simply state violence as a necessary evil. In this manifesto, it seems as if he views it as purely the greater good. His view of the greater good is too simplistic because ignoring history or the atrocity of war isn’t futuristic. Without the past we have no foundation to build upon for the future and without understanding the sacrifice made by previous revolutionaries people now wouldn’t appreciate what they have. Without the steam engine, Marinetti would not have the combustion engine that is the heart of his beloved automobile.

What separates the futurist movement from the previous art movement is the focus on the external understanding. Marinetti constantly elaborates upon experience, finding the next speedy thrill. Cubism on the other hand was an internalized dissection on how an artist views its subject. More importance was placed on the perspective of the artist rather than the subject itself. Historically, mankind has constantly jumped from one extreme to another. As each extreme becomes an established norm, that extreme then becomes a conservative view, waiting for the next extreme idea to be unveiled. With that in mind, people viewing his work should try to take it with a grain of salt understanding the benefit of struggle and revolution, understanding the external without forgetting the internal.

Dada notes

Hey guys, these notes are mainly derived from WIKI. I searched other sites to supplement more than what wiki had to offer but there wasn't much else. I tried to condense Dada into its core essential ideas and people.

DADA Notes

Founders of Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich:

Hugo Ball, Emmi Hennings, Tristan Tzara

Marcel Ianco, Hans Arp, Sophie Tauber Arp

Hugo Ball created the Dada Manifesto was one of the principle founders of the movement. A very Dadaist poem he that Ball wrote was his poem “Karawane” consisting of nonsensical German words. Hugo Ball’s meaning however, came from its meaninglessness. This being the chief principle of the Dada movement that the ideologies of the day were terrible and invited war, death, and destruction. He was fascinated by anarchist philosophy.

The Cabaret Voltaire was a nightclub in Zurich Switzerland that became the birthplace of the anarchistic Dada art movement. Because Switzerland was a neutral country during WWI many artists sought refuge there. The cabaret allowed artists from all over to express themselves in regards to the current events. Performances of spoken word, dance and music were held.

The performances often were chaotic with brutality as a major theme. Other major themes included “meaninglessness of the modern world”, anti-art and anti-war, rejection of the current standards of art, anti-bourgeois and anarchistic.

Dada is the groundwork to abstract art and sound poetry, a starting point for performance art, a prelude to postmodernism, an influence on pop art, a celebration of antiart to be later embraced for anarcho-political uses in the 1960s and the movement that lay the foundation for Surrealism.
—Marc Lowenthal, translator's introduction to Francis Picabia's I Am a Beautiful Monster: Poetry, Prose, And Provocation

Dada were anti-Colonialist believing that Colonialism, bourgeois capitalism was the root cause of war. Colonialism is the expansion of a countries territory essentially establishing rule over foreign territory often taking it by force. The new rulers claim sovereignty and wealth streams out of the colonized foreign land into the economy of the sovereign territory. For example, the East India Company drove the expansion of the British Empire in Asia creating much profit from the opium export trade

Raul Hausmann

The Mechanical Head (excerpt from the Wiki entry)

The most famous work by Hausmann, Der Geist Unserer Zeit - Mechanischer Kopf (Mechanical Head [The Spirit of Our Age]), c. 1920, is the only surviving assemblage that Hausmann produced around 1919-20. Constructed from a Hairdresser's wig-making dummy, the piece has various measuring devices attached including a ruler, pocket watch mechanism, typewriter, camera segments and a crocodile wallet.

"Der Geist Unserer Zeit - Mechanischer Kopf specifically evokes the philosopher George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). For Hegel...everything is mind. Among Hegel's disciples and critics was Karl Marx. Hausmann's sculpture might be seen as an aggressively Marxist reversal of Hegel: this is a head whose "thoughts" are materially determined by objects literally fixed to it. However, there are deeper targets in western culture that give this modern masterpiece its force. Hausmann turns inside out the notion of the head as seat of reason, an assumption that lies behind the European fascination with the portrait. He reveals a head that is penetrated and governed by brute external forces." Jonathan Jones.