The futurists.
An art movement started up in Italy, founded on a principle of Chaos, industrilisation and technological upheaval. They indulged the idea of war and went on to protest Italy’s neutrality during the war and in 1915 when the war eventually came many futurists signed up to fight in the war. A mark of courage I feel, and perhaps a reason to respect the futurists otherwise sexist and anti-intellectual attitudes.
While Sexism was nothing new and not specific to the futurists, it’s hard in these modern times to overlook the negative aspects. Perhaps an unfair opinion that we can’t help feeling with our more modern sensibilities.
The futurists also believed in the idea of anything old being wiped away and destroyed., disregarding the rules and tearing down libraries. Society and in conjunction art, cannot move forward and improve without looking to the past and knowing what works.
The pursuit of the new is not a bad thing, but it must go hand and hand with referring back to what we know to work and to improve upon it. That is my main complaint with the movement as a whole but it is not a complaint that takes away from my understanding of what it was Futurism was about.
It was about moving forward, seizing new ways of using materials and throwing aside anything deemed too old fashioned to be of value. It was a valuable step in terms of art movements and it set the foundations for what came after but my more modern mind has a hard time seeing past what I think are obvious flaws and for that I can say pretty conclusively that I am no futurist.
Beautiful losers:
A bunch of American kids/adults try and look artistic by drinking and putting graffiti on everything.
I am all down with graffiti, but there’s something lazy about this I cannot stand. I admit that a lot of the art produced was good, but it seems somehow juvenile and pretentious.
An undercurrent of the belief that one requires a messed up childhood or a life on the street to truly appreciate art. Anybody can make art and anybody should make art. If it’s an outlet for your inner most demons that’s pretty cool too, but these demons are not restricted to a bunch of middle class Americans and I somehow got the impression that it’s what they were implying.
People can work for years to perfect their art and get no recognition at all, but these clowns set up a ‘gallery’ and drink and suddenly they’re all serious artists?
It was distinctly American in tone and perhaps that is what put me off.
It did have a playful and childish outlook, which was a little refreshing, but so much of it was childish to the point of mindlessness that it really doesn’t seem like it deserved to be shown at all. There were a few artists who seemed genuinely talented and they were a little lost in it all.
The constructionists.
As with most of these art movements from around this time they were young, avant garde with guts and vision and most of them I assume were 20 year old Russian men.
While they sought to build things, use an architectural philosophy as a foundation towards their art they certainly didn’t think small, hoping to build something bigger that the eiffle tower and more ridiculous than a helter-skelter made of knitting needles, that’s rather amazing.
The painting however is not really my favourite thing, I’ve never really understood this obsession with geometric shapes. I do like the concept of pure thought, and they did sort of kill painting in a sense (it seems to be taking the news okay so no damage done.)
I feel like I have some admiration to these guys, they wanted to build something huge that spins, express pure thought, rotate things slightly and generally just try and outdo the French, which I think I can approve of.
And all that in 1919. Good stuff.
