Essential Modernism

"Published on the occasion of the Corcoran Gallery of Art's presentation of the exhibition Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939, March 17-July 29, 2007. Exhibition originally conceived by and first shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in 2006."--P. [iv].

A beautiful and expansive look at Modernist design, representing iconic works including architecture, interiors, graphic design, and product design This wide-ranging survey showcases and analyzes the work of dozens of Modernist designers, from those who established the International Style in the 1920s and '30s through the groundbreaking practitioners of the mid-1940s. Modernism, with its powerful aesthetic and compelling philosophical framework, is the twentieth century's most defining movement in design and the applied arts. International architects and designers such as Alvar Aalto, Marcel Breuer, Eileen Gray, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Frank Lloyd Wright revolutionized the built world and how we live in it. Their work rejected historical precedents, prioritizing function over tradition, and their experimentation with new forms, materials, and techniques transformed our living spaces and lifestyles and fundamentally changed the way we think about design. This lively and accessible volume includes sections on furniture, lighting, ceramics and glass, industrial and product design, graphic design and posters, houses and interiors, as well as profiles of more than seventy influential creators. The encyclopedic scope facilitates unexpected connections and offers new insights into the movement. Complete with essays by accomplished scholars and subject specialists, over 600 illustrations, and an illustrated A to Z of designers, architects, and manufacturers, this book is unparalleled and unprecedented in scope. Essential Modernism is an indispensable resource for scholars and students as well as for the designer's studio, the collector's desk, and the enthusiast's library.

Following the same format as the acclaimed first volume, this selection of the best 250 modern jazz records and CDs places each in its musical context and reviews it in depth. Additionally, full details of personnel, recording dates, and locations are given. Indexes of album titles, track titles, and musicians are included.

A Border Within addresses the question of English Canadian identity by exploring whether a plurality of discourses can lead to other than a fragmented society. Ian Angus examines the relationship between globalizing social movements and the particularities of identity politics by extending the theories on identity of Harold Innis and George Grant, two seminal figures in Canadian political philosophy, to develop a philosophy applicable to the contemporary social issues of multiculturalism and environmentalism.

Modernism: The Basics provides an accessible overview of the study of modernism in its global dimensions. Examining the key concepts, history and varied forms of the field, it guides the reader through the major approaches, outlining key debates, to answer such questions as: What is modernism? How did modernism begin? Has modernism developed differently in different media? How is it related to postmodernism and postcolonialism? How have politics, urbanization and new technologies affected modernism? With engaging examples from art, literature and historical documents, each chapter provides suggestions for further reading, histories of relevant movements and clear definitions of key terminology, making this an essential guide for anyone approaching the study of modernism for the first time.

Widely acknowledged as the most authoritative art critic of his generation, Hilton Kramer advanced his comments and judgments largely in the form of essays and short pieces. Thus this first collection of his work to appear in twenty years is a signal event for the art world and for criticism generally. The Triumph of Modernism not only traces the vicissitudes of the art scene but diagnoses the state of modernism and its vital legacy in the postmodern world. Mr. Kramer bracingly updates his incisive critique of the artists, critics, institutions, and movements that have formed the basis for modern art. Appearing for the first time in greatly expanded form is his consideration of the foundations of modern abstract painting and the future of abstraction. The aesthetic intelligence that Mr. Kramer brings to bear on certain tired assumptions about modernism—many of them derived from methodologies and politics that have little to do with art—helps rescue the artwork itself and its appreciation from the very institutions, such as the art museum and the academy, that purport to foster it. Always clear-eyed and vastly illuminating, Hilton Kramer’s art criticism remains among the very finest written in the past hundred years. Readers of The Triumph of Modernism will be treated to an exhilarating experience.

Intellectual debates surrounding modernity, modernism and fascism continue to be active and hotly contested. In this ambitious book, renowned expert on fascism Roger Griffin analyzes Western modernity and the regimes of Mussolini and Hitler and offers a pioneering new interpretation of the links between these apparently contradictory phenomena.

Archaism, an international artistic phenomenon from early in the twentieth century through the 1930s, receives its first sustained analysis in this book. The distinctive formal and technical conventions of archaic art, especially Greek art, particularly affected sculptors - some frankly modernist, others staunchly conservative, and a few who, like American Paul Manship, negotiated the distance between tradition and modernity. Professor Susan Rather considers the theory, practice, and criticism of early twentieth-century sculpture in order to reveal the changing meaning and significance of the archaic in the modern world. To this end - and against the background of Manship's career - she explores such topics as the archaeological resources for archaism, the classification of the non-Western art of India as archaic, the interest of sculptors in modern dance (Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis), and the changing critical perception of archaism. Rather rejects the prevailing conception of archaism as a sterile and superficial academic style to argue its initial importance as a modernist mode of expression. The early practitioners of archaism - including Aristide Maillol, Andre Derain, and Constantin Brancusi - renounced the rhetorical excess, overrefined naturalism, and indirect techniques of late nineteenth-century sculpture in favor of nonnarrative, stylized and directly carved works, for which archaic Greek art offered an important example. Their position found implicit support in the contemporaneous theoretical writings of Emmanuel Lowy, Wilhelm Worringer, and Adolf von Hildebrand. The perceived relationship between archaic art and tradition ultimately compromised the modernist authorityof archaism and made possible its absorption by academic and reactionary forces during the 1910s. By the 1920s, Paul Manship was identified with archaism, which had become an important element in the aesthetic of public sculpture of both democratic and totalitarian societies. Sculptors often employed archaizing stylizations as ends in themselves and with the intent of evoking the foundations of a classical art diminished in potency by its ubiquity and obsolescence. Such stylistic archaism was not an empty formal exercise but an urgent affirmation of traditional values under siege. Concurrently, archaism entered the mainstream of fashionable modernity as an ingredient in the popular and commercial style known as Art Deco. Both developments fueled the condemnation of archaism - and of Manship, its most visible exemplar - by the avant-garde. Rather's exploration of the critical debate over archaism, finally, illuminates the uncertain relationship to modernism on the part of many critics and highlights the problematic positions of sculpture in the modernist discourse. The first book-length study of archaism and the first critical study of Paul Manship, this work will be important reading in several fields, including American studies and twentieth-century art history. Numerous black-and-white illustrations complement the text.