By Mark Antliff (NHC Fellow, 2003–04) Investigating the central role that theories of the visual arts and creativity played in the development of fascism in France, Mark Antliff examines the aesthetic dimension of fascist myth-making within the history of the avant-garde. Between 1909 and 1939, a surprising array of modernists were implicated in this project, … Continued
By Nina Gurianova (NHC Fellow, 2007–08) In this groundbreaking study, Nina Gurianova identifies the early Russian avant-garde (1910-1918) as a distinctive movement in its own right and not a preliminary stage to the Constructivism of the 1920s. Gurianova identifies what she terms an “aesthetics of anarchy”—art-making without rules—that greatly influenced early twentieth-century modernists. Setting the … Continued
By Patricia Leighten (NHC Fellow, 1995–96) The years before World War I were a time of social and political ferment in Europe, which profoundly affected the art world. A major center of this creative tumult was Paris, where many avant-garde artists sought to transform modern art through their engagement with radical politics. In this provocative … Continued
By Isabel Wünsche (NHC Fellow, 2007–08) The artists of the Organic School of the Russian avant-garde found inspiration as well as a model for artistic growth in the creative principles of nature. Isabel Wünsche analyzes the artistic influences, intellectual foundations, and scientific publications that shaped the formation of these artists, the majority of whom were … Continued
I believe I was in the first year of my undergrad when I saw a video of John Cage’s 1952 composition 4’33” for the very first time. It’s been give-or-take eight years since I sat in that lecture room, but I still keep coming to that day in my thoughts, to that moment when everything … Continued