[4] September 26 - Art must be unexpected
Section outline
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Assigned reading:
Readings taken from Between Worlds: A Sourcebook of Central European Avant-Gardes, 1910-1930, eds. Timothy O. Benson and Éva Forgács (2002):
Lajos Kassák, "Program" (1916) [Original Hungarian text in A Tett.]
Vlastislav Hofman, "The spirit of change in visual art" (1914)
Béla Balázs, "The futurists" (1912) [Original Hungarian text in Nyugat.]
Bruno Jasieński, "To the Polish nation: A manifesto concerning the immediate futurization of life" (1921) [Original Polish text.]S. A. Mansbach, "Methodology and meaning in the modern art of Eastern Europe," in T. O. Benson, ed., Central European Avant-Gardes: Exchange and Transformation, 1910-1930 (2002), 289-303. [NB: Mansbach barely mentions the war, but his revisionist critique should provide some structure to our discussion of the primary sources. Be prepared in class to speculate more than Mansbach does about the relation of the war to the historical location of the art historical modes of explanation he describes.]
Image: Some modernist typography of "The Great War"; click to see original Russian document
An early Hofman furniture set:
[Source]