Art & Design in Context

Time TravelModernism

Today’s session

• Introduction to the new brief: Time Travel

• Introduction to Modernism

• Group work

Time TravelYou will be working in groups on the Time Travel project. Each group will be assigned two defined 20th / 21st Century periods of time to research.

For the Time Travel brief each group has to:

• Research and produce a ‘Time Line’ or ‘Conceptual Map’ of your decade which conveys important art and design matters, people, studios, organisations, projects, artefacts, products and exhibitions.

• You will also have to show the surrounding social historical and political contexts they were involved in: wars, politics and anything of significance that happen during that period. This will be presented to the whole group at the end on term.

• Create a group website (WordPress blog) to which all members of the group contribute

Ludwig Zehnder, X-Ray Photograph of a Human Body, 1896

Time Travel• Each student will be responsible for an

element of the project. For instance one student might research the artists of the period and another might find out about who else was famous during the decade. One of you might look at historical events while another might look at the significant developments in design during your given period.

• You will be assessed on how you work in a group but you will also have to produce individual work for your website (blog). You will all present in your group website the final group work and the elements you personally researched.

Time TravelThe sessions are based around seminar, workshop and gallery visits, and will:

• Introduce you to histories of art and design processes

• Introduce you to key social and professional concerns affecting fields of art and design

• Introduce you to methods of analysis and evaluation via individual tasks as well as group work (to be carried out through independent studies, and in group tasks during the sessions)

• Introduce you to psychological contexts of art & design, and the medium of communication

AES&F, Action half life, episode 2, 2003

Time TravelAt the end of this project, you will have:

• A good understanding of related strands of art and design history, practices and processes

• Insights into social, political and global issues affecting areas of art and design

• Knowledge of a specialised area of art and design

• Developed initial skills in design literacy, critical analysis and comment

1936 Berlin Olympic stadium

Time Travel – assessmentThis summative assessment (25%) will take the form of a group presentation of your project (timeline) and your group website (blog). Your timelines should exist on both your group blogs as well as your individual blogs.

You will present your project as a group during the session of:

Wednesday December 7

You will have 5 minutes to verbally and visually present your project (timeline) and accompanying website (blog)

Note: last year’s Time Travel projects can be found on the 2010-11 Art & Design in Context blog:

http://artdesigncontext1011.wordpress.com

Martin Parr, British Food, 1995-96

Modernism

Modernism is a term that refers to cultural concepts and productions, and usually refers to an approximate time period of 1890 - 1960 (note: periods of time may overlap, and all cultural concepts/productions generated during this period may not reflect or embody Modernist notions) Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

(The Young Ladies of Avignon), 1907

19th Century shifts to what became known as Modernism

The huge changes in society through the 19th Century began to influence art practices (attitudes, inventions, industrialisation, etc)

– There is a direct reaction to the Romantic ideas that did not always portray truth

– Individuals began to revolt against anything coming from the Romantic Era

The late 19th Century saw the emergence of a distinct movement which was influenced by these changes...

Claude Monet, Train in the Snow, 1875

No doubt it is an excellent discipline to study the old masters, in order to learn how to paint, but it can be no more than a superfluous exercise if your aim is to understand the beauty of the present day. The draperies of Rubens or Veronese will not teach you how to paint watered silk d'antique, or satin à la reine, or any other fabric produced by our mills, supported by a swaying crinoline, or petticoats of starched muslin. What would you say, for example, of a marine painter (...) who, having to represent the sober and elegant beauty of a modern vessel, were to tire out his eyes in the study of the overloaded, twisted shapes, the monumental stern, of ships of bygone ages, and the complex sails and rigging of the sixteenth century? [The painter of modern life], guided by nature, tyrannized over by circumstance, has followed a quite different path. He began by looking at life, and only later did he contrive to learn how to express life.

Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life, 1863

Some significant ideas emerging around the mid 19th Century - early 20th Century that influenced thinking and that came to influence 20th /21st Century events, thought, cultural productions etc, include:

• Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848)

• Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, (1872)

• Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, (1900)

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, The Bathers, 1884 Paul Cezanne, The Three Bathers, 1879-82

Paul Delaroche

“From today painting is dead” 1839 (Attributed)

"The painter will discover in this process an easy means of collecting studies which he could otherwise only have obtained over a long period of time, laboriously and in a much less perfect way, no matter how talented he might be."

Hippolyte Bayard, Self-Portrait in the Studio, post 1850

ModernismModernism was a broad movement, encompassing numerous sub-movements, and was focused around experimental approaches to art / architecture / design. The medium itself became the focal point for artists, taking the place of nature, which was the preferred focus in the 19th Century.

Piet Mondrian,Composition No VI,1914

Modernist themes include:

Rebellion

Increasing abstraction

Flattening of space

Using color, line and shape expressively rather than descriptively

Linear progression of these ideas from one movement to the next

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Yellow, Blue, and Red, 1937–42

ModernismModernism was characterised by a wide range of –isms, all rejecting Naturalism in favour of experimental art, often focused on the nature of art and human experience.

Key Modernist expressions: experimental, radical, readymade, primitive, the unconscious, spiritualism, expressive truth, art & industry, internationalism

Key Modernist artists: Pablo Picasso, Jean Arp, Marc Chagall, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Max Ernst, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, Egon Schiele, Fernand Léger, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Barbara Hepworth, Frida Kahlo, Joan Miró, Yves Tanguy, Lucio Fontana, Mark Rothko, etc.

Christian Schad, Shadograph, 1919

MODERNISM - 1890s / turn of the century onwards up until ca 1960s

Cubism

Abstraction

Surrealism

Futurism Dadaism

Constructivism

Fauvism

Abstract Expressionism

Vorticism

Time Travel groups:Group 1: Ana Kirova, Omar Adams, Philip Flood, Migle Kanapelkaite

Group 2: George Sampagian Diplas, Henry Ofori-Atta, Toria Ashplant, Evion Chong, JB Juwana Baduge

Group 3: Diana Hernandez Romero, Hannah Edwards, Jardene Sinclair, Damiyr Saleem

Group 4: Rhianne Fung, Charlie Palmer, Samantha Watson, Hannah Farrell

Group 5: Gurmakh Sing Pottiwal, Mario Thompson, Jumana Hasso, Asen Dankov, Ross Bartley

Group 6: Nikki Chadd, Lorrell Fowlin, Jianwei Huang, Raheel Saber, Arleen Dewell

Group 7: Sandie Ly, Monica Girgis, Donameche Woolery, Dominika Sroczak Dan Browne,

Group 8: Funmi Ohiosumah, Salaur Rahman, Edisson Hidalgo, Joe Weaver, Suheb Ahmad

Time periods:Group 1: 1915-1920 & 1960-1965

Group 2: 1905-1910 & 2000-2005

Group 3: 1940-1945 & 1985-1990

Group 4: 1900-1905 & 1975-1980

Group 5: 1950-1955 & 2005-2010

Group 6: 1925-1930 & 1965-1970

Group 7: 1910-1915 & 1955-1960

Group 8: 1945-1950 & 1995-2000

Group work: Part 1 - discussionLocate your group members and sit down to discuss the brief and the time periods given to you.

• Decide on a Time Travel team name

• Think about the two time periods given to you. What do you already know (as a group) about these two 5 year periods? Start drawing up timelines with examples of:

o World events (political, social, industrial, global, national events , war/s, etc)o Art & Design (artists, designers, exhibitions, movements, products, projects, etc)

o Key personalities / people

o Social, political and/or cultural movements (voting, gender / racial issues, freedom of speech, etc)

Group work: Part 2 – group blogsHaving decided on a name of your Time Travel group and discussed the time periods given to you, you now need to create a group blog:

• Create a group blog that you are all ‘administrators’ of (linked to your individual blogs)

• Discuss themes / layout / design / navigation and create necessary pages

• Upload your notes from Part 1 of the group work to your group blog

• Send me your group blog address: sara@andersdotter.com

For next week:

• Bring in at least one image relating to one of the time periods given to your group (can be related to art / design / advertising / cinema / posters or any other visual media you find interesting)

• Define the term ‘Modernism’ in your own words, give examples, and upload to your individual blog (200-300 words)

• Review the new brief (Time Travel) and learning outcomes

• Bring your laptops – at least one per group

and...

Make sure you have sent me your group blogs so that I can add them to the Art & Design in Context blog: sara@andersdotter.com