Tuesday 30 June 2015

Preliminary Notes on Modernsim


http://time.com/104072/paul-strand-retrospective/

-Paul Strand (1890-1976) was a pictorialist until visiting a gallery owned by Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz criticized the graphic softness of his work which inspired Strand to completely change his style and direction. “straight up” documentary style, believing that the use of technology, especially the camera, could improve humankind.

- Blind is a blind lady in NYC. Strand would put a fake lens on his camera and really photograph the subject with a lens hidden under his arm. Documented photography but kept the clean aesthetics of modernism.

-Wall Street has no focal point and seems abstract, ugly at the time. Straight shot of workers going about their day. Overall he wanted to use modern art to show the humanity seen in western artistic traditions.


 

1916, 1915


-Strand visited New Mexico 1930-1932, made portraits of artistic friends & acquaintances. Returned in 1934 to photograph art, architecture, and landscape of the area.

 

Near Saltillo, 1933
Rebecca (1932)


-Lissitzky’s work spoke for the prevailing political discourse of his native Russia, and Soviet Union.

-Used color and basic shapes to make strong political statements.

-USSR Russische Ausstellung (1929). To show the equality of men and women.

-The Runner (1930) Split into vertical sections to symbolize movement. Visual fragmentation when one looks at the parts rather than the whole. 

-The Staircase (1930) Alexander Rodchenko- used unusual angles and perspective. Woman with a child placed among the manmade enviromnet. Off kilter angle of the stairs and her shadow is cropped partway out of the photo. Random dark portions of the environment in 3 out of 4 of the corners.  


-Compositions such as this were an important influence on New Vision, the modernist photography movement that gripped Europe in the 1920s and '30s.

Ships in the Lock (1933) Rodchenko

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

-Lavenson was another pictorialist turned modernist, due to critiques from Edward Weston. She emphasized formal qualities of architecture, machinery, and still lifes.

-inspired by the idea of light on metal and the way it would gleam in the sunshine.

-Joined f/64 photo club in 1932, produced stark depictions of nature in the American west. The group was about conformity and presented a unified way about what the new modernist approach for art should be.
Composition in Glass (1931) Alma Lavenson
 
Self Portrait (1932)

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