The Historical Context of Abstract Expressionism The historical context of Abstract Expressionism can perhaps best be mapped out according to the theories of Pierre Bourdieu who coined the phrase “the field of cultural production.” What was the “field” which...
THE ART SCENE SHIFTS FROM EUROPE TO AMERICA In 1983, art historian, Serge Guilbaut, wrote a provocatively titled book, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art. How, indeed? While the first chapter of this book discusses the politics of the New York intelligentsia...
SURREALIST THEORY The Marvelous Mind of Surrealism In the Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, André Breton wrote, “I believe in the future resolution of these two states — outwardly so contradictory — which are dream and reality, into a sort of absolute reality,...
THE MAKING OF SURREALISM SURREALISM 1924 – 1939 Wounded and home from the Front, the dying poet, Guillaume Apollinaire, went to a play by Diaghilev, Parade. The sets had been made by his good friend, Pablo Picasso, the music was by Erik Satie, the by Leonide...
DADA AND SURREALISM 1916-1920 1924-1939 Although Surrealism supposedly grew out of or outgrew Dada in Paris, the two movements come from very different time periods and cultural contexts. Dada was a wartime movement, founded in the midst of an international slaughter...