Radio 4 Reith Lectures

One last thing. These are a series of lectures given over the past few years on a variety of different subjects by academic super heros. Fairly intense but very interesting.

find them here

Russian Revolution Propoganda Posters

There's something about these images I have always loved - the colours, the slightly absurd content, the stylisation of them. The proliferation of these colourful images transformed towns in the communist state, and in effect created a street art that was available to all.

The big designers were:
A. Sokolov
B Lebeshev
Adolf Strakhov
Shassi Kobelev
V Malakhow

if you wanted to know...

El Lissitsky

Famous Russian artist and graphic designer, as well as being proficient in about every other form of design. Hugely influential in the Bauhaus movement as well as constructivism. A bit of a 'don'. His work has huge appeal to me, so very stylised.

David Hopkins - Dada and Surrealism

To find out more about the stuff below, I suggest reading this book, it's fairly short and gives a comprehensive overview of both movements.

Dada and Surrealism

Dada is an artistic movement that began in Switzerland, but then spread across Europe primarily to Paris, and then to America due to some of the movements main 'players', Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia and Man Ray. Andre Breton is worth noting here, but he was arguably more influential in the Surrealist movement I think, as were the others to an extent.

Their activities covered many spectrums including the publication of journals, public gatherings and demonstrations, literature, film, graphic design, theatre and visual art. The funny thing is is that Dada is 'anti-art' art. It was a reaction to the bourgeois art world, they embraced chaos, they were reacting against the traditional aesthetics of art, they were intentionally 'opposite'. They looked to offend, and there is an underlying sense of wit and humour to their work.

It eventually evolved into Surrealism, but there are distinct differences between the two (books have been written on the subject, not enough space here...!). It was again a cultural movement that embraced art, film and the written word (La Revolution Surrealiste is of particular importance). Elements of surprise, juxtaposition and expression are apparent in their work, and I'm sure many of you are very familiar with a lot of the paintings and the artists involved in this movement.

There's so much on this subject to go and read, I find it really fascinating and the concepts behind a lot of the work is very applicable to anyones work today - it's an alternative way of looking at things. To sum up, Andre Breton once said whilst discussing Aesthetics,

"From a surrealist point of view, the way in which a picture is painted is virtually irrelevant. It is the mental reality that the picture 'looked onto' that is all important."

Images 1 - Rene Margritte, Time Transfixed
Image 2 - Joan Miro - Naked woman climing staircase
Images 3 & 4 - examples of Dada graphics
Image 5 - very funny. L.H.O.O.Q. when pronounced in French reads, 'She has a hot ass'...

Vienesse Actionism

Having mentioned this so much, I may as well explain further. It was an art movement that belonged to a group of Austrians who grew up with the memory of WW2; their work was a reaction against the political oppresion and socail hypocrasy of their country at the time. The main participants were Gunter Brus (below), Otto Muhl, Hermann Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler.

They loved nakedness, violence, destruction and general degredation. Their work does differ visually, but there are distinct aesthetic and thematic trends between them. To explain this, Otto Muhl said, "...material action is painting that has spread beyond the picture surface. The human body, a laid table or a room becomes the picture surface. Time is added to the dimension of the body and space."

A strange bunch really...

(2nd image - Robert Schwarzkogler, 3rd image - Otto Muhl)

There's an intersting article about them here.

Gunter Brus

Gunter Brus was an Austrian performance artist, draughtsman, painter and film maker, and was born in 1938. With others he was a founder-member of the Aktionismus group (Viennese Actionism). Brus conceived of his Aktionen (action - call to art) in terms of paintings, where the body occupied the centre of a clearly defined space. Just as he had previously scratched and degraded the fabric of his paintings to the point of destruction whilst working in such a medium, in his Aktionen he portrayed various acts of self-mutilation.

In his Aktionen after 1967, Brus pushed himself to further physical and mental extremes as he analysed his own body and its functions. Symbolism was generally dispensed with in the performances, as Brus publicly urinated, defecated and cut himself with a razor-blade.

In his work entitled 'Self Paining', Brus covered his whole body in white paint, and then painted black lines over himself to suggest cracks. The collaged pins, razor blades and pen-knife take on the ritual significance of tools of torture, making Brus's body like that of a saint. By using his body in this way, Brus was trying to introduce raw human emotion into art (as opposed to symbolising it, as mentioned earlier). The collage is typical of the counter-culture which encompassed the Vienesse Actionists.

I think Brus himself sums up everything (if it's not already blatently obvious!!)
"Breaking taboos has almost become a style in my work."

Extreme stuff I'm sure you'll agree...