EUR  â¬170.40EUR  â¬142.00 excl. VAT
Between Point Zero and the Iron Curtain
International Cooperation in Art at the Postwar Moment, 1945-1948
Series: - Avant-Garde Critical Studies, Volume: 45
- Avant-Garde Critical Studies, Volume: 45
Volume Editor:
This volume, edited by Ãva Forgács, with contributions from art historians from across Europe and the Americas, analyzes the artistic initiatives of the short time span between the end of World War II and the onset of the Cold War. In this moment, a new internationalism was anticipated by retrieving pre-war modernism, as well as creating the new era's new artistic lingua franca.
The chapters include in-depth case studies that analyze the complex, often interconnected, projects throughout the worldâSouth America and Eastern and Western Europeâthat were soon ended by the Cold War.
The chapters include in-depth case studies that analyze the complex, often interconnected, projects throughout the worldâSouth America and Eastern and Western Europeâthat were soon ended by the Cold War.
Ãva Forgács, Ph.D. (1992), is an Adjunct Professor at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, and Professor Emerita of the László Moholy-Nagy University, Budapest. Her publications include Malevich and Interwar Modernism (Bloomsbury, 2022) and other monographs and essays on Modernism and contemporary art and culture.
"Between Point Zero and the Iron Curtain situates the issue of abstraction in art on a new historiographic and theoretical basis, particularly in relation to recent decolonial scholarship. The chapters discuss abstraction not as a process of stripping contexts into select variables that can be distantly manipulated (such the metropole ruling over the colony); but rather, as pure creative potentialâthe white canvas onto which Malevich painted his Suprematist formsâwhich survives after everything else that people love and by which they live is lost to sight."
"Standing on top of ruins and âscan[ning] the horizon of time ⦠with open eye,â as the director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and CoBrA supporter Willem Sandberg wrote in a 1946 editorial of the journal Open oog: avantgardecahier voor visuele vormgeving (Open Eye: Avant-Garde Notebook for Visual Design), artists and architects were left to reassemble what was under their feet. Only with those available materialsâand through the need to affirm their own existenceâcould they build toward a liberated future. Such visions that are presented in Forgácsâs timely and important volume would soon, however, join the growing pile of wreckage, as the angel of history, summoned at the âzero hour,â proved not only to be a saving grace but a harbinger of another catastrophe to come."_Alexander Bala. in:
"Standing on top of ruins and âscan[ning] the horizon of time ⦠with open eye,â as the director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and CoBrA supporter Willem Sandberg wrote in a 1946 editorial of the journal Open oog: avantgardecahier voor visuele vormgeving (Open Eye: Avant-Garde Notebook for Visual Design), artists and architects were left to reassemble what was under their feet. Only with those available materialsâand through the need to affirm their own existenceâcould they build toward a liberated future. Such visions that are presented in Forgácsâs timely and important volume would soon, however, join the growing pile of wreckage, as the angel of history, summoned at the âzero hour,â proved not only to be a saving grace but a harbinger of another catastrophe to come."_Alexander Bala. in:
Acknowledgments
List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
1 A New Beginning: the Dresden Artistsâ Group Der Ruf, 1945â1948
âIsabel Wünsche
2 The Struggle for Dominating the Discourse: the Conflict between Traditionalists and Modernists in Hungary, 1945â1948
âEdit Sasvári
3 Art in Poland Immediately after the War in Search of Social Context
âMarcin Lachowski
4 In the Realm of Contradictions: Outlines of Czech Cultural Policy, 1945â1948
âTomas Glanc
5 The Bucharest Surrealist Group and the Networks of Post-war Surrealism
âImre József Balázs
6 âDemocratic Art par excellenceâ? The 1947 PolishâCzechoslovak Exchange of Modern Graphic Art Exhibitions
âPetra Skarupsky
7 The European School in Budapest, 1945â1948
âÃva Forgács
8 Cobra: Vital Manifestation
âSascha Bru and Ãva Forgács
9 New Realities in Paris: Abstract Art and Internationalism, 1946â1950
âNatalie Adamson
10 Resilient Modernism: the 1946 Visit of Polish Architects to the United States
âAnna Jozefacka
11 Materiality and Migration in Latin American Modernism: Caracas to Buenos Aires, 1944â1950
âPia Gottschaller
12 The Chicago Art That Wasnât, 1945â1948
âBarbara Jaffee
13 Turnabout is Fair Play: Institution Building and the Idea of International Art in São Paulo after World War II
âAdele Nelson
14 American Surrealism, Late Style: Horizontal Circulations in the 1940s
âTyrus Miller
Index
List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
PART I: Local Developments
1 A New Beginning: the Dresden Artistsâ Group Der Ruf, 1945â1948
âIsabel Wünsche
2 The Struggle for Dominating the Discourse: the Conflict between Traditionalists and Modernists in Hungary, 1945â1948
âEdit Sasvári
3 Art in Poland Immediately after the War in Search of Social Context
âMarcin Lachowski
4 In the Realm of Contradictions: Outlines of Czech Cultural Policy, 1945â1948
âTomas Glanc
PART II: Reaching Out
5 The Bucharest Surrealist Group and the Networks of Post-war Surrealism
âImre József Balázs
6 âDemocratic Art par excellenceâ? The 1947 PolishâCzechoslovak Exchange of Modern Graphic Art Exhibitions
âPetra Skarupsky
7 The European School in Budapest, 1945â1948
âÃva Forgács
8 Cobra: Vital Manifestation
âSascha Bru and Ãva Forgács
PART III: Wide Networks
9 New Realities in Paris: Abstract Art and Internationalism, 1946â1950
âNatalie Adamson
10 Resilient Modernism: the 1946 Visit of Polish Architects to the United States
âAnna Jozefacka
11 Materiality and Migration in Latin American Modernism: Caracas to Buenos Aires, 1944â1950
âPia Gottschaller
12 The Chicago Art That Wasnât, 1945â1948
âBarbara Jaffee
13 Turnabout is Fair Play: Institution Building and the Idea of International Art in São Paulo after World War II
âAdele Nelson
14 American Surrealism, Late Style: Horizontal Circulations in the 1940s
âTyrus Miller
Index
Scholar, students, academic libraries, institutes of art and design, and general readers interested in the post-World War II era and art history.