 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
 |
||||||||
 |
|
 |
Activities: Context Activities "An Explosion in a Shingle Factory": The Armory Show and the Advent of Modern Art  Back to Context Activities
In 1913 the International Exhibition of Modern Art opened at the Sixty-Ninth Regiment Armory in New York City. Art historian Milton Brown calls it "the most important single exhibition ever held in America." Prior to what became known as the Armory Show, contemporary art and artists had received little attention from the American public, and this exhibition brought curious onlookers in numbers previously unimaginable. Displayed were works by avant-garde European artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Marcel Duchamp, all of whose abstract work had been shown in Europe beginning in 1905, with the Fauviste exhibition (where Gertrude Stein and her brother began collecting modern art). A similar exhibition in London in 1910 had prompted Virginia Woolf to tie a fundamental shift in the world to the display of those paintings, claiming that "on or about December 1910 human character changed." Cubism, a style of painting that emphasized the underlying geometric forms of objects, shocked American viewers, many of whom thought that the artists were trying to conceal their own lack of artistic talent or were simply insane. Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase caused the greatest public furor, standing for all that was wrong in modern art in the eyes of its critics. It became a target of public ridicule, and parodies of the work appeared in newspapers and journals. As Brown puts it, "American critics were as unprepared for the European visitation as they were for an exhibition of art from Mars." An art critic for the New York Times thought the work resembled "an explosion in a shingle factory." Nonetheless, the show radically changed art in America. Shown alongside these ground-breaking works from Europe, and compared to dadaist and surrealist works of the late 1910s and 1920s, the work of the American artists thinking of themselves as revolutionaries seemed to pale by comparison. The artists representing the Ashcan School--including George Bellows, John Sloan, George Luks, and William Glackens--who had broken with American academic art in choosing to paint scenes of everyday, and especially working-class, life, found themselves considerably less revolutionary than they had thought. While works such as Bellows's Stag at Sharkey's and Luks's Hester Street depicted subject matter generally not considered appropriate to art, their paintings did not move toward the level of abstraction favored by Picasso and Duchamp, for example. Other arts were also undergoing significant change at this time. When the Ballet Russe performed the modern ballet The Rite of Spring in Paris in 1913, the dissonant music by Stravinsky and the daring and sometimes erotic ballet choreography shocked the opening night audience and nearly provoked a riot. Stravinsky's rejection of conventions governing rhythm and melody paralleled poets' rejection of conventions governing the meter of verse. By 1915 some critics were announcing that a shift had occurred in the artistic climate of the United States and that America would soon itself become a capital of culture. After the war, however, American politics became increasingly conservative, with the Volstead Act, the Red Scare, and restrictions on immigration, and American artists again looked to Europe. But throughout the 1920s the spirit of experimentation persisted in different groups, notably the European Surrealists, centered in New York, and by World War II artists in America were at the forefront of experimental art. Questions
[4022] Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2) (1912), courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Abstract painting exhibited at the Armory Show in New York in 1913. American audiences criticized and ridiculed the work, an example of cubism, a style of painting that incorporated fragmentation and geometrical shapes. [4024] Henri Matisse, Goldfish and Sculpture (Les Poissons) (1911), courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art. Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo began collecting works of modern art in the early 1900s, including paintings by Matisse and Picasso. [4525] Joan Miro, Shooting Star (1938), courtesy of the National Gallery of Art. Surreal painting emphasizing the geometrical shapes and human forms in abstract art. Modern art was initially centered in Europe and met with hostility from American audiences. [5303] Arthur B. Davies, Dancers (1914), courtesy of the Detroit Institute of Art. An example of modern art and cubism, showing geometric forms in nude human forms. [6492] Anonymous, Armory Show Poster (1913), courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The Armory Show was an exhibit of international modern art held in New York City. Many American viewers responded negatively to works by the European artists. [7500] Anonymous, Pablo Picasso in His Paris Studio (1939), courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USZ62-99813]. Photograph of Picasso, surrounded by furniture and art. Picasso was important to art scenes in both New York and Paris and associated with writers, including Gertrude Stein. |
|
 This tool builds multimedia presentations for classrooms or assignments.   An online collection of 3000 artifacts for classroom use.   Download the Instructor Guide PDF for this Unit. |
|
|
|