IN PERSON: In the two decades following World War I, many artists sought approaches that countered the brutality of the war. Dada and surrealist artists employed irrationality and psychology as a rejection of the war’s emphasis on impersonal technology. In contrast, other artists, many associated with the sociopolitical experiment of the Russian Revolution, pushed highly rational and materialistic styles that were intended to create a new, egalitarian order of universal values. By the 1930s, however, antipathy toward the radicalism of the new art led to work that reflected conservative traditionalism while bolstering the rise of autocratic regimes. This course will look at these contradictory forces from which European art rose to an apex of avant-garde investigation, only to collapse into reactionary bathos. | Lecture + Q&A.
Max enrollment: 50.
Class sessions are recorded.
Location: Erwin Mill, 2024 W. Main St, Durham NC 27705
