Breaking Rules in the Art World
Cubism, Dadaism, Expressionism, Futurism at the British Library
Nov 19, 2007
Following the success of a recent exhibition of rare religious texts entitled Sacred - World Faiths Brought to Book, the British Library has now opened their latest exhibition: Breaking the Rules: The Printed Face of the European Avant Garde 1900-1937. The exhibition, mounted in the Pearson Gallery, opened on November 9, 2007 and runs until March 30, 2008. Breaking the Rules explores the development of the European Avant Garde movement across Europe.
The term "avant garde" includes a number of artistic styles, each regarded as a movement in its own right such as Cubism, Expressionism, Futurism, Dadaism, Suprematism, Constructivism and Surrealism. The exhibition highlights the common ideas that cross the boundaries of each movement.
Drawing on the library's holdings of avant garde materials from around the world, the exhibition explores the theme through a fascinating selection of posters, flyers, artists' books and photographs, manifestos and literary manuscripts, film, sound clips and audio visual presentations.
Europe underwent massive changes between 1900 and 1940. Attitudes to photography, literature, visual arts and design, theatre, music and architecture changed rapidly, helped along by advances in communications and transport that allowed the speedy movement of ideas and artists from city to city.
Leading characters of the movement are presented through their work including the calligrams (word pictures) of Guillaume Apollinaire and the photographs and films of Man Ray. Visitors can enjoy the music of Shostakovich, Mosolov and other composers linked to the movement. T. S. Eliot reads "The Burial of the Dead" from "The Waste Land" and Wyndham Lewis reads "End of Enemy Interlude". Audiovisual presentations tell visitors about artists such as the illustrator Franciszka Themerson, wife of Stefan Themerson, both leading lights of the avant garde movement. Marinetti, Brecht, Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Kurt Schwitters, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and many others are all represented.
The exhibition is presented in several sections that break down the various components that make up the avant garde movement. The major section is "The Cities", where some 30 European cities are showcased, highlighting how the movement developed outside of Paris, Berlin, Moscow and Vienna.
The end of the Avant Garde movement is also thoroughly explored. In the Soviet Union, Avant Garde groups were broken up at the start of the 1930s. The only artistic movement allowed was Socialist Realism. Round about the same time in Germany, the Nazis claimed the Avant Garde movement was linked to Communism and thousands of books were burned in Nazi bonfires of "un-German" literature.
There is an excellent catalogue to accompany this exhibition featuring articles by its curators. Opening times and information about exhibitions can be obtained from the British Library.
