How to Be Avant-garde: Modern Artists and the Quest to End Art

Sale price$43.99

The strange story of the twentieth-century artists who sought to destroy art by transforming it into the substance of everyday life.

“Art has poisoned our life,” proclaimed Dutch artist and De Stijl cofounder Theo van Doesburg. Reacting to the tumultuous crises of the twentieth century, especially the horrors of World War I, avant-garde artists and writers sought to destroy art by transforming it into the substance of everyday life. Following the evolution of these revolutionary groups, How to Be Avant-Garde charts its pioneers and radical ideas.

From Paris to New York, from Zurich to Moscow and Berlin, avant-gardists challenged the confines of the definition of art along with the confines of the canvas itself. Art historian Morgan Falconer starts with the dynamic Futurist founder Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, whose manifesto extolling speed, destruction, and modernity seeded avant-gardes across Europe. In turn, Dadaists Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings sought to replace art with political cabaret, and the Surrealists tried to exchange it for tools to plumb the unconscious...

Hardcover | 272 pages | 9" x 6" x 1"

Pickup available at 1120 Yonge Street

Usually ready in 2-4 days

How to Be Avant-garde: Modern Artists and the Quest to End Art

How to Be Avant-garde: Modern Artists and the Quest to End Art

1120 Yonge Street

Pickup available, usually ready in 2-4 days

1120 Yonge Street
Toronto ON M4W 2L6
Canada

6476172067