Friday 26 October 2012

The Web of Modernism - How Abstract Movements Spread Across The Globe

The Museum Of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York is currently hosting an exhibition called Inventing Abstraction: 1920-5. They took the opportunity to unreaval a graphic representation of the birth of modern art. 
The image, which was designed for their upcoming show Inventing Abstraction: 1910-1925 (December 23, 2012–April 15, 2013), is an obvious node to Alfred H. Barr Jr.’s important Cubism and Abstract Art chart that accompanied a show of the same name at the MoMA in 1936.
1. Barr's Original for the 1936 Exhibition 

This web of relationships goes beyond visual art to incorporate musicians like Claude Debussy, writers like Guillaume Apollinaire, and choreographers like Vaslav Nijinsky, and gives us the most complete picture of abstractions transcontinental roots we’ve ever seen.
2. Info Graphic for the 2012 Exhibition (Click Here to Enlarge)
The Americans, centered on photographer Alfred Stieglitz, branch out to include Max Weber, Marsden Hartley, and others. There are obvious Italian, Russian, British, Dutch and other clusters but the image connects the dots between figures we may not know were in contact. The Hungarian hub includes painter Sándor Bortnyik, and Bauhaus pioneer László Moholy-Nagy.The chart shows all known relationships that including those who have shared studios and even slept together.
For more, go to Hyperallergic or the MoMA homepage.

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