New Objectivity - Neue sachlichkeit, precisionists and immaculates
The 20s and 30s inspired the most incredible industrial social commentary art. I just finished reading a short biography of Diego Rivera after seeing his murals in Mexico and visiting he and his wife’s - Frida Kahlo - house. The state commissioned political and revolutionary muralists like himself for the purpose of public education for the illiterate. I will read more about him and other Mexican muralists later after my exam. Also of this time we had vorticists and the weimar school aka bauhaus, and today i just came across New Objectivity - Neue sachlichkeit which opposed expressionism and included two subgroups the verists and the magical realists. The precisionists/immaculates
approach and a wider social context were strong ones. In the later 1910s and 1920s, the United States was expanding its communications technology, industrial production, and construction in urban settings. (The changing cityscape was documented by Strand and Sheeler in 1920, in their short film Manhatta.
A fast list of verist artists:
and magical realists:
Precisionists/immaculates:
Very political, critical and reflexitive of the time. I will need to go to a decent art library soon and look this stuff up. I am very fascinated by these groups of subversives. I see little art like this at the moment, it is all quite tame or shall I say site specific - according to an art historian i met at a lecture given by Trevor Pinch, this is supposed to be a tired form. I have no clue, what is and is not hip intellectually or otherwise in art, but i am beginning to see a pattern of what i like, what i find thought provoking and what elicits new questions or helps me comprehend a concept or the ethos of a time! I certainly want to increase my exposure to this form of visual communication as it really helps me reinforce what i read in words.
