Constructivism  Dada  Surrealism
1913 - 1940
HANNAH HOCH
Russian Constructivism
Surrealism. Dada
Not Photography movements, but
movements happening in the Art World
that heavily relied on the camera.
Other Art Movements that Influenced Constructivism, Surrealism, and Dada
Cubism
Expressionism
Futurism
Cubism (France) 1907 – 1914
• Cubism was one of the most influential visual art styles of the early twentieth century.
• Created by Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973) and Georges Braque (French, 1882–
1963) in Paris between 1907 and 1914.
Georges Braque
Picasso
• Art critic described the work of this time as being made up of "cubes."
The Cubist painters rejected the concept that art should copy nature, or that they should
adopt the traditional techniques of perspective, modelling, and foreshortening.
•
Avant-garde Movement
- new and experimental ideas and methods in art, music, or literature
•
The key concept underlying Cubism is that the essence of an object can only be captured by showing it from
multiple points of view simultaneously
Expressionism 1905 – 1930 Germany
• An artistic style
• Depict subjective emotions and
responses that objects and events
arouse in him
• Personal, spontaneous selfexpression
• Use of distortion and exaggeration
for emotional effect
• Exaggeration, primitivism
(basic/simple), and fantasy
• Use of intense colour, agitated
brushstrokes, and disjointed space
• Seen in dance, cinema, literature and
the theatre
Wassily Kandinsky, 1923
Edvard Munch, 1893
August Macke, 1913
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The artists vision of the object or scene
Not representing the real world, but rather an impression
They wanted instead to emphasize the two-dimensionality of the canvas.
They reduced and fractured objects into geometric forms
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1912
Erich Heckel, 1919
Futurism 1909 – 1916, Italy
• The Futurists rejected anything old and
looked towards a new Italy.
• Past culture in Italy was felt as particularly
oppressive.
• It emphasized and glorified themes of the
future, speed, technology, youth and
violence, and objects such as the car, the
aeroplane and the industrial city.
• Futurists proposed instead was an art that
celebrated the modern world of industry
and technology
Umberto Boccioni
• The Futurists practiced in every medium of art,
including:
Umberto Boccioni 1882 - 1916
painting, sculpture, ceramics,
graphic design, industrial
design, interior design, urban
design, theatre, film,
fashion,
textiles, literature, music,
architecture
Giacomo Balla
Dada 1916 – 1924
• Dada was born out of a pool of avant-garde painters, poets and filmmakers who
flocked to neutral Switzerland before and during WWI.
• Dada sounded the same in every language, and it didn’t make any sense
• Dadaists were always opposed to authoritarianism, and to any form of group
leadership or guiding ideology.
• Rebelled against what they saw as cultural snobbery, bourgeois convention, and
political support for the war.
Marcel Duchamp
Raoul Hausmann
George Grosz
• Held events, spontaneous readings, performances, and exhibitions.
• Influenced by ideas and innovations from Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism,
and Expressionism
Hugo Ball
Max Ernst
• Medium/methods was wildly diverse
John Heartfield
Francis Picabia
Kurt Schwitters
• Ranging from performance art to poetry, photography, sculpture, painting and collage
• Dada's aesthetic, marked by its mockery of materialistic and nationalistic attitudes,
proved a powerful influence on artists in many cities, including Berlin, Hanover, Paris,
New York and Cologne, all of which generated their own groups.
• After the war, many of the artists who had participated in the Dada movement began
to practice in a Surrealist mode.
• Similar to Dada, Surrealism was characterized by a profound disillusionment with and
condemnation of the Western emphasis on logic and reason.
“We had lost confidence in our culture.
Everything had to be demolished. At the
Cabaret Voltaire we began by shocking
common sense, public opinion, education,
institutions, museums, good taste, in short,
the prevailing order.”
- Marcel Janco
Well known Dadaists/Surrealists:
Hans Arp
Hugo Ball
André Breton
Salvador Dalí
Giorgio De Chirico
Marcel Duchamp
Max Ernst
Sigmund Freud
George Grosz
Raoul Hausmann
John Heartfield
Hannah Höch
René Magritte
André Masson
Joan Miró
László Moholy-Nagy
Meret Oppenheim
Francis Picabia
Man Ray
Hans Richter
Kurt Schwitters
Yves Tanguy
Tristan Tzara
• Most of these artists were very young and
had “opted out” of the war, seeking refuge
in New York, Zurich and Barcelona
• Word was spread by
publications/manifestos rather than
organized exhibitions
• Used all forms of expression – cabaret
performances, meetings, visual art, writing
and riots
• Avant-garde, rebels
• More focused on political and social
concerns
• Migrated also to New York, where it was
more theoretical, less political
Why is this important to photography?
DADAISTS HEAVILY USED THE CAMERA: WE SEE THE FIRST INSTANCE OF COLLAGE!
 Collage: Pasting cut pieces of objects together
such as train tickets, maps, rubbish – found
objects
 Photomontage: similar to collage, but using
actual photographs from the media
 Readymades: manufactured objects as “art” –
turning into sculpture
 Assemblage: 3D versions of collage
A movement where we saw artists using photography and the camera in their work.
They were not trained photographers, they had no allegiance to photography.
They didn’t care if photography was art or not.
They recognized the camera as a symbol of progress and industrialization.
Marcel Duchamp
Outspoken Dadaist
Liked to stir up controversy
Question, what is art?
Break down barriers of high art!
Redefining art
Created a personal brand of Cubism
combining earthy colours, mechanical
and visceral forms, and a depiction of
movement which owes as much to
Futurism as to Cubism.
“To all appearances, the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond
time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing.”
Duchamp did very little painting
after 1912, creating the first of his
'readymades' in 1913.
These were ordinary objects of
everyday use, sometimes slightly
altered, and designated works of art
by the artist.
The concept of the readymade
became associated with an assault on
the conventional understanding of the
nature and status of art.
Hannah Hoch
Known for her political collage and
photomontage works
Hannah Höch appropriated and
rearranged images and text from the
mass media to critique the failings of the
German Government 1910 – 1920.
She rejected the German government,
but often focused her criticism more
narrowly on gender issues, and is
recognized as a pioneering feminist artist.
Höch drew inspiration from the
collage work of Pablo Picasso and
fellow Dada exponent Kurt
Schwitters, and her own
compositions share with those
artists a similarly dynamic and
layered style.
Höch preferred metaphoric imagery to the
more direct, text-based confrontational
approach.
John Heartfield, German 1891 –1968
A pioneer of modern photomontage.
Worked in Germany and
Czechoslovakia between WWI – WWII.
He developed a unique method of
appropriating and reusing photographs
to powerful political effect.
Heartfield's images forecasted and reflected the
chaos Germany experienced in the 1920s and '30s
as it slipped toward social and political
catastrophe.
The impact of Heartfield's images was so great
that they helped transform photomontage into
a powerful form of mass communication.
Heartfield devised photo-based symbols for the
Communist Party of Germany, allowing the
organization to compete with the Nazis'
swastika.
His images of clenched fists, open palms, and
raised arms all implied bold action and
determination.
He chose recognizable press photographs of politicians or events from the mainstream
illustrated press. He then disassembled and rearranged these images to radically alter their
meaning.
Raoul Hausmann 1886–1971
German Dada artist, poet, photographer
and polemicist.
Influenced by the Cubists
Co-founder of the Berlin Dada movement 1917
Greatly interested in photography and made
photograms, rayograms and pictograms.
Consistently blurring the boundaries
between visual art, poetry, music, and
dance.
Surrealism – Early 1920’s
• Branched out of Dadaism
• Started in Paris, 1924 by Andre Breton
• Surrealism became an international intellectual and political movement.
• Drew upon the private world of the mind, traditionally restricted by reason and
societal limitations, to produce surprising, unexpected imagery.
• Influenced by dream studies of Freud and political ideas of Marx
Joan Miró
Picasso
The surrealist movement originated in Paris in the 1920s, drawing its members from many
countries in Europe and beyond.
Although it began as a literary movement, it
soon developed to encompass the visual
arts, engaging with ideas from
psychoanalysis, philosophy and politics as
well.
The surrealists opposed what they saw as
the stultifying and oppressive aspects of
society, and celebrated a vision of the world
in which men’s imaginations and desires
were set free.
… desire, the sole motivating principle of
the world, the only master humans must
recognise.
- André Breton
Manifesto of Surrealism
Surrealism: Pure psychic automation by which one intends to express verbally, in
writing or by other method, the real functioning of the mind. Dictation by thought or
in the absence of any other control exercised by reason, and beyond any aesthetic or
moral preoccupation.
“Surrealism is based on the belief … in the omnipotence of dreams, in the undirect
play of thoughts.”
Photography and Surrealism
Maurice Tabard
Man Ray
Photography came to occupy a central role in Surrealist activity. In the works of Man Ray
and Maurice Tabard. The use of such procedures as double exposure, combination
printing, montage, and solarization dramatically evoked the union of dream and reality.
Other photographers used techniques such as rotation or distortion to render their
images uncanny.
Hans Bellmer obsessively photographed the mechanical dolls he fabricated himself,
creating strangely sexualized images
Umbo
Hans Bellmer
André Kertész
Man Ray 1922
Rayograph – said he invented it.
Surrealism – had a range. Some
was realistic, some was pure
fantasy
Photograms
Solarization
The photograph was taken with a two-hour-long
exposure that beautifully captures the complex
texture and diversity of materials that lay atop
the glass surface.
Solarization: image is reversed (negative) when
exposed to white light in darkroom
Distortion: used mirrors and lenses to distort
the human form
Photograms: camera-less images
Assemblage: 3D versions of collage
Dali
Surrealist, worked with photography and painting
Other surrealist artists
to consider:
Magritte
Miro
Russian Constructivism 1920-1934
Most likely Visually Influenced by Cubism
Made Art for social purposes
Emerged as Bolsheviks came to power in 1917
“Constructivism” was a term to described Alexander Rodchenko’s
work
Wanted viewer to be active viewer
Inspired radical graphic design, cinema, and architecture
Constructivist:
Also used photomontage: less destructive than
Dadaists
Technical analysis of modern materials. Not to
express beauty, one’s own personal outlook or to
represent the world
Focus on construction. “Truth to materials”
Photographs: strong, unique angles, abstract use
of light. Paralleled Moholy-Nagy images
Rodchenko
Work in sculpture, and collage, made political statements
Made amazing photos with really unique perspectives
Strong compositions
Designer by training
“One has to take several different shots of a subject, different points of view and
in different situations, as if one examined it in the round rather than looked
through the same key-hole again and again.”
“Our duty is to experiment”
“In order to educate man to a new longing, everyday familiar objects must be
shown to him with totally unexpected perspectives and in unexpected
situations. New objects should be depicted from different sides in order to
provide a complete impression of the object.
Other Russian Constructivists to
consider:
The use of photographs incorporated into
collage.
Klutsis
Lissitzky – graphic design and sculpture
Visual Characteristics of Constructivists
Geometric Shapes
Fragmentation
Text
Layers
Completely different from Realism
Recent Artists Influenced by Constructivist
movement:
Femke
Adam Fuss
Maggie Taylor
Uelsman
Schneider
Hockney
Kruger
International Avant-garde art movements had a lasting impact
on contemporary art and many artists in Postmodernism
Artists heavily relied on the camera for visual experimentation,
reference to mass media culture, and for political content
Most of these artists were not formally trained in photography
or cared about its history. No allegiance to the medium itself or
its place in art.
They did however alter ideas of perspective and composition with
the camera and hugely influenced experimentation within the
medium