Modern Art and Architecture

B

3

Kinetic Sculpture

Gabo and Pevsner were the first artists to use the word “kinetic” (moving) in connection with sculpture, in a manifesto they published in 1920. Around this time Gabo was experimenting with electrically powered oscillating sculpture, and during the 1920s several other artists, including Marcel Duchamp, explored ways of introducing motion to their work. However, the great pioneer of kinetic sculpture was the American Alexander Calder (active in France for much of his career), who in 1931 began creating abstract moving constructions that his friend Duchamp dubbed “mobiles”. Sometimes he used electrical power to create the motion, but his most characteristic mobiles are made of lightweight metal parts suspended in such a way that they move in response to natural air currents. For several years Calder remained the only notable specialist in kinetic sculpture, but in the 1950s several younger artists entered the field. In 1955 an exhibition entitled “Le Mouvement” was held in Paris at the gallery of the dealer Denise René, and this helped to establish Kinetic Art as a recognized genre. In addition to Calder and Duchamp, the artists represented in the exhibition included Yaacov Agam (Israeli-born but active mainly in France) and Victor Vasarély, best known as one of the pioneers and leading exponents of Op Art.

B

4

Plastics

Experiments with synthetic plastic as a sculptural material were made as early as the 1860s, and Naum Gabo, for example, made fairly extensive use of sheets of transparent celluloid, particularly in small models. However, it was not until after World War II that plastic became a major addition to the materials used by sculptors. The sleek, glossy surfaces it could provide were utilized, for example, by Pop Artists such as Claes Oldenburg, who sometimes made soft sculptures by stuffing forms made of PVC, and fibreglass (plastic reinforced with glass) has proved a highly suitable material for casting. It is strong but much lighter in weight than bronze (traditionally used for casting), it can take fine detail, and it can be coloured. Superrealist sculptors such as the Americans Duane Hanson and John De Andrea have made memorable use of it in their highly lifelike figures.

B

5

Recent Developments

Since about 1960 sculpture has often merged with other, more novel, forms of artistic expression, such as Body Art (in which the artist uses his or her own body as the material), Conceptual Art (in which the idea or ideas lying behind a work are considered more important than its physical appearance), and Land Art (in which the artist uses such raw materials as earth, rocks, and soil). The British artist Richard Long, for example, unites sculpture, Conceptual Art, and Land Art in his work, which is based on solitary walks through landscapes. Sometimes he collects objects such as stones that he arranges in gallery settings, and he has also documented his walks through photographs, texts, and maps. Another British artist, Andy Goldsworthy, likewise works predominantly with found natural materials and his sculptures are often inherently short-lived (notably those that he makes from snow and ice); he records them in colour photographs.

During the 1990s a loosely affiliated group known as the Young British Artists (YBAs) became regarded as leaders of avant-garde art. Several of these artists are considered primarily sculptors or have a strong sculptural element in their work, notably Damien Hirst, famous for his “pickled animal” sculptures, Rachel Whiteread, who made her name with casts of domestic features or their surrounding spaces, and Marc Quinn, whose work includes a self-portrait head made from his own frozen blood (it is shown in a refrigerated case).

Among recent trends and movements, however, the one that has made the biggest impact on the contemporary art scene is perhaps video art. It originated in the 1960s and by the 1990s had become highly fashionable among avant-garde artists, as is illustrated by the fact that the Turner Prize, Britain’s leading award for contemporary art, was won by video artists in 1996 (Douglas Gordon), 1997 (Gillian Wearing), and 1999 (Steve McQueen). This growing popularity was influenced by rapid advances in the technology available; many artists now use sophisticated computer equipment as part of their video work.

The term “video art” is an imprecise one, embracing various types of work that use video or television equipment and techniques. An example is To Pray Without Ceasing (1992) by the American Bill Viola, one of the most highly regarded practitioners in the field; it is a 12-hour cycle of images projected on to a screen, accompanied by a recording of a voice reciting poetry by Walt Whitman. Viola himself describes the work as “an unfolding sequence of prayers for the city… a cycle of individual and universal life”.

III

Modern Architecture

Just as modern art represents a repudiation of traditional values, so modern architecture can be seen partly as a rejection of the “fancy dress” styles that had characterized many 19th-century buildings. However, modern architecture also reflects the use of industrial materials, such as steel, plate glass, and reinforced concrete, which made new aesthetic forms possible, and a response to changing social needs: whereas in the 19th century the most prestigious kinds of building still included churches and royal palaces, in the 20th century types such as factories, offices, and mass housing units (and later airports and entertainment complexes) came to the fore.

A

The Situation Around 1900

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries there was no concerted movement aimed at creating a new style of building appropriate for the modern world, but rather various strands of thought and practice in different places. In England, for example, several architects of the time designed country houses that drew on vernacular tradition and made their impact through solid dignity of form and material, virtually eschewing all ornament. Edwin Lutyens (in his early work) and Charles Voysey are among the chief representatives of this trend, which reflects the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement. At around the same time in Scotland, Charles Rennie Mackintosh made an even bolder break with tradition in the vigorous, bracingly lucid forms of his Glasgow School of Art. In the United States, modern ideals in architecture were expressed most forcefully in a new type of building, the skyscraper, which was born in Chicago in the 1880s—made possible by the use of steel-frame construction and the development of the electric elevator. Several distinguished architects worked in or around Chicago at this time and they are sometimes referred to as the “Chicago School”. The most important of them was Louis Sullivan, who is regarded as one of the fathers of modern architecture.

Sullivan specialized in large commercial buildings that openly expressed their metal-frame construction in their grid-like pattern of windows, but he nevertheless sometimes adorned his work with beautiful Art Nouveau ornament. This style was characterized by flowing, sinuous lines based on plant forms. It marked a conscious desire to create a novel decorative style that was uninfluenced by the historicism of the 19th century, and it was widely used in buildings and the applied arts in the period from about 1890 to World War I. In architecture it is seen at its purest in the cast-iron entrances to several Paris Métro stations designed by Hector Guimard, and in its most personal form in the work of Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona.