short, everything that is within his reach. He is no criminal. The modern man who tattoos himself is a criminal or a degenerate." finally coming to the conclusion: "The evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament from objects of daily use." However, Loos seems to blindly dismiss ornament as being backward-thinking without thinking of the historical context through which his beloved Modernism developed.
A good case study for looking at the development of abstraction, and Modernism as we know it today, is the petri-dish of formalism in Russia during the early years of the twentieth century. Russian artists, attempting to mirror the developments happening in western europe at the time emulated the experiments of Braque and Piccaso, but also looked back to the medieval, ancient Orthodox religious Icon paintings, which used abstraction as a means of signifying the divine, as something other-worldly. These paintings held to strict canons in terms of proportions, and the way in which religious icons were depicted. Looking back, these "radical historicists" appropriated this thinking and merged it with the Euro-centric new interest in Primitivism. Primitivism was of interest to Picasso, Braque, and many other artists for its "pure human expression," and ironic use of geometric, "modern" forms to delineate space and form. African tribal masks are a good example of this sense of abstraction, but for a very different purpose.
So, inarguably, there is a chicken-and-egg relationship between Modernism and Primitivism. But how can this be, given the fact that these modes of thinking are diametrically opposed? Modernism is all about universalism, about an attempt to divine a universal formal language to replace colloquial expressions and individuality. However, Primitivism is the very embodiment of this individuality and colloquialism.
So what is the common denominator? There must be a link between these movements in the way they use abstraction as a means of "pure human expression." To quote Kazimir Malevich's famous essay, the New Realism in Painting: "The square is not a subconscious form. It is the creation of intuitive reason.
It is the face of the new art.
The square is a living, royal infant.
It is the first step of pure creation in art. Before it, there were naive deformities and
copies of nature."
Yet even Malevich views primitive abstraction as a backward looking naive art, done so simply because primitive people had no other way creating. That sticks and rocks and the tools of nature themselves lent themselves to this mode of thinking. He also draws this line between abstraction being a higher mode of perception beyond literal reality, and as Trotsky so wonderfully articulates, that art's purpose should be that of a hammer, not a mirror, shaping culture and moving it forward as opposed to reflecting the reality of its time.
How does this translate into a degree project, with a sociopolitical purpose? Discrimination and prejudice are subjects that have always interested me. I understand that these ways of thinking are dogmatic, that they are to an extent inherently embedded in people from an early age, and that in order to fix these social injustices, there must be a larger solution than a piece of design collateral. However, I firmly believe that design thinking can be applied to large social problems as a way of solving them. I also believe that art can inspire people to think beyond their own realities, to inspire a sense of ex-statis.
In finding the common denominator between Modernism and Primitivism, I think I can use Anthropology and Art History as a means of researching distinct cultures from across the world. I'm interested in performing ethnographies on many disparate cultures, and creating a formal language based heavily in their ancient, pre-modernist modes of expression. In doing so, I hope to show people that we're really a lot more alike than different, that pure human expression and universalism do not have to be as oppressive and dogmatic as Modernism, that discrimination or prejudice based on culture is as worthless as Loos' interpretation of Ornament.
1 comment:
ramzy, i only faintly understand the connection between modernism and primitivism you are making here, and have never heard of anyone making that parallel or relationship before, so i can't really comment on its validity. i can only say that the myriad of historical reference you made, and the connections between them, confused me.
i do understand more clearly your intent to research various cultures' pre-modernist modes of expression, and to demonstrate commonalities between them. i can imagine how that might be used to emphasize our commonalities and promote cultural understanding.
while i can get behind point #2, i cannot readily see how the whole modernism issue informs it. i guess that's okay but if you are using that as a foundation to justify your design exploration, you should clarify the connections.
regarding the notion of "pre-modernist", that is too wide open. you need to specify that more i think, because it could mean any time frame in form-making before, say 1900. are you talking about tribal cultures? a particular century? origin-of-man kind of stuff? pre-alphabetic icons and symbols? see what you can do to get specific there. or maybe that decision comes a bit later, through research.
seems like you have most all of the necessary elements for a research question or statment -- design issue (pre-modernist, culturally based formal languages), subject matter (promoting cultural understanding or similar). i guess you will eventually want to focus on an audience and consider loosely the media you'll utilize. i'd say media can be left open, responding to the audience, unless you have specific ideas about what media you want to explore there.
Post a Comment