AM I A MODERNIST OR A POST MODERNIST?

I'm both a post-modernist and a modernist. I'm neither, or. I feel like I'm a bit of both. I identify as a modernist because of function. I make posters for things, but I also make things for the sake of it... so post-modernist. But I'm modernist... grid nerd and simplicity. I think that today.. the new modern, it's all crazy, full of aesthetics and rich in cultures. Mixing, remixing, the multitude of materials. It's kind of scarey... what is next. How does an artist become an original in an art world bombarded with so many aesthetics. Whether one is a Post-Modernist or Modernist, functional or for art's sake, technology and hand-made is only going to bring aesthetic confusion up. Maybe their needs to be something new, as in a new media, new technology, or/and.... We are now in a world with so much art at the click of a finger, that one could find anything and make anything, you would think. Non-originals are abundant, and aesthetic too. I think that we are entering the world of Good Karma art, where whatever floats your boat is what is good art.... oh wait, that's kind of now. So what is the future... has art gotten to a dead end, where anything more is too complex for mankind? I'm excited to see what's next and be a part of it. Staying out of the media is probably going to help one side and help another side of art. That's just my guess.

Modern... how to solve job for climate... can argue that mastery of current materials of today are modernist ideals. functional architecture with design. Form and function, taming the machine, MODERNIST.

pomo is the cliche of post modernism

deconstruction... post modernism argument 

AM I A MODERNIST OR A POST MODERNIST?

mix, remixing, using multiple cultures.... I think it should now be International Modernism. 

POSTMODERNISM

Used to note a break with the earlier modernist principles by placing emphasis on form over function, by reintroducing traditional or classical elements or by carrying modernist styles or practices to extremes.

seen in art, design, literature, and architecture

emphasis on feel rather than rationale

emphasis on surface, texture, and materials

self-consciousness or self-referecing

mixes high and low

historical references

vernacular

60s stuff, fighting against the modern idea

Wolfgang Weingart- pushed modern computer design. made by letterpress, not computer.

teacher in the Basel School of Design. tired of international style, so he experimented. pushes out of international style. experiment with letter spacing, stair stepping rules, diagonal type, reversing type out of bars, introducing variations within a single word. his work is very collage like, with grid. 

variation, rotate the axis, what if... having a basis in theory and logic and then asking how to expand the boundaries. 

Memphis italian design group that hoped to erase the international style. To get rid of Bauhaus stuff. They put everything together, a vomit soup of aesthetics. Function is secondary to style. 

van oliver

Cranbrook school

David Carson

Sagmeister

Swiss Design... grids...

More than grids! I love grids and appreciate grids... it was interesting that you shed light that others without a design background maybe might not appreciate design as much. And I was thinking about it... that perhaps you're right on this. I don't remember appreciating the simple works when I was less design-y, but then again, I was always pretty strict and OCD with lining up things and having everything plain and neat. I just didn't realize that this was partially design. Until later that is. So it's all art... whether fine art or graphic design. I agree with Paul Rand with this. It is hard to distinguish between the both. And to come to think of it... renown graphic designers of the day work like fine artists, even considering themselves fine artists.

---

Swiss design(the international typographic style). it's more than just the grids!

Swiss design is... visual unity achieved through asymmetrical organization, objective photography, sans-serif type, flush right, mathematical grids, socially useful (constructivism). 

More important than the appearance, is the attitude!

Design is as a socially useful and important activity!

De Stijl, the Bauhaus, and new typography.

Max Bill and Theo Balmer, students of the Bauhaus. grid rules can become the art. math and geometry. like peter berhens. Semiotics are what things mean in relationship to other things. 

Semiotics are the philosophical theory of signs and symbols – what things mean in relationship to other things.

Syntactics – order

Semantics – meaning or referred to

Pragmatics – how it's used

Adrian Frutiger... typeface designer. He made Univers. 3 yrs to complete. has a numbering system. 55 is always the base. Also made Serifa, Frutiger, Neue Frutiger, etc.

Armin Hoffman... he helps found the Bozle School... the archetype of Swiss design. relationship between contrasting elements. form vs counterform. "If you design the negative space, the rest works." 

Josef Müller-Brockmann...

Communicates less noise. noise pollution. He uses the same grid for radically different posters. A good grid is liberating. 

strong horizontal and vertical

^ I love this poster.

Paul Rand... IBM, Yale, UPS, hand-done aesthetics.

Ivan Chermayeff...

David Carson...

American Bauhaus & International Style

DESIGNERS BEAT DEPRESSION!

          I thought that the WPA, or Work Progress Administration, advertisements were a good idea. Good job FDR and his New Deal. I remember my historyyy and it actually relates to graphic design! But I don't think that the US really gave much thought to the arts. I mean really... was FDR all, "Ohhh let's give these artists a job and then maybe, juuust maybe, our unemployed will get out of the Depression!"

          Nah. It went more like, "Let's use these artists for our benefit, to advertise these projects for the unemployed of the Depression." But what goes around comes around!!! So everyone benefits even if it wasn't exactly foreseen by the administration. Ha! You silly administrators overlooking the well being of the arts!(as usual!) I'm in doubt that the artists were taken into much consideration even if the WPA advertisements were to put people back to work. I think it just sorta happened. That's what it looks like anyhow. As with calendars! I don't think the government set out the need for calendars to be made. Definitely one of the creative artists looking for work decided it'll be the next cool, useful thing to do...
         Which makes me wonder, since times of the Depression were rough, was inspiration a bit low? Or was this actually the height of creative spark? When artists decide what is the new and what is the old? I guess I could answer that myself now that I think about it... since the Victorian aesthetic changed into a modern aesthetic well during the Depression.
         So the Depression actually enhanced artistic change. Art became more useful, such as ads or promotion, which means that not only were these early designs memorable, but they were also useful! And Depression needs useful! It didn't really hit me until now. That without the artists, who would've saved the unemployed?? FDR couldn't have done it without our creative minds! HEY, there's a point for all of this: ARTISTS ARE PART OF EVERY MOVEMENT. AND WE SHOULD BE DAMN PROUD :)

review--------

1919-1933 Bauhaus

Weimar... start. 1st public exhibition:1923

Dessau... golden years

Berlin... end.

Paul Klee

Moholy Nagy

Johannes Itten

Herbert Bayer

Kandinsky

Mies Van der Rohe

Walter Groupus

Oscar Schlemmer

Joseph Albers

Utopian desire to create a new spiritual society.

Unity of Artists and Craftsmen to build the future.

Ideas from all of the Advanced art and design movements were explored and applied to functional design.

typophoto

photogram

photoplastic

no capitals... two alphabets, it makes no sense. 

----------------

Models of teaching... strict vs open.

Jan Tschichold. hand lettered AD. son of designer & painter... learns calligraphy as child. Work is like Lissitzky, but with type instead of rectangles. Writes book about typography... The New Typography. The aim of every typographic work is to... form follows function: practical. Modernism. sans serif, limited color, underlying grid.

Herbert Matter. All roads lead to Switzerland poster. The modern poster. Extreme perspective and scale shifts. Precise and efficient. Brings his style to America

Addison Dewigins. abstract compositions, limited palette.

Lester Beall. Modern aesthetic.... lots of arrows, bars, and rules. More of his work... used in ads during the Depression:

WPA ADS

container corporation of America... cardboard boxes. Herbert Matter.

Ladislav sutnar, 1934. 

International Style... modern design. universal truths, pure, clean, efficient works.

Bauhaus

So I was close! I knew the Bauhaus was a school and a thought... in the movie they said it was literally the "building house", which makes sense... both because the school in an architectural place and a school that is building/teaching. Speaking of teaching, I want to learn German now... I could understand some of it surprisingly. Back to the Bauhaus, I really felt for the students being moved around. Did the students follow the school or once the school left? Or were they stuck to go to another school or quit art school completely. I'd image there would be other schools around, but most likely the way the school thought was different. I couldn't imagine myself following a school that moved around a lot. Were the students just left in the dust? "Good-bye students. We have to move now. The Nazis are coming. Sorry?" No wonder the students rioted. I would have.


Bauhaus 1919-1933

open for only 14yrs. 1250 students. not many students...

basis of design education

Walter Gropius. 1st director of the Bauhaus, 1919-1928. return to arts and crafts... go back to the old ways. Published the... used a cathedral to represent PAINTING, SCULPTURE, and ARCHITECTURE. A social unity. All should be equally valued as one. Used cathedral like John Ruskin. utopian ideals are important. 

COUNCIL OF MASTERS

Gropius is headmaster

Gerhard Marks...sculpture/pottery shop

Lyonel Feringer... painting

Johannes Itten... head of design. foundation program. leaves Bauhaus in 1923, during the first Bauhaus exhibition. Shift to design thinking, straying away from arts and craft.

core foundation program, analysis of old masters work. create abstract things out of trash/rubbish. hard contrast with soft. contrast, contrast, contrast!

cubisim, De Stijl. SHIFT OF THOUGHT IN THE BAUHAUS. ART & TECHNOLOGY: A NEW UNITY.

László Moholy-Nagy: Hungarian constructivist. worked with resin, photomontague, and....

typo-photo. he sees photography is going to take over painting. new visual language for a new age. photogram.... where the shadow is, it turns white. photo-plastic...photomontage: collage of photos.

Bauhaus made in industrial area. move in 1926. to Dessau, Germany. student designs in catalogues. made in the Dessau industrial city.

the universal alphabet... doing away with serifs and capitals. flushing to the right. hierarchy and contrast. explored strong horizontals and verticals in their compositions. Dominate horizontals and verticals. 

Viec Monroe "Less is More."

The Bauhaus

All I know about the Bauhaus is that it's a style and school. That's all... let's learn!

Avant Garde in Russia

Piet Mondrian's tree studies over time experimenting with the latest art movement got me inspired to do the same... it's a good idea and it shows the artists' change of style. It's as if the artist is going through time.
Avant garde in Russia

El Lissitzky... constructionism: art has meaning for state, authority, etc. Practical application. 

photomontage... the modern way of making art. 

montage in cinema... film The Battleship Potemkin. 

Eisentein's Potemkin

Alexander Rodchenko: to go constructivist for design! Creating something for the people, you have moral good.

bars used as graphic elements, with collage, overprinting. generous space.

De Stijl... movement developed in the Netherlands. Utopian approach to aesthetics. utopian society with FUNCTIONAL art. communication design. rectalinial planes, void of surface textures/decorations. no trees, cows, illustration. pure hue color. mathematical structure. universal harmony to use in art. 

Piet Mondrian

Founder of De Stijl: Theo van Deoesburg. Asymmetrical design... universal structures, asymmetrical balance. Data Poems. 

Isims & Depressing Movie

Depressing movie...*ORGAN* suprematism... Malevich. Revolution. Advent Guard art. Individuality in art not allowed. Socialist Realism was the only art accepted by communists. All the Cubism and suprematism stuff was hidden away... don't remember anymore...Hitler says that art needs to be understood by the Proletariat(common man and worker). In the times of the proletariat, maybe the art was understood, but honestly, I doubt it was fully understood until later.

Bauhaus 1919-1933

isims

illustrations, romantic. Allies powers.

reductive, sophisticated. Axis powers.

Hohlwein's work recognizable with stamp mark that looks like a Z. 1914. reductive form. figure downplay with figure's hat and background Red Cross. emotional appeal to donate to the Red Cross. 1936, winged figure souring through sky over the olympic flag. Stencil reductive form. 

Hitler propaganda says the allies posters were superior... ironic because axis was more superior.

Germany Und du? And you? Masculine poster

Hohlwein's work is tainted because he worked to Axis side.

1918, Edward McKnight Kauffer. ideas of cubism applied to communication design(like the cube-like birds and women & rain with umbrella) generous use of negative space. cubism.

Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso.... cubism. analytical cubism = beginning. synthetic cubism= later, the collages.

1925 Adolphe Mouron Cassandre....language of abstraction. telegraph poles, structure. The telegraph

pictorial posters. north star, paris to amsterdam poster. white star and train track. Pullman car poster. graphically interesting. 

ship is a rectangle, little tugboat. 

Dubonnet poster. The type words work with the art so well. It has greater meaning.

Train bar poster. Picture of train wheel, cubism bar items on top.

Russian Avent guard. 

Cubo-Futurism, suprematism, constructivism. 

Bala's dog. little dog, movement. 

Kazimir Malevich. Motion, cubism. Cubo-Futurism. Black Square and Suprematism Composition dude. suprematism.

cut paste, hand-done stuff.

Suprematism. Color & Emotion. primary elements. rejects pictorial. no narrative, just feeling. black square idea, red square. 1915.

Constructivism. Function is meaningful art according to constructivism. Vladimir Tatin. Rodchenko. El Lissitzky. Art should serve the new communist society.

abstract painting.... Kandinsky.

El Lissitzky. proum, an acronym. building. intersections, spacial, illusions. Beat the whites with the red wedge. Bolshevik is the red wedge. Conservatives is the white. 

The Isms of art... attempts to decode all of the isms. German, French, and English separated with big thick black bars. Grid system layout. Modern aesthetic. sans-serif typography.