The Avant-garde and the State: The Example of Vladimir Mayakovsky

2013 ◽  
pp. 541-556
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Vladimir Mayakovsky ◽  
Avant Garde

Ende von Anfang an Wege zu György Ligetis San Francisco Polyphony

2016 ◽  
Vol 57 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 91-104
Author(s):  
Lorenz Luyken
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
The State ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Stylistic Development ◽  
Post War

György Ligeti’s comments on his last large orchestral piece San Francisco Polyphony show a remarkable understatement, if not neglect, of this work. This paper intends to find reasons for this attitude. It analyzes the correlation between title and substance, in particular the description of the work as being polyphonic, showing that the piece is less polyphonic than it is melodic or even thematic, resulting from coherent stylistic development as well as from an innate spatial conception rather than from a switchback to 19th-century procedures. At the end, San Francisco Polyphony proves to be a very personal comment on the state of the post-war musical avant-garde and the discussion about postmodernism in music.

Shklovsky, Viktor (1893–1984)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angeliki Spiropoulou
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Study ◽  
Poetic Language ◽  
Literary Critic ◽  
Vladimir Mayakovsky ◽  
Russian Formalism ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Epic Theater ◽  
Political Function ◽  
Alienation Effect

Born in St Petersburg, Russia, Victor Borisovich Shklovsky (or Shklovskii; Ви́ктор Бори́сович Шкло́вский) was a literary critic, autobiographical novelist, and a leading figure of Russian Formalism (1910–30). A charter founder of OPOYAZ (The Society for the Study of Poetic Language, 1917), he was also associated with the Moscow Linguistic Circle, and contemporary avant-garde writers, such as the Serapion Brothers and the Russian Futurists, especially the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930), all of whom similarly emphasized literature as language against the moralizing idealism of Symbolist poetics and Impressionist criticism prevalent in pre-Revolution Russia. However, Formalism was later attacked as "decadent" aestheticism, and Shklovsky was forced to compromise. In his much quoted essay "Art as Device" (1917), a "manifesto of the Formalist method" (Eichenbaum 1965: 113), Shklovsky posits the autonomy of literature and affirms the Formalist pursuit of the immanent, scientific study of the "literariness" of literature derived from its distinctive language and techniques instead of its content, resonating with modernist aesthetics. Here he develops the concept of "estrangement" or "defamiliarization" ( ostraneniye ) as both the aim and method of all art, self-reflexively impeding the automatism of our perception. Renamed as the "alienation effect" or "distancing effect" (Verfremdungseffekt) and endowed with a political function, "estrangement" became the foundational technique of Bertolt Brecht‘s epic theater.

scholarly journals States of mind – political theatre at the age of nomadism

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 531-538
Author(s):  
Michal Lachman
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
German Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Art ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Potential Failure ◽  
Creative Artists ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers

Abstract The review article comments on major themes and ideas analysed by S.E. Wilmer’s Performing Statelessness in Europe (Palgrave 2018). Wilmer’s analysis offers an overview of most recent as well as historical approaches to the concept of citizenship and the state which have been developed by avant-garde artists and theatre makers. The overall aim of Wilmer’s survey of political art is to “assess strategies by creative artists to address matters relating to social justice”. He also gives a significant amount of attention to various projects carried by German theatres which attempt to integrate resident immigrants into German society. The central thrust of his argument falls on a variety of contemporary theatrical initiatives directly concerned with the life of refugees and asylum seekers. The review highlights those aspects of Wilmer’s argument which directly concern the concept of modern society, nation state and identity. Wilmer shows precisely these aspects of modern state as most destructive. The review questions that assumption, arguing that the criticism of modern society should be more subtle and nuanced and that the potential failure of responding properly to the crisis does not necessarily lie entirely on the side of the state

Contemporary Art, Democracy, and the State

2000 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 85-95
Author(s):  
George Walden
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
The State ◽  
Labour Government ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The World ◽  
Seal Of Approval ◽  
As If

Not long before the change of Government in Britain in 1997, the then Heritage Secretary, Virginia Bottomley, made a speech in which she praised British contemporary art, describing it as the most exciting and innovatory in the world. Unexciting as it seemed, her observation was profoundly innovatory, indeed in its small way historic. To my knowledge no British Cabinet Minister, still less a Conservative, has ever given an official seal of approval to what is conventionally regarded as avant-garde art. The Labour Government has echoed its predecessor's praise at a higher volume, as if determined to out-do it. The sanctification by the state of works of contemporary art has now become part of the discourse of officialdom.

The Voices of Keti Chukhrov: Radical Poetics after the Soviet Union

2019 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-478
Author(s):  
Marijeta Bozovic
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The State ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Future Challenge ◽  
Institutional Critique ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Poetic Voice ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Many ◽  
State Socialist

Abstract The newest Russian poetic avant-garde wields highly aware appropriations and remediations in stark opposition to mainstream cultural phenomena, including nostalgia for the imperial and militant aestheticized politics of the Soviet Union. Efforts to think leftward beyond the state socialist past to a global egalitarian future challenge both Russian and “Western” narratives in our increasingly interconnected world. The Georgian-born Russian-language poet Keti Chukhrov, in particular, theorizes powerlessness in deeply local yet globally familiar ways. Despite the many voices rumbling through her work, Chukhrov’s theses are consistent: art must be communist; all desire, even faked, is political eros; and the post-Soviet subject is not even dead. Chukhrov embeds her politics in institutional critique, lends her labor to collectives and collaborations, and refracts her poetic voice into multitudes.

The Bible and the avant-garde: the search for a classical tradition in the Israeli theatre

2001 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
FREDDIE ROKEM
Keyword(s):  
Classical Tradition ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
The State ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Theatrical Performances ◽  
State Of Israel

The Israeli theatre has frequently employed the Hebrew Bible as a source for theatrical performances. Analysing three such performances, this article shows that the Bible, with its charged ideological implications for the establishment of the state of Israel, has perhaps somewhat unexpectedly inspired avant-garde productions that have frequently criticized the accepted ideological and aesthetic norms. The first of the three performances analysed is Hanoch Levin's play based on the book of Job called ‘The Torments of Job’ (Yisorei Iov), which Levin directed at the Cameri theatre in 1981. The second is the play ‘Jehu’ by Gilead Evron, directed by Hanan Snir at the Habima National Theatre in 1992, and the third is the ‘Bible Project’ directed by Rina Yerushalmi, which consists of two independent, but interrelated productions: ‘And He Said And He Was Walking’ (Va Yomer Va Yelech), which premiered in 1996, and ‘And They Bowed. And He Feared’ (Va Yishtachu. Va Yerra) which premiered in 1998.

scholarly journals Idiomatics of V. Khlebnikov and V. Mayakovsky in translation: decoding vs. encoding idioms (lexicographic aspect)

2020 ◽  
pp. 52-66
Author(s):  
О. В. Соколова
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Umberto Eco ◽  
Vladimir Mayakovsky ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
New Type

В статье исследуется проблема перевода авангардной литературы, ориентированной на создание нового художественного языка и языковой эксперимент. Отмеченные черты обусловливают особую сложность перевода авангардных текстов и необходимость поиска оригинальных стратегий при их переводе. Один из подходов к поставленной проблеме предлагается в словаре нового типа «Идиоматика русского авангарда (кубофутуризм)». Микроструктура словаря включает зону форм идиомы на разных языках и зону межъязыкового перевода, где русскоязычные авангардные идиомы сопровождаются переводами. В статье проводится сопоставительный анализ авангардных идиом в творчестве Велимира Хлебникова и Владимира Маяковского как двух ключевых представителей кубофутуризма. Такое сопоставление с учетом степени экспериментальности и языкового творчества позволило сделать вывод о том, что идиоматика Хлебникова в меньшей степени характеризуется семантической композициональностью и в большей степени креативностью и экспериментальностью, в то время как идиоматика Маяковского характеризуется большей семантической композициональностью и меньшей креативностью. В соответствии с классификацией идиом Ч. Филлмора идиоматика Хлебникова относится к классу “decoding idioms”, а Маяковского — к “encoding idioms”. Выявленные отличия в большей или меньшей степени экспериментальности и креативности идиом двух авторов характеризуют переводы их текстов. Анализ переводов авангардных идиом позволил выявить, что при переводе текстов Хлебникова переводчики регулярно ищут способы формирования окказиональных лексических единиц и идиом. Это сближает выбранный подход со стратегией «остранения» У. Эко, в то же время при переводе идиом Маяковского чаще используется поиск эквивалентов на других языках, что соответствует, по У. Эко, стратегии «одомашнивания». The paper deals with the problem of translating avant-garde literature focused on creating a new language and conducting a linguistic experiment. These features make the translation of avant-garde texts particularly difficult and the need to find original strategies for translating them. The dictionary of a new type “Idiomatics of Russian Avant-garde (Cubo-Futurism)” offers one of the approaches to this problem. The microstructure of the dictionary includes a zone of idiom forms in different languages and a zone of interlanguage translation, where Russian avant-garde idioms are accompanied by translations. The article provides a comparative analysis of avant-garde idioms in the works of Velimir Khlebnikov and Vladimir Mayakovsky as two key representatives of Cubo-Futurism. Taking into account the degree of linguistic creativity, the paper concludes that Khlebnikov’s idiomatics is less semantically compositional and more creative, and Mayakovsky’s idiomatics is more semantically compositional and less creative. Following Charles J. Fillmore’s idiomatic classification, Khlebnikov’s idiomatics belongs to the “decoding idioms”, and Mayakovsky's idiomatics refers to the “encoding idioms”. Revealed differences characterize the translations of their texts. Analysis of avant-garde idioms translations indicates that translators of Khlebnikov’s texts regularly look for ways to create nonce words and idioms. This translation approach is close to the “foreignization” (“ostranenije”, “estraniante”) strategy of Umberto Eco. Translators of Mayakovsky's idioms often use the equivalents in other languages, which corresponds to the strategy of “domestication”, according to Umberto Eco.

scholarly journals Cornelius Cardew behind the Iron Curtain

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 39-51
Author(s):  
Monika Żyła
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Great Learning ◽  
Avant Garde

The article considers the reception of Cornelius Cardew’s music at the Warsaw Autumn festival between 1960 and 1970. At that time, the state-backed festival—organized since 1956 in the capital of the People’s Republic of Poland—was considered to be an important and liberal showcase of European avant-garde from both sides of the Iron Curtain. In the article, I primarily look at the consequences of programming Cardew’s music at the festival held in a country belonging to the Eastern Block of Soviet Satellite States. I discuss further, how music critics and polish intellectuals interpreted Cardew’s music, especially his Treatise, and The Great Learning, and condemned it for their allegedly communist, pro-Chinese overtones, and explicit Maoist and Confucianist references. The rejection of Cardew’s music in Poland resulted from a bias towards his socialist, collective, and emancipatory tendencies expressed by his music. The article is based on my archival research conducted in the archive of the Polish Composers Union, the Warsaw Autumn archive, Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel and Deutsches Polen - Institute in Darmstadt.

Matiushin, Mikhail Vasilevich (1861–1934)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Wünsche
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
The State ◽  
Color Theory ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Research Groups ◽  
State Institute ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Color Combinations ◽  
Organic Culture

The musician, painter, and theoretician Mikhail Matiushin is best known for his music for the Cubo-Futurist opera Pobeda nad Solntsem (Victory over the Sun), which he wrote in 1913. Together with Elena Guro, he founded the artists’ group Soiuz Molodezhi (Union of Youth), in December 1909, and was one of the main organizers of the publications, exhibitions, and events of the St. Petersburg avant-garde in 1912–13. Matiushin stands at the center of what we today refer to as the Organic School of the Russian avant-garde. He developed the concept of Organicheskaia Kultura (Organic Culture), first with his students at the reformed Petrograd Art Academy (SVOMAS), from 1918 to 1926, and then in his research groups at the State Institute of Artistic Culture (GINKhUK), from 1923 to 1926, and the State Institute of Art History (GIII), from 1926 to 1929. In the late 1920s and 1930s he worked on a color theory, parts of which were published in 1932 as Zakonomernost izmentaemosti tsvetovykh sochetanii: Spravochnik po tsvetu (The Laws Governing the Variability of Color Combinations: A Handbook of Color). Matiushin was an influential teacher; among his students were the Ender siblings, Nikolai Grinberg, Valida Delakroa, Elena Khmelevskaia, and Nikolai Kostrov.

Feigned and Distorted Bodyscapes

2021 ◽  
pp. 88-114
Author(s):  
Ron J. Popenhagen
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Visual Artists ◽  
Charlie Chaplin ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Ballets Russes ◽  
Artistic Collaboration ◽  
Popular Performance

Creative interdisciplinarity in performance and scenography permeate the masking and disguising of the avant-garde. Chapter Four highlights the artistic collaboration of choreographers, composers, visual artists and writers in Paris and beyond, beginning with the production of Parade in Paris (1917) and concluding with work of Vsevolod Meyerhold in Moscow in the 1920s. Popular performance disguising by Liesl Karlstadt and Karl Valentin in Munich, as well as Alexander Vertinsky’s Ukrainian Pierrot, contrast with much of the abstraction proposed in other urban bodyscapes. The bold distortions of Aleksei Granovsky’s mises en scène with the State Yiddish Chamber Theatre complement the masquerading described in Paris with the Swedish Ballet and the Ballets Russes. This chapter parades a line-up Charlie Chaplin, Clowns and Pulcinella interpreters alongside the omnipresent Pierrots who offer an escape from the troublesome years of war. In this era, disguising also proliferated in domestic and military circumstances as malingerers and ‘Aspirants and Pretenders’ displayed Chaplinesque masquerading skills throughout the belligerent communities and battlefields of Europe.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document