Art on Both Sides of Reality. (Article I)

In a broad cultural and philosophical discourse, the comparison and differentiation of two layers of artistic reality in the 20th century, defining “the position of postmodern” (J.-F. Lyotard), are considered. It should be noted that in the 20th century art, without completely excluding the narrative-type artistic reality, was increasingly mastering the post-narrative artistic reality, but most often combined both artistic realities — modern and postmodern. The comprehension of art on both sides of reality presupposes the combination of narrative and post-narrative artistic realities as two layers of meaning covering the “vital reality” displayed and simultaneously overcome by them from both sides. The combination of “one’s own” text as the author’s narrative of life reality and the interweaving of “others” texts, ironically or creatively reflected in the form of a post-narrative texture, are put together as a two-layer text that contrasts “the life reality” in two ways. These provisions are confirmed by a number of literary examples.

Visual Arts: Modern Art

The dominant histories of 19th- and 20th-century art in the West have tended to depict modernism as making deep and decisive breaks from religious thought, practices, and institutions. There are good reasons for scholars seeing the history this way. On the one hand, the development of modern art coincided with major sociocultural shifts that deeply reshaped not only religion (as established religious traditions became increasingly contested and pluralized) but also the functions of art itself, which thrived in forms and spaces that seemed significantly detached from religious subjects, patronage, and purposes. On the other hand, there were also significant theoretical factors shaping the ways that religion was presented—or often conspicuously not presented—in the writing of modern art history. An especially strong secularization theory (a sociological thesis positing that a society’s modernization necessarily entails its secularization) has tended to dominate the scholarship of modernism, coupled with a heavy reliance on critical models that privilege highly suspicious hermeneutics (in the lineages of Marxian, Nietzschean, and Freudian critical theory), which tend to dismantle whatever “religious” content persists in modern art into questions of social power, ressentiment, sublimated desire, and so on. In all these ways, religious traditions became largely invisible and unreadable in the history of modernism, even in cases where they were important factors. Since the 1990s, however, several of the key historical and theoretical underpinnings of this depiction of modernism have been increasingly called into question, and a more complicated, ambiguous picture is emerging—one in which modern art and religion remain deeply entangled in fascinating and confusing ways. There are various ways of identifying and understanding these entanglements, which require not only careful reexamination of the particularities of the histories involved but also reconsideration of the interpretive assumptions and priorities through which those histories are construed. There are at least five focal points where the nexuses of art and religion are being reexamined and brought more clearly into view in the histories of modernism—namely, through object-oriented, practice-oriented, artist-oriented, context-oriented, and/or concept-oriented studies of particular instances in those histories. These focal points provide concrete loci for perceiving and exploring the functions, formations, and effects of “religion in modern art”—an inquiry which also can be reversed to explore examples of “modern art in religion,” including instances where major artworks are situated in churches, cathedrals, synagogues, and other religious contexts. There are, however, varying ways that scholars interpret what they find at these focal points and how they discern the larger implications of these particular entanglements of art and religion in the history of modern and contemporary art. These differences are clarified by recognizing at least four interpretive horizons—anthropological, political, spiritual, and theological—within which scholars are understanding these focal points and rereading these histories. Though often diverging in the accounts they produce, these four horizons (and the potential interplay between them) are vital for a continued rethinking of the relations between modern art and religion.

Constructing the canon: exhibiting contemporary Polish art abroad in the Cold War era

The article focuses on the attempts of constructing and presenting the canon of Polish modern and contemporary art in the West after World War II. Initially, the leading role was played by Colourists – painters representing the tradition of Post-Impressionism. After 1956 the focus shifted towards artists who drew in their practice on tachisme and informel. However, the most enduring effects brought the consistent promotion of the interwar Polish Constructivism and its postwar followers. The article discusses the subsequent stages of this process, from the famous exhibition at the Paris Galerie Denise René in 1957, through exhibitions such as Peinture moderne polonaise. Sources et recherches (Modern Polish Painting. Sources and Experiments) from the late 1960s, up to the monumental Présences polonaises (Polish Presences) from 1983 (both in Paris), showing that these efforts contributed to securing a permanent position of Polish Constructivism within the global heritage of 20th-century art.

Коллекция Пегги Гуггенхайм

The article is devoted to the history of a unique collection made by famous American patron and curator Peggy Guggenheim. For several decades, she has been gathering works by European Cubists, Abstractionists and Surrealists, creating the huge collection of the 20th century art. But she made the most significant contribution to the development and popularization of modernism by organizing the «Art of this Century» gallery in New York. This gallery hosted for the first time exhibitions of artists who later became known as abstract expressionists. Their work loudly declared itself on the international art scene and won worldwide recognition. В фокусе внимания автора статьи — история создания уникального собрания произведений искусства ХХ века, принадлежавшего известной американской меценатке и куратору Пегги Гуггенхайм. На протяжении нескольких десятилетий она коллекционировала картины европейских кубистов, абстракционистов и сюрреалистов. Но самый значительный вклад в развитие и популяризацию модернизма она внесла, организовав в Нью-Йорке галерею «Искусство этого века», в которой впервые были проведены выставки художников, позже ставших классиками абстрактного экспрессионизма США, магистрального направления, громко заявившего о себе на международной художественной сцене и завоевавшего всемирное признание.

Серия акварелей «Campi Phlegraei» английского мецената и итальянского художника века Просвещения

The article is devoted to the history of a unique collection made by famous American patron and curator Peggy Guggenheim. For several decades, she has been gathering works by European Cubists, Abstractionists and Surrealists, creating the huge collection of the 20th century art. But she made the most significant contribution to the development and popularization of modernism by organizing the «Art of this Century» gallery in New York. This gallery hosted for the first time exhibitions of artists who later became known as abstract expressionists. Their work loudly declared itself on the international art scene and won worldwide recognition. Статья посвящена серии акварелей «Campi Phlegraei», исполненной итальянским художником Пьетро Де Фабрисом (годы жизни не известны) во время научной экспедиции лорда Уильяма Гамильтона (1730–1803), посланника Великобритании, к кратеру Везувия. Оба они — художник и У. Гамильтон, меценат и коллекционер, увлеченно занимавшийся вулканологией, были яркими фигурами истории и культуры века Просвещения. Их сотрудничество является подтверждением научных и художественных достижений культуры Италии в век «просвещенного абсолютизма», когда в Королевстве обеих Сицилий правила династия испанских Бурбонов.

El borrado en la pintura conceptual. De la iconografía de Dánae a la de Sémele en Hilario Bravo

"Within the conceptual approaches that define the aesthetics of the painter Hilario Bravo, the transformation of a work is a standard response in 20th-century art. On a few occasions, however, the radical nature of the transmutation causes the work to change its title and meaning completely. This is the case with Flammae, a work from 2014 in a series dedicated to the relationship between flame, thought and the act of creation, which in 2017 is transformed into Semele, at a time when the artist’s main concern is the search for cathasterism as the ultimate projection of fire. This has key hermeneutical implications, both from a mythological perspective and from the iconography of the Christian tradition, but, above all, it fulfils the meaning of the work: a painting about the creative process that leads to a reflection on the immanence of the work."

Tragedy as a Novel and Philosophy: Architectonics of the Tragic at Dostoevsky

The article is devoted to the study of the tragic value spectrum of F. Dostoevsky’s works. In the analysis of the critical works of V. Ivanov and L. Shestov identify the constants of the tragic architectonics proposed by these researchers. The conclusion is made about the semantic multidirectionality of the tragic assessments in the reading of F. Dostoevsky. In Ivanov’s interpretation, the hero perceives the lost harmony of spiritual unity as a value and seeks to restore it. In Shestov’s philosophy, the pathos of tragedy consists in the voluntary heroic rejection of harmonious ideals by the individual. In both cases, the tragic, as an architectonic value, acquires specific semantic overtones of 20th century art.

The Impacts of Different Sorts of Art Education on Pupils’ Preference for 20th-Century Art Movements

The research presented here aims to determine how art education influences students’ preferences for the 20th-century art movements. An educational experiment that spanned through one school year was conducted on 200 primary school students. It included three types of intervention: observing works of art from the 20th century, introducing works of art using a puppet, and the students’ art activities/artwork based on the 20th-century art movements. The results show that the model of art education is an important factor in changing students’ preferences for the 20th century art movements. Students reacted positively to each kind of education, as evidenced in the wider acceptance of 20th-century art (abstract, fauvism, cubism, pop art, and surrealism). The type of education did not influence preferences (as much) when it came to classical art and visual works without artistic value. We concluded that puppets and independent creative work should be used more often in art education.

African Art: The Journey from Ethnological Collection to the Museum of Art

This article aims to show the transformation in the way African art is displayed in museums which has taken place over the last few decades. Over the last 70 years, from the second half of the twentieth century, the field of African Art studies, as well as the forms taken by art exhibitions, have changed considerably. Since W. Rubin’s controversial exhibition Primitivism in 20th Century Art at MoMA (1984), art originating from Africa has begun to be more widely presented in museums with a strictly artistic profile, in contrast to the previous exhibitions which were mostly located in ethnographical museums. This could be the result of the changes that have occurred in the perception of the role of museums in the vein of new museology and the concept of a “curatorial turn” within museology. But on the other hand, it seems that the recognition of the artistic values of old and contemporary art from the African continent allows art dealers to make large profits from selling such works. This article also considers the evolution of the idea of African art as a commodity and the modern form of presentations of African art objects. The current breakthrough exhibition at the Bode Museum in Berlin is thoroughly analysed. This exhibition, entitled Beyond compare, presents unexpected juxtapositions of old works of European art and African objects of worship. Thus, the major purpose of this article is to present various benefits of shifting meaning from “African artefacts” to “African objects of art,” and therefore to relocate them from ethnographic museums to art museums and galleries