[NetBehaviour] modernism - debate?

[Lorna Collins]

Hi there,

I'm doing a radio programme on Resonance FM about Modernism in the new year 
because I'm very interested in why we have been so interested in this 
style/era over the past year.  Rampage at the V&A's 'Modernism, Designing a 
New World', Tate Modern's 'Albers & Moholy, From Bauhaus to the New World', 
Kandinsky, 'Undercover Surrealism' at the Hayward, etc, etc.  Simon Jenkins 
blasted off in The Guardian:
'“Go at once.  Take a young person to see the Modernism show at the V&A and 
feel fear.  It is the most terrifying exhibition I have ever seen, because 
it is politics disguised as art… the modernist utopia fuelled fascism and 
communism and bred a tradition of stylistic authority still alive today…[led 
by Chris Wilk as] the mad scientist, breaking into a locked vault, thawing 
out the last surviving frozen vial of the long-dead plague virus of 
Modernism, hurling it into a reservoir and standing back cackling 
hysterically.”
The art world was awash with Modernist art, design and even its very mode of 
thinking.

Remember that?  We clearly enjoyed debating the controversial legacy, 
implications and meaning of all this, which shows a patent, potent need to 
revisit Modernism and understand what drove it.  I'm really interested in 
that - so why did these shows prompt such a strong response and why 
particularly now?

Did you go and see it?  Why do we care?  Post-ism now, surely?  
Post-modernism's gone, Nothing's left?

I'm interested in how alternative, multi-media, new media, digital artists - 
new, up to date, contemporary practitioners, think about Modernism and what 
went on over the summer.

What do you think - about Modernist art, design, music, foundations?  How 
does that influence you?  Does it?

Thanks!

Lorna

Lorna Collins

lornapatriciacollins at hotmail.com
cl608 at gre.ac.uk
Tel. 07879 661380

Lorna Collins

lornapatriciacollins at hotmail.com
cl608 at gre.ac.uk
Tel. 07879 661380