Politiques de l'art

The Situationist International

Formally created on 28 July 1957 in Cosio di Arroscia, the Situationist International (SI) arose from the merger of various avant-garde groups, including the Letterist International (LI) and the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus. Its founding document drafted by Guy Debord, the Report on the construction of situations…, laid down its revolutionary goals: "We believe the first thing to do is to change the world." The members of the SI – Michèle Bernstein, Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio, Asger Jorn and Ralph Rumney – resolved to "undertake […] an organised, collective work, involving the unitary use of all means for disrupting daily life." These means, inherited from the LI, guided the activities of the SI: the construction of situations, unitary urban planning, diversion and drift. Gradually abandoning artistic creation in favour of political action, the SI banned some of its members in 1962. The group's numerous publications, including Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle (1967), played a role in the student movements of 1968, in which the SI took an active part before being dissolved in 1972.

Social housing: a challenge for Edouard Menkès

In the context of post-war shortages and precarious housing, it became urgent to devise an economic system enabling as many people as possible to live in decent accommodation. Immigrant workers were particularly affected, and a construction programme was launched in 1965 at the end of the Algerian war by Sonacotra (now Adoma), the national association for the construction of workers' accommodation. Claudius-Petit, the militant town and country planning theorist, Minister of Reconstruction under the Fourth Republic and President of Sonacotra from 1956 to 1977, tasked the architect Edouard Menkès (1903-1976) with the construction of social housing. Ten of the fifteen projects he put forward were built, including the "foyer des célibataires" (home for bachelors) at La Défense in the municipality of Nanterre (1966-1971). This programme with its stringent economics was particularly congenial to Edouard Menkès, who had already worked on minimum housing and the industrialisation of buildings with Jean Prouvé as from 1946. His work combined a powerful graphic style with designs in line with demanding architectural and social requirements.

Soviet architecture : asserting a new aesthetic

The Revolution of October 1917 was a powerful stimulus to intellectual life and architectural creation in Russia. The process of democratising social life fostered the development of Utopian architecture (Georgy Krutikov's Flying City, the spatial constructions of Ivan Leonidov and Iakov Chernikhov, the kinetic constructions of Anton Lavinsky, and the dynamic compositions of Kasimir Malevich and El Lissitzky). The transformation of technical systems and new forms of visual expression made the emerging Constructivism an invigorating principle, which renewed architectural thinking and broke with the eclecticism and historicism of the early part of the century.

With the coming of Stalinism, architectural language underwent a change. The country's reconstruction, the new urban planning for cities and major building projects like Moscow's canal and metro system had to meet the imperatives of mass construction. Combining propaganda with ideology, the pavilion of the 1937 International Exhibition designed by Boris Iofan typified this desire to extend the enlightenment of Socialism beyond Soviet borders.

From Neo-Primitivism to Cubo-Futurism

"As the starting point of our art, we have taken the lubok [popular wood engraving], primitive art and the icon, because we are impressed by their more refined and direct perception of life, as well as the purely pictorial aspect." This was how Alexander Shevchenko described Neo-Primitivism, which established itself in Russia as a new, so-called Leftist national trend in around 1911/1912. Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova were two of its leading protagonists. They were interested in the peasant world (harvest-time, animals and the seasons) which they represented in a deliberately naive and basic style, inspired by popular art, children's drawings and graffiti. In around 1913, Larionov's simultaneous discovery of Futurism and Cubism led him to gradually dissolve forms through reflections of light, while expressing the simultaneity of urban rhythms in syncopated play with bright colours.

Adalberto Libera, ambiguities of Italian rationalism

Adalberto Libera (1903-1963) was a key figure in 20th century Italian architecture. Although his work after the Second World War included many major achievements, his early career illustrated the relationship between modern architects and the political powers. The architectural avant-garde and the Fascist regime both aimed to establish a modernist approach, and made mutual use of each other. The Fascist movement sought out modern architects so that they could use their talents to serve ideology; in return, the architects hoped for commissions, whether standard projects for facilities or buildings associated with the regime. After an idyllic beginning, the protagonists hesitated between an arranged marriage and divorce. In 1930, the MIAR (Italian Movement for Rational Architecture) was prohibited by the Fascist National Union. Subsequently, the regime divided its support between modernists and adherents of classical architecture. But Mussolini's alliance with the Nazis caused it to abandon its aesthetic link with the moderns, which was now disowned.

Art and Communist Party

The personal work produced by painters and sculptors close to the Communist Party was not limited to the standards defined by the socialist realist doctrine. At the Party's behest, Boris Taslitzky travelled to Algeria to sketch individual situations and political meetings, then used these to produce paintings inspired by French Romantic artists. Meanwhile, Les Repasseuses [The Ironers] by Simone Baltaxé, a young member of the editorial committee of the review Traits, evoked the legacy of Cubism through a subject with a social character. Lastly, Pablo Picasso, despite joining the Party on 5 October 1944, continued to assert his artistic independence. The critical apparatus rolled into action around his posters for the Peace Movement showed his importance for the Communist leaders, delighted to be able to count this first-rate recruit among their ranks.

The patriotic "lubok"

On 1 August 1914, Germany declared war on Russia. That year, the publishing house "Lubok of Today" asked several artists to create posters designed to galvanise the people against the German army. The quintessential model was the "lubok", which appeared in Russia in the 17th century: a popular print using the wood engraving technique. The works of Kasimir Malevich and Vladimir Mayakovsky exhibited here echo traditional "lubki" with their familiar, simplified forms, enlivened with bright flat tints and accompanied by punchy captions. With both artists we find the Russian peasant and "baba", shown alone as they face the Germanic hordes led by the grotesque figure of an obese officer. These prints illustrate the intellectual commitment of their creators, then shared by the great majority of artists. By drawing on the sources of popular art, like the "Primitivists", they broke with the codes of academic representation in order to appeal to a broad public.

Team Ten

An informal group consisting of architects from various backgrounds (Alison and Peter Smithson, Candilis, Josic and Woods, Jaap, Bakema, Van Eyck, Hertzberger, and De Carlo), Team Ten arose from an internal conflict during the 1953 conference of the CIAM (International Congress of Modern Architecture) in Aix-en-Provence. Taking a new approach to the modernist legacy enshrined in the work of Le Corbusier, the group were vociferous critics of functionalism. They pointed out the limitations of the Athens Charter (CIAM, 1933) while advocating flexible, upgradable housing in line with the requirements and specific features of locations. This reappraisal profoundly renewed modern thinking about cities and architecture by constructing a different social world. The major themes of the layered city, infrastructures, mobility, flexible structures and "architecturbanisme" (architectural urban design) have had a lasting influence on the contemporary architectural landscape.

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944): the return to Russia (1914-1921)

When war was declared, Kandinsky returned to Moscow via Odessa at the end of 1914. He had recently published Looks at the Past, an autobiographical text providing a valuable account of the origins of abstract art. On his return to Russia, Kandinsky mainly produced drawings and watercolours, together with a series of "Bagatelles" (figurative watercolours) during a stay in Sweden. In 1917, when the Bolshevik Revolution had plunged the country into civil war and a large part of Kandinsky's possessions had been requisitioned by the State, he was summoned to collaborate with the Izo (Department of Visual Arts) and direct the Svomas (National Studios of Free Art) and the monumental art section at the Inkhuk (Institute of Artistic Culture). At the same time, he was put in charge of a restructuring and development programme for museums. While staying aloof from any political commitment, his work took him towards abstraction. Kandinsky left the Inkhuk in late 1920 and decided to go to Germany, where he played a crucial role in the development of the Bauhaus.

The Rosta Windows

Between 1919 and 1922, when the newly-formed Soviet Russia was in the grip of civil war, Vladimir Mayakovsky produced satirical posters for Rosta, the national telegraph agency. Driven by the desire to create a new society, the joint goal of the Bolshevik powers and numerous avant-garde artists, Mayakovsky contributed to promoting unrest and propaganda on behalf of the new regime. Posters, newspapers, placards and slogans were the preferred weapons in this artistic and literary struggle. Printed daily in large numbers using stencils based on hand-painted originals, Rosta posters were stuck on the windows of empty shops. Dynamic compositions, simple geometricised forms, symbolic colours and dialogues between text and image formed a language that could be understood by the masses, who were still largely illiterate.

Alexander Rodchenko's Workers Club

A few days after its official recognition by France, the USSR was invited to appear in the International Exhibition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in Paris, in the spring of 1925. Its presence involved many cultural, political and ideological issues, as the fledgling state wanted to assert its rich traditional culture as well as its adhesion to a new model: Communism. Constructivist artists and their followers were asked to exhibit their innovative work in numerous fields. Alexander Rodchenko was commissioned to produce a model unit for the workers' clubs then prevalent in the USSR. His wooden furniture painted in three colours was simple and functional, and could be folded away. The reading room, the "soapbox" stand, the Lenin corner and the agit-prop material displayed there provided workers with a space for culture, leisure and discussions. Presented as a gift to the French Communist Party, Rodchenko's club model is now lost. The Centre Pompidou reconstructed this iconic unit for its "Paris-Moscow" exhibition in 1979.

Forms of activism during the 1960s - The power of the poster: less is more

The Sixties were characterised by a general challenge to the political and social order established after the Second World War. On both sides of the Atlantic, the new avant-gardes reacted to events by taking a stance. Part of their work was reflected in the history of political posters. An effective means of communication, the poster provided various aesthetic approaches and technical possibilities, such as lithographs, screen printing and offset. The artists who made use of them, often better known for their individual careers than for the collective venture they decided to join, found the poster an excellent medium for reacting to the dramas and frustrations of the times: young people's dissatisfaction with Gaullist France, the assassination of Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights Movement and bombings in Vietnam. The simultaneity of student, intellectual and artistic movements, together with their common struggles (a rejection of racist and sexist imperialism, criticism of museums as stakeholders in the system, the merging of art and life, etc.), enables a comparative reading of creation in France and the USA.

Natalia Goncharova and Le Populaire: views of the working world

Their collaboration with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes led Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov to move to Paris in 1917. Goncharova initially managed to live from their participation in projects designed for the stage, but financial difficulties soon forced her to seek additional work. Assisted by her friends in the Socialist Party, between 1932 and 1935 she produced a series of drawings for Le Populaire. A mouthpiece for the French Section of the International Workingmen's Association, the daily newspaper garnered a loyal readership through its minor news items and serialised novels. Goncharova's pencil and Indian ink works, line drawings or coloured with flat tints, illustrated reports in a style sometimes approaching miserabilism. The seventeen drawings she produced for Albert Soulillou's article on the toughness of assembly-line work demonstrated her interest in contemporary social problems.

The AEAR (Association of Revolutionary Writers and Artists)

The AEAR arose in 1932 in a context marked by recessions and the rise of totalitarian systems. Its development, which went hand-in-hand with the spread of Proletarian Internationalism, was stimulated by its members' fight against war and fascism. While the Association initially consisted of writers, in the Thirties it also began to attract numerous painters, sculptors, photographers, architects and film directors eager to be part of a revolutionary approach. Their artistic, political and social aspirations were expressed through various publications, including the review Commune. The debates led by AEAR on the visual arts stimulated the development of theoretical thinking about art and fostered the growth of exhibitions. Although a training ground for the chief protagonists of French socialist realism, the AEAR stood apart from this dogmatic post-war movement through the variety of its members’ artistic proposals.

The invention of factography

Created by Vladimir Mayakovsky in March 1923, LEF, the "left front of the arts", united various figures around a shared political project. A multidisciplinary platform bringing together artists and theorists, the group was backed up by a review entitled first LEF (1923-1925) then Novy LEF (“New LEF”, 1927-1928). Through the writing of Ossip Brik and Sergei Tretyakov, this promoted an art firmly rooted in real life: "factography". In the literary sphere, Tretyakov proposed replacing "artistic" literature with reports, interviews and assemblages of documents. This radical proposal, which went against Mayakovsky's thinking, was taken up in various ways within the LEF. It was promoted in films through the virulent criticism of fiction, and led to the pioneering approach of Esther Shub. It was also echoed in the various forms taken by propaganda photomontage, like the film displays set up by El Lissitzky at the Cologne international press exhibition (1928), and the "photo-essays "of the review USSR: under Construction.

Documenting social life

After a decade of experimentation, photography in the Thirties was marked by a return to more socially-oriented subjects. The recession caused by the 1929 stock market crash, together with the assertion of class consciousness that led to the Front Populaire's victory in 1936, encouraged many photographers to take an interest in contemporary reality. While they immortalised France at work, they also focused on the living conditions of workers, farmers and marginal populations. For example, Marianne Breslauer, a German artist who came to study in Paris with Man Ray in 1929, provided evidence of much poverty in Paris through her pictures of homeless people and ragmen, evoking the photographs of Eugène Atget, who had died shortly before. Whether personal initiatives or press reports, these photographs recorded a France in the process of transformation, documenting the rush towards leisure activities and the rapid growth of open-air picnics.

Painting and exhibiting under the Occupation : "Young Painters of French Tradition"

Although the study trip to Germany promoted by Goebbels and undertaken in November 1941 by a few French painters and sculptors (including Vlaminck and Van Dongen) was a basis for an artistic collaboration policy, some artists decided to oppose the occupier by organising partisan events. Presented in May 1941 at the Braun Gallery, which specialised in photography, the exhibition entitled "Twenty Young Painters of the French Tradition" brought together in Paris the paintings of artists invited by the painter Jean Bazaine and the publisher André Lejard. These proclaimed the twofold legacy of Romanesque art and modern artists such as Bonnard, Matisse, Braque and Picasso. Through their figurative works, these painters avail themselves of a "French tradition" invoked to dupe Nazi censorship. The group of "Young Painters of French Tradition", reorganised in 1943, welcomed new members to its ranks, who were presented at the Galerie de France in February in the exhibition "Twelve Painters of Today".

Do not visit the Colonial Exhibition

Inaugurated on 6 May 1931 in the Bois de Vincennes by the President of the Republic, Gaston Doumergue, and Maréchal Lyautey, for six months the "International Colonial Exhibition" vaunted the benefits of colonisation, attracting eight million visitors.

One of the very few anti-establishment voices, the Surrealists, following on from their review Le Surréalisme au service de la Révolution, published two tracts put forward by André Breton. They also took an active part in the counter-exhibition "La Vérité sur les colonies" [The truth about the colonies] staged by the League Against Imperialism, attached to the Communist Party, in the Trade Union centre inaugurated on 19 September 1931 in the former Soviet pavilion of the 1925 Decorative Arts exhibition. The Surrealists' anti-colonialism was part of their quest for a new myth on the fringes of Western civilisation, exploring the primitive arts, fetishism and magic.

Ubu Roi, The grotesque tyrant

Making his first appearance in 1895 through the pen of the young Alfred Jarry, Father Ubu was the archetype of bourgeois fin-de-siècle covetousness, gluttony and hypocrisy. In Jarry's plays and writings, he embodied now a usurper-king eager to conquer Poland, now a doctor in pataphysics (the science of imaginary solutions), rapidly establishing himself as an icon of vulgar schoolboy absurdity. He even survived his creator, for numerous artists appropriated the character, who developed with each new political event in the 20^th century. Jarry's writings were first of all illustrated by the author himself, then by Pierre Bonnard's drawings, and the artist Georges Rouault called on the publisher Ambroise Vollard when he sought to denounce the ravages of colonisation and the Soviet regime by means of Ubu's character. Meanwhile the Surrealists (Picasso, Miró, Matta) and post-war artists like Jean-Christophe Averty used Ubu to evoke the tyranny of power. So in both the dramatic and pictorial realm, Ubu became the comical vehicle for the evils of a whole century.

French-style socialist realism (1947-1953): a Party art

Based on a theory invented in the USSR, socialist realism was an art of propaganda designed for the masses, characterised by its obedience to academic standards and its ability to communicate "a historically solid representation of reality in its revolutionary development" (Moscow, 1934). Introduced into France by the ruling bodies of the Communist Party, represented by the painters André Fougeron and Boris Taslitzky, promoted by Louis Aragon and disseminated through the reviews Les Lettres françaises and Arts de France, French socialist realism arose with the Cold War and declined after the death of Stalin. Portraits of workers, resistance members and political dignitaries generated imagery celebrating party ideology, and shored up the cult of the personality. In contrast with the Soviet model, focused on the Russian tradition of "Wanderers", references to David and Courbet placed the movement in a national perspective. A decidedly divisive doctrine, socialist realism crystallised the artistic debate in France pitting the partisans of abstraction and figuration against each other.