1. The document discusses key 20th century art movements and ideas that influenced postwar art, including Marcel Duchamp's readymades which introduced everyday objects as art, Walter Benjamin's theories on mechanical reproduction, and Surrealism's emphasis on the unconscious and automatism. 2. It provides context on the impact of World War 2, including the rise of totalitarianism, the Holocaust, use of atomic weapons, and millions of casualties. The postwar period saw the rise of Abstract Expressionism in New York as the city became the new center of the art world, influenced by European artists who fled the war. 3. Key figures and works discussed include Duchamp, Clement Greenberg, Salvador Dali,

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Beginnings: 20th C Art & Ideas
• Marcel Duchamp & The Readymade
• Walter Benjamin & Mechanical
Reproduction
• Clement Greenberg & Kitsch
• Surrealism
• Alfred Steiglitz photograph of The Fountain,
1917
• Stieglitz photo as
cropped for publication
in The Blind Man, 1917
• "Whether Mr. Mutt with his own
hands made the fountain or not has
no importance. He chose it. He took
an ordinary article of life, placed it so
that its useful significance
disappeared under a new title and
point of view -- he created a new
thought for the object.“
Marcel Duchamp
• Readymades
• “Concept, not
retina”
• “The viewer
completes the
work of art.”

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The Readymade
• “The choice was based on a
reaction of visual
indifference with at the same
time a total absence of good
or bad taste ... in fact a
complete anaesthesia.”
• (Left: In advance of a broken
arm, 1915)
• Rrose Selavy
• “Eros, c’est la
vie”
• “Love, that’s life”
• Marcel Duchamp,
L.H.O.O.Q., 1919

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Things to think about:
• What is kitsch according to Clement
Greenberg, and how do modern
appropriations of Mona Lisa fit into this
idea?
• How do these take-offs on Mona Lisa
illustrate Benjamin’s claims about the
effect of mechanical reproduction on the
work of art?
Which of these requires "initiation into
their [artists'] craft" to understand?
Georges Braque, The Portuguese, 1911
Norman Rockwell, The Love Song, 1926
Surrealism
• SURREALISM, n. Pure psychic
automatism, by which it is intended to
express, verbally, in writing, or by other
means, the real process of thought.
Thought's dictation, in the absence of all
control exercised by the reason and
outside all aesthetic or moral
preoccupations.
--Andre Breton
Joan Miro, Carnival of Harlequin, 1924
Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1931

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Postwar Art
(After WWII, 1945)
• Effects of WWII
• Prewar intellectual & art currents
– Duchamp, Benjamin, Greenberg
– Surrealism
– automatism, automatic drawing, psychology, the
unconscious
• US: Abstract Expressionism (AbEx)
– aka 'The New York School', 'The Irascibles'
• Europe: Art Informel (Art without Form), Michel
Tapie
• Japan: Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai (Concrete or
Embodied Art Association)
World War II (WWII)
• worldwide casualties
• the Holocaust
• the atom bomb
• biochemical weapons
• refugees
• rise of totalitarian Communism
• Air raid in Broadgate, England during
WWII • Hiroshima after atom bomb

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After WWII
• “The American Century”
– Postwar economic boom
– Victory and rebuilding Europe & Japan
• New York as new center of art world
– European artists had fled from war & Hitler
– Economic center of the world
– “How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art”
– Serge Gilbault’s history of Abstract
Expressionism