Bibliograph

Machine art, 1934, Jennifer Jane Marshall

Type

Label

Machine art, 1934, Jennifer Jane Marshall

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-201) and index

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Machine art, 1934

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

746489173

Responsibility statement

Jennifer Jane Marshall

Summary

In 1934, New York's Museum of Modern Art staged a major exhibition of ball bearings, airplane propellers, pots and pans, cocktail tumblers, petri dishes, protractors, and other machine parts and products. The exhibition, titled Machine Art, explored these ordinary objects as works of modern art, teaching museumgoers about the nature of beauty and value in the era of mass production. Telling the story of this extraordinarily popular but controversial show, Jennifer Jane Marshall examines its history and the relationship between the museum's director, Alfred H. Barr Jr., and its curator, Philip Johnson, who oversaw it. She situates the show within the tumultuous climate of the interwar period and the Great Depression, considering how these unadorned objects served as a response to timely debates over photography, abstract art, the end of the American gold standard, and John Dewey's insight that how a person experiences things depends on the context in which they are encountered. An engaging investigation of interwar American modernism, "Machine Art, 1934" reveals how even simple things can serve as a defense against uncertainty

Table Of Contents

Preface: A particular brand of modernism -- Introduction: Material formalism -- Objectification: Machine art's photographic operations -- In form we trust: Machine art's neoplatonism at the end of the American gold standard -- The art of parts: Machine art's alienated objects and their rationalized reassembly -- Empiricism: The object of machine art's experience -- Epilogue: Opening the circle

Classification

Creator