The Avant Garde's Decline and Fall in the 20th Century

In Our Time: Culture

BBC

History

4.6 • 978 Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 1999

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg examines the social and aesthetic impact of the Avant Garde and discusses whether it has failed in making painting relevant in the 20th century.Avant-garde is in the dictionary as 'anything that is in the forefront of new developments in their media'. Jackson Pollack in the 1960s was seen as one of the leaders of Avant Garde painting. But for the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, Jackson Pollack is merely representative of the uncertainty which has plagued the Avant Garde visual arts movements in the twentieth century, and which has led to paintings' ultimate demise and lack of relevance in the modern age. With Professor Eric Hobsbawm, eminent historian and author of Behind The Times: The Decline and Fall of the Twentieth Century Avant-Gardes; Frances Morris, specialist in contemporary art and Art Programme Curator for the Tate Gallery of Modern Art.

Transcript

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0:45.8	Hello next month sees the opening of one of the Tate galleries most ambitious
0:49.4	retrospectives Jackson Pollack in the 50s he was seen as one of the leaders of avant-garde painting.
0:55.0	Words like wild, boam and barbaric were used to describe the man and his giant abstract canvases.
1:01.0	But for the Marxist historian Eric Hobbsbaum, Pollack is merely representative of the
1:05.2	uncertainty which has plagued the visual arts in the 20th century and has led to painting's
1:10.3	ultimate demise. He applauds instead, and I quote, advertisement in the movies, which
1:15.6	converted the masses to daring innovations in visual perception which left the revolution is of
1:20.7	the easel far behind.
1:23.0	Professor Eric Homswam's claims about the modern age
	...

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