Questions about Modernism

Here are some general questions about modernism I plan to use in two interviews I am performing later - enjoy!

Interview #1

How do we recognize a “modernist” work? Are there any characteristics all (or the majority of) modernist works share in common?

Modernism in art is sometimes seen as a change from “capturing” reality to “constructing” reality. How accurate do you think this is?

Advertising (especially in the USA) transformed during this time into an industry in its own. With this industry came what could be called an ‘art’ in its own right – and indeed, advertisers used several modern techniques (particularly those of psychoanalysis) in their “products”. Can we call this modernism as well, or is there a key difference?

Somewhat ironically, modernism has flourished the most in “traditional” capitalist, consumerist societies, even though the creators of modernist works (and modernism itself) often reject these societies/philosophies. Why do you think this is the case?

Sigfried Gideon argues that the new forms of art were especially influenced by new forms of transportation, like the automobile. (To support this, he notes that many early films are train films, made by cameras fixed to a train rushing through the landscape). He argues that these new forms of transportation changed the population’s perspective on space and time and encouraged a more “dynamic” type of art. What are your opinions on this?

How important were new technologies, especially the invention of photography, to the change in art around this time? Is it possible that the introduction of the camera made traditional painting partially obsolete?

Has modernism ended?

Interview #2

How do we recognize a “modernist” work? Are there any characteristics all (or the majority of) modernist works share in common?

In Marshall Berman’s book on modernism, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, he suggests that all the key founders of modernism were located in the 19th century: like Goethe, Marx, Nietzche, Baudelaire, and Dostoevsky. Do you agree?

Modernism (or, the precursors to modernism) was originally limited to small elite groups of “avant-garde” throughout the world. But over the course of a few decades, it rapidly spread throughout the rest of the world and effectively pervaded popular culture. What are the reasons for the speed of modernism’s success?
Somewhat ironically, modernism has flourished the most in “traditional” capitalist, consumerist societies, even though the creators of modernist works (and modernism itself) often reject these societies/philosophies. Why do you think this is the case?

Advertising (especially in the USA) transformed during this time into an industry in its own. With this industry came what could be called an ‘art’ in its own right – and indeed, advertisers used several modern techniques (particularly those of psychoanalysis) in their “products”. Can we call this modernism as well, or is there a key difference?

How important was the Ford-like “assembly line” mentality (i.e., treating people as ‘laboring units’, dividing time into blocks, the increased precision of management) in influencing modernism?

Has modernism ended?