ancora?
Meaning both “again” and “still” in English, ancora? calls into question the repetition of some ideas from the period of the wars still held today.
This collection of works was the final project for a semester interdisciplinary class on Contemporary Europe (HONR 216A - JFRC, LUC). It is a brief study of the art movements between wars, reflecting the political period and culminating in an artistic interpretation of the current political period in Europe.
Project proposal: “The periods surrounding the World Wars were filled with the emergence of new art movements. Each of these movements was a type of response the artists had to the environment they were immersed in. By analyzing the history of the movements, their manifestos, and their art pieces, one can see the influence the political environment had on them. I intend to study the characteristics of the different art movements surrounding the war periods in Europe, tracing the influence the wars had on the artists’ expression at the time. Such movements will include Dadaism, Surrealism, New Objectivity, DeStijl art, and the Bauhaus period. By investigating the impacts the political climate had on these movements, I intend to create digital art pieces based on the recent rise of far-right wing parties in Europe that correlate with the style, the subject, and the characteristics of the movements studied. To each of the art pieces, I will add an artist statement explaining the topic and element choices for the compositions.”
After researching the art movements as well as the political environment—at the time and currently —in Europe, I divided this collection into three parts: Did the past teach us anything?, Dehumanization and Language. Each of these calls attention to one important aspect of the political climate today and intends to foreshadow where we can be heading if nothing changes. For each of the studied movements, I created a piece or a collection of pieces that focused on one of the three parts.
DeStijl
Did the past teach us anything?
This piece is intended to be a projection of measuring 4.8m x 4.8m. Utilizing primary colors, organized forms, and mathematical aspects, this piece calls attention to the years of the wars and connects them to the current time. (Yellow=1, Red=2, Blue=3)
Surrealism
From me to Caged
84 cm X 22.2 cm
Digital Art/Illustration
Bauhaus
For the Bauhaus period, I focused on the use of primary colours, the idea that form follows function, the simplicity of sans-serif typefaces, and the prevalence of geometric shapes. This piece is a collection of animated posters shining a light on the rhetoric used by nationalist governments to address the migration movements in the past few years.
the dictionary is upside down
21 cm X 29.7 cm each
(63 cm X 59.4 cm total)
Poster Collection/Animation
New Objectivity
For the New Objectivity movement, I decided to focus on the representation of the world as it is, the removal of human-made objects from their environment, and how it pointed to the wrongs in society. Being inspired by this movement’s photography and its social critique (shown primarily through paintings), I shot a photo series of newspaper headlines on fire. Its main intention was to call attention to both the current state of the world as a human-made environment and to the crisis of fake news we have been and are going through.