What is the avant-garde? The questionnaire as historiography

In 1928 the Cuban magazine Revista de Avance issued a questionnaire asking, ‘What should (Latin) American art be?’ while the same year the expatriate magazine transition based in Paris, polled its North American contributors asking: ‘Why do Americans Live in Europe?’ and surveyed its European writer...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Lori Cole
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Department of Art History, University of Birmingham 2011-12-01
Series:Journal of Art Historiography
Subjects:
Online Access:http://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/cole.pdf
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author Lori Cole
author_facet Lori Cole
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description In 1928 the Cuban magazine Revista de Avance issued a questionnaire asking, ‘What should (Latin) American art be?’ while the same year the expatriate magazine transition based in Paris, polled its North American contributors asking: ‘Why do Americans Live in Europe?’ and surveyed its European writers to ask: ‘How are the influences of the United States manifesting themselves upon Europe?’ By examining these questionnaires issued across the Atlantic in the same year, I examine the way the genre structures the artistic and political stakes of modernist print communities and illuminates the relationships these magazines establish between aesthetics and the Americas. Questionnaires functioned as print proxies by implying through their reproduction of multiple individual responses a much larger community of writers and readers. Both questionnaires work to interpellate the magazines’ dispersed communities and to emphasize the effects of their dis/location on their artistic purpose, ultimately forming a patchwork historiography of the avant-garde.
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spelling doaj.art-151d6fa82a6749b0a4b6ad6403c7a81f2022-12-22T03:06:28ZengDepartment of Art History, University of BirminghamJournal of Art Historiography2042-47522011-12-0155LC/1What is the avant-garde? The questionnaire as historiographyLori ColeIn 1928 the Cuban magazine Revista de Avance issued a questionnaire asking, ‘What should (Latin) American art be?’ while the same year the expatriate magazine transition based in Paris, polled its North American contributors asking: ‘Why do Americans Live in Europe?’ and surveyed its European writers to ask: ‘How are the influences of the United States manifesting themselves upon Europe?’ By examining these questionnaires issued across the Atlantic in the same year, I examine the way the genre structures the artistic and political stakes of modernist print communities and illuminates the relationships these magazines establish between aesthetics and the Americas. Questionnaires functioned as print proxies by implying through their reproduction of multiple individual responses a much larger community of writers and readers. Both questionnaires work to interpellate the magazines’ dispersed communities and to emphasize the effects of their dis/location on their artistic purpose, ultimately forming a patchwork historiography of the avant-garde.http://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/cole.pdfquestionnairemagazineshistoriographyRevista de AvancetransitionAmericas
spellingShingle Lori Cole
What is the avant-garde? The questionnaire as historiography
Journal of Art Historiography
questionnaire
magazines
historiography
Revista de Avance
transition
Americas
title What is the avant-garde? The questionnaire as historiography
title_full What is the avant-garde? The questionnaire as historiography
title_fullStr What is the avant-garde? The questionnaire as historiography
title_full_unstemmed What is the avant-garde? The questionnaire as historiography
title_short What is the avant-garde? The questionnaire as historiography
title_sort what is the avant garde the questionnaire as historiography
topic questionnaire
magazines
historiography
Revista de Avance
transition
Americas
url http://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/cole.pdf
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