Dejan Sretenović: Red Horizon: The Avant-Garde and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1919–1932 (2021)

“Red Horizon is the first study to focus on the Yugoslav avant-gardes from the perspective of the history of left-wing political ideas. Bearing in mind that the Yugoslav avant-gardes were politically oriented towards the radical left, and considered the aesthetic revolution an integral part of the social revolution, the book explores the modes of manifestation of the ideas of Marxism and anarchism in the programmes and activities of the avant-gardes, ranging from Expressionism, through Zenitism, Dada, Hipnism, Constructivism to Surrealism. The policies of the Yugoslav avant-gardes are considered in the context of European avant-garde currents and ideational struggles on the left cultural front, as well as in the light of the development of Marxist aesthetics and the attitudes organised Communism assumed towards modern art. The book is structured in the form of a historical-theoretical narrative, starting from the interpretation of the avant-garde and Communism as the two great epic narratives of the 20th century, and telling of the rebellions, dreams, conflicts, victories and defeats of those who wanted to radically change the society and art of their epoch.”

Publisher kuda.org, Novi Sad, 2021
Red Publications series
Translated by Katarina Radović
ISBN 9788688567244
228 pages

Publisher

PDF (4 MB)

Mary Ann Caws (ed.): Manifesto: A Century of Isms (2001)

“An anthology featuring over 200 artistic and cultural manifestos from a wide range of countries. It includes texts ranging from Kurt Schwitters’ ‘Cow Manifesto’ to those written in the name of well-known movements – imagism, cubism, surrealism, symbolism, and projectivism – and less well-known ones – lettrism, acmeism, concretism, and rayonism.”

Publisher University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2001
ISBN 0803264070, 9780803264076
xxxiv+713 pages

Reviews: Greil Marcus (Artforum, 2001), Publishers Weekly (2001), Gail McDonald (symploke, 2003), Cynthia Ellen Patton (College Literature, 2003).

WorldCat

PDF (14 MB, updated on 2017-11-21)

Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics (1968)

“A collection of texts from letters, manifestos, notes and interviews. Sources include, as the title says, artists and critics—some expected, like van Gogh, Gauguin, Apollinaire, Mondrian, Greenberg, just to name a few—and some less so: Trotsky and Hitler, in the section on Art and Politics. The book is a wonderful resource and insight into the way artists think and work.”

Edited by Herschel Browning Chipp
Contributions by Peter Selz and Joshua C. Taylor
Publisher University of California Press, 1968
ISBN 0520014502
xv+664 pages

Reviews: Romare H. Bearden and Carl Holty (Leonardo, 1970), Elizabeth Gilmore Holt (Art Bulletin, 1972).

Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (179 MB, no OCR)