Owen Hatherley: Militant Modernism (2009)

“This book is a defence of Modernism against its defenders. In readings of modern design, film, pop and especially architecture, it attempts to reclaim a revolutionary modernism against its absorption into the heritage industry and the aesthetics of the luxury flat. Militant Modernism features new readings of some familiar names – Bertolt Brecht, Le Corbusier – but more on the lesser known, quotidian modernists of the 20th century. The chapters range from a study of industrial and brutalist aesthetics in Britain, Russian Constructivism in architecture, the Sexpol of Wilhelm Reich in film and design, and the alienation effects of Brecht and Hanns Eisler on record and on screen – all arguing for a Modernism of everyday life, immersed in questions of socialism, sexual politics and technology.”

Publisher Zero Books, 2009
ISBN 1846941768, 9781846941764
146 pages

Reviews: Will Self (London Review of Books, 2012), PD Smith (The Guardian, 2009), Jonathan Meades (New Statesman, 2009), Dan Hicks (Planning Perspectives, 2009), Kat Koh (2011).

Interview (Andrew Stevens, 3:AM Magazine, 2009)

Publisher

EPUB

Anthony Enns, Shelley Trower (eds.): Vibratory Modernism (2013)

“Vibratory Modernism is a collection of original essays that will enable scholars and students to explore how vibrations provided a means of bridging science and art – two fields that became increasingly separate over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book demonstrates the vital role played by vibrations in the fields of physics, physiology, spiritualism, and by new vibratory technologies, in helping to shape the way modernist art was made and viewed. The chapters are placed into three connecting parts focusing on literature, the visual arts and theatre, each part highlighting the diverse ways in which writers, artists and performers engaged with the fascinating world of vibrations.”

Publisher Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 1137027258, 9781137027252
288 pages

Publisher

PDF

Lars Kleberg, Aleksei Semenko (eds.): Aksenov and the Environs (2012) [Russian, English]

“Ivan Aleksandrovich Aksenov (1883-1935), critic, poet, and translator, was an outstanding representative of the Russian avant-garde art.

In the 1920s, Aksenov was close to the constructivists and worked in the theatre of Vsevolod Meyerhold, also serving as the dean of its directors’ school. Aksenov’s analysis of the problems of mis-en-scène, more geometrical than ideological, influenced a new generation of directors, headed by Sergei Eisenstein.

For different reasons, Ivan Aksenov’s life and works have remained unknown outside a small circle of initiated readers. During the Soviet era, he was soon marginalized because of his engineer’s view of art and his anti-ideological position. Later, specialised scholars ignored him, finding it too difficult to grasp his versatile personality, which was both original and representative of the multi-faceted Russian avant-garde movement.

This book of essays by authors from nine different countries sheds light on the writer’s extraordinary contribution to Russian culture.”

Contributions by Lars Kleberg, John Bowlt, Nicoletta Misler, and Janne Risum are in English.

Publisher Södertörns högskola, Huddinge, 2012
Södertörn Academic Studies 52
ISBN 9186069543, 9789186069544
242 pages
via DiVA Academic Archive

Aksenov at Russian Wikipedia

Editor
Publisher

PDF, PDF (no images)