View: Parade of the Avant-Garde: An Anthology of View magazine, 1940-1947 (1991)

“As surrealism struggled to sustain its spark in the 1940s, View–the avant-garde magazine edited by poet Charles Henri Ford–attracted many of the most vital writers and artists of the period. A feast of riches, this illustrated anthology spanning the years 1940-1947 includes prose by Max Ernst, Henry Miller, André Breton, Mina Loy, Gabrièle Buffet and William Carlos Williams; essays on Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger, Federico Garcia Lorca, Yves Tanguy and Pavel Tchelitchew; and poems by e.e. cummings, Wallace Stevens and Lawrence Durrell, to name a few. As this roster suggests, View’s scope went beyond surrealism, embracing many émigré talents who clustered in New York and reproducing artwork by Picasso, Miro, Brancusi, Chagall.”

Foreword by Paul Bowles
Compiled by Catrina Neiman and Paul Nathan
Introduction by Catrina Neiman
Publisher Thunder’s Mouth Press, New York, 1991
ISBN 1560250135, 9781560250135
xvi+287 pages

Reviews: Perry Meisel (New York Times, 1992), Publishers Weekly (1991).

WorldCat

PDF (27 MB)
View all issues on IADDB

FESTAC ’77 (1977)

“Festac ’77, also known as the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (the first was in Dakar, 1966), was a major international festival held in Lagos, Nigeria, from 15 January 1977 to 12 February 1977. The month-long event celebrated African culture and showcased to the world African music, fine art, literature, drama, dance and religion. About 16,000 participants, representing 56 African nations and countries of the African Diaspora, performed at the event.

Artists who performed at the festival included Stevie Wonder from United States, Gilberto Gil from Brazil, Bembeya Jazz National from Guinea, Mighty Sparrow from Trinidad and Tobago, Les Ballets Africains, South African Miriam Makeba, and Franco Luambo Makiadi. At the time it was held, it was the largest pan-African gathering to ever take place.” (Wikipedia)

Publisher Africa Journal Limited, London, and International Festival Committee, Lagos, 1977
152 pages
via Abdul Alkalimat

Film documentary (UNESCO, 1977, 26 MB)
Commentary: Arthur Monroe (Black Scholar, 1977), Iris Kay (African Arts, 1977), J. Southern (Black Perspective in Music, 1977), Moyibi Amoda (book-length evaluation, 1978, 80 MB).

WorldCat

PDF (134 MB)

Related documents:
General Programme (25 MB)
General Colloquium Programme (7 MB)
Visitors Guide to the Festival (2 MB)
Spotlight (2 MB)
Additional documentation (ed. Abdul Alkalimat)

Dubravka Djurić, Miško Šuvaković (eds.): Impossible Histories: Historical Avant-gardes, Neo-avant-gardes, and Post-avant-gardes in Yugoslavia, 1918-1991 (2003)

“Impossible Histories is the first critical survey of the extraordinary experiments in the arts that took place in the former Yugoslavia from the country’s founding in 1918 to its breakup in 1991. The combination of Austro-Hungarian, French, German, Italian, and Turkish influences gave Yugoslavia’s avant-gardes a distinct character unlike those of other Eastern and Central European avant-gardes. The book explores movements such as Belgrade surrealism, signalism, Yugo-Dada, and zenitism; the groups Alfa, Exat 51, Gorgona, OHO, and Scipion Nasice Sisters Theater; or the magazines Danas, Rdeči pilot, Tank, Vecnost, and Zvrk.

The pieces in this collection offer comparative and interpretive accounts of the avant-gardes in the former Yugoslavian countries of Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia. The book is divided into four sections: Art and Politics; Literature; Visual Art and Architecture; and Art in Motion (covering theater, dance, music, film, and video). All of the contributors live in the region and many of them participated in the movements discussed. The book also reprints a selection of the most important manifestos generated by all phases of Yugoslav avant-garde activity.”

Publisher MIT Press, 2003
ISBN 0262042169, 9780262042161
xviii+605 pages
via agitprop

Reviews: Suzana Milevska (Springerin, 2004), Matthew S. Witkovsky (caa.reviews, 2004), Yevgeniy Fiks (Art Journal, 2004), Tyrus Miller (Modernism/modernity, 2005), Igor Marjanović (Design Issues, 2007).

Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (22 MB)