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Assembling Art: The Machine and the American Avant-Garde

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Assembling Art, The Machine and the American Avant-Garde, describes the impact of the events that went on in the early part of the 20th century on the, mostly American, Avant-Garde artists of that time. The book focuses mostly on the impact of the machine, mass production and Taylorism, advertising, the Woman's Rights Movement, Prohibition, and finally the development of Jazz music on the artists Man Ray, Stuart Davis, Alexander Calder, Morton Schamberg, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven and Gerald Murphy with the great Duchamp sort of hovering in the background. A few other artist are mentioned, notably Georgia O'Keefe and Francis Picabia.

I find that books on art history are successful if they combine explanations of the ideas behind the art with a placement of the artist in the context of his or her time. This book book achieves this in abundance. I went into this book with a fair amount of knowledge of Modern Art but still managed to learn a lot about the artists, their art and their times. The artists Stuart Davis, Man Ray and Alexander Calder were especially well represented; I found the descriptions of the ideas and inspirations for their art to be very illuminating.

The way that the advent of modern day advertising was depicted by Davis for example was very interesting. He embraced the Modern World wholeheartedly. For example he used cigarette advertising in his work in a way that glorified the success of advertisers in depicting smoking, which is essentially a health hazard, as being part and parcel of a manly, vigorous and truly American way of life.

The advent of the machine in modern life is given a lot of coverage in this book also. There are a lot of paintings and sculptures depicting gears and other parts of machinery including a sculpture of a plumbing pipe called "God". What the artists, Morton Schamberg and Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven meant was that the machine and mass production represented what was most important to the people of that time. This is certainly somewhat eery, but is no different that our time, a time in which we certainly "worship" materialism, with the machine replaced, I suppose, by the computer. The book also introduces Taylorism which was a movement, spawned by Frederick Winslow Taylor, to introduce efficiency into every aspect of American life from the factory floor right into life at home.

Some of the art focuses on the Woman's Rights Movement. There is a lot of insecurity depicted here as most of the artists were men and they felt somewhat threatened by the rise of women. However, Francis Picabia's representation of the prototypical American Woman as a spark plug, I think, shows some respect for the energy of the Woman's Rights movement.

The final chapters depict the effect of Jazz on the fine arts. Jazz was, at that time, considered to be a threat to America, sort of the way Rock and Roll and Rap art considered to be a threat by some people of today. This is one of the reasons that the Avant-Garde artists of that time were attracted to Jazz in the first place. Stuart Davis, who is remembered for being particularly interested in Jazz, was not as much interested in the improvisational aspects of Jazz, but rather, he was impressed with the precision required to play the music. However, he was also interested in the dynamic aspects of Jazz music.

Finally, the author spends some time discussing the impact of American Culture on the French. Apparently, unlike now, France, especially post World War I France was infatuated with all aspects of American Culture. There were many Americans who took advantage of this including Alexander Calder and some performing artists such as Josephine Baker, an African American, who found France to be a place where there was less prejudice thatn in America. It is a sad fact that America of the time was very racist to the point where white boxers would simply refuse to fight African American boxers. Alexander Calder made a lot of wire sculptures of Josephine Baker. This brings up a dynamic between the technological and the "primitive" where the machine and mass production represent technology and the immense influence of African American culture on American culture represented the "primitive". Josephine Baker was very successful in capitalizing on this dynamic.

I highly recommend this book for its fine portrayal of life and art in this time.