This dissertation presents a history of the development of abstract art in the 1920s and
1930s, the period of its expansion and consolidation as an identifiable movement and
practice of art. I argue that the emergence of the category of abstract art in the 1920s is
grounded in a voluntaristic impulse to remake the world. I argue that the consolidation of
abstract art as a movement emerged out of the Parisian reception of a new Soviet art
practice that contained a political impetus that was subsequently obscured as this moment
passed. The occultation of this historical context laid the groundwork for the postwar
“multiplication” of the meanings of abstraction, and the later tendency to associate its
early programmatic aspirations with a more apolitical mysticism.
Author(s): Amy Chun Kim
Publisher: University of California
Year: 2015
Language: English
Pages: 183
City: Berkeley
List of Figures ii
List of Abbreviations v
Acknowledgements vi
Introduction 1
Chapter One. Abstract, abstraction, and other terms 6
Chapter Two. The “Soviet Effect”: L’Exposition internationale 21
des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes
Chapter Three. The Neoplasticist Moment: L’Art d’Aujourd’hui, 54
Mondrian, and Paris
Chapter Four. From Pure to Figural Abstraction: Jean Hélion 86
Conclusion 124
Illustrations 129
Select Bibliography 165
