Art e-Facts 55

May 14, 2007 1 Comment

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British art group Unit One was formed by Paul Nash in 1933 to promote modern art, architecture and design. The two major currents in modern art at the time were seen as being abstract art on the one hand and Surrealism on the other. Unit One embraced the full spectrum, Nash made both abstract and Surrealist work in the mid 1930s and played a major part in organising the International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936 (British Surrealism).

The launch of the group was announced in a letter from Nash to The Times newspaper, in which he wrote that Unit One was ‘to stand for the expression of a truly contemporary spirit, for that thing which is recognised as peculiarly of today in painting, sculpture and architecture’. The first and only group exhibition was held in 1934 accompanied by a book Unit One, subtitled The Modern Movement in English Architecture, Painting and Sculpture.

The other artists associated with the group were Armstrong, Bigge, Burra, Hepworth, Moore, Nicholson, Wadsworth and the architects Welles Coates and Colin Lucas.

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Art e-Facts 53

May 8, 2007 1 Comment

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In 1957 Otto Piene and Heinz Mack formed Group Zero or Group O, in Düsseldorf. Often referred to simply as Zero the group was joined in 1960 by Gunther Uecker.

A number of other artists were associated or exhibited with Zero, most notably Yves Klein and Jean Tinguely. The name refers to the countdown for a rocket launch and according to the group is meant to evoke ‘a zone of silence [out of which develops] a new beginning’. Zero was in reaction against the subjective character of the prevailing Art Informel and practised a form of Kinetic art using light and motion that they felt opened up new forms of perception.

Three issues of a journal, Zero, were published, in April and October 1958 and July 1961. The group dissolved in 1966.

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Art e-Facts 7

February 18, 2007 Leave a comment

1989

The Guerrilla Girls is a group of feminist artists established in New York City in 1985 and is known for using guerrilla art) to promote women, and minorities, in the arts. Their traditional tactics included putting up posters decrying the gender and racial imbalance of artists represented in galleries.
One of their most famous posters was plastered across New York City buses in 1989. Its headline read, “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?” According to the Guerrilla Girls, they conducted a “weenie count” at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and found that less than 5% of the artists in the Met’s Modern Art sections were female, but 85% of the nudes were female.

http://www.guerrillagirls.com/

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