Women artists of the international avant-garde: the case of "Abstraction-Création" (1931-1936)

Women’s contribution to abstract art in the interwar period is a subject that, to date, has received very little attention. In this article we deal with the untold story of the participation of women artists in Abstraction-Création, the foremost international group dedicated to abstract art in the 1930s. Founded in Paris in 1931, the group took on the work of two previous collectives to become a platform for the dissemination and promotion of abstract art and consisted of around a hundred members. Twelve of these were women, whose writings and works were published in the group’s annual magazine, abstraction creátion art non figuratif (1932-1936), and who participated in a number of the group’s exhibitions. Compared to what had occurred in previous groups, the participation of women, although reduced in number, was comparable to that of the male artists and being members of the group had a generally positive impact on the women’s careers. However, all this came at the expense of relinquishing any gender specificity in their work and the public presentation of it, and demonstrates that the normalization of women’s contributions to the avant-garde could only be brought about alongside a questioning of the more dogmatic views of modernity.

Cultural policy models and cultural facilities models: from national to local models. Analysis of Barcelona’s case

The development of cultural policy analysis by social science has been produced a theorization about cultural policy models from sociology and political science. This analysis shows the influence of the national model of cultural policy on the forms of governance and management of cultural facilities. However, in this paper we will defend that currently the local model of cultural policy decisively influences the model of cultural institutions. This is explained by the growing importance of culture in local development strategies. In order to demonstrate this we will analyze the case of the Barcelona Model of local development and cultural policy, that is characterized for the level of local government leadership, multilevel governance, the use of culture in urban planning processes and a tendency to use public-private partnership in public management. This Model influences the genesis and development of the cultural facilities and it produces a singular and relatively successful model.

From the "pólis" to the modern state: an approach to the problem of politics in Heidegger

This paper starts off asking whether a strictly political approach may be deduced based on Martin Heidegger’ ontological analyses of modernity. His interpretation of the Greek phenomenon of the polis is discussed along with the distinction established therein between this form of community and the modern state, founded according to Heidegger on the metaphysical essence of modernity. To clarify this question regard is had to the proclamation of values observed by Heidegger in the different forms of state organization arising in the age of technical consummation of metaphysics. In this connection, his vision of nihilism is studied and a hypothesis is finally offered as to the form of state that would be consistent with a renunciation of the values required, in his view, by the manifestation of the entity in modernity as a wholly producible object.

The use of cues for attention in ancient Greek art: aspects that influence concentration in the work of art and its elements

The goal of this study is to identify cues for the cognitive process of attention in ancient Greek art, aiming to find confirmation of its possible use by ancient Greek audiences and artists. Evidence of cues that trigger attention’s psychological dispositions was searched through content analysis of image reproductions of ancient Greek sculpture and fine vase painting from the archaic to the Hellenistic period - ca. 7th -1st cent. BC. Through this analysis, it was possible to observe the presence of cues that trigger orientation to the work of art (i.e. amplification, contrast, emotional salience, simplification, symmetry), of a cue that triggers a disseminate attention to the parts of the work (i.e. distribution of elements) and of cues that activate selective attention to specific elements in the work of art (i.e. contrast of elements, salient color, central positioning of elements, composition regarding the flow of elements and significant objects). Results support the universality of those dispositions, probably connected with basic competencies that are hard-wired in the nervous system and in the cognitive processes.