Kohti lyyristä abstraktismia : Anitra Lucanderin 1950-luvun modernismi

Towards Lyrical Abstraction Anitra Lucander s Modernism in the 1950s Anitra Lucander (1918-2000) was one of the early pioneers of abstract art in Finland. During the Second World War Finnish art and cultural life was isolated and stagnated and figurative art was still dominant after the war. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, new international abstract art movements started to come to Finland. Anitra Lucander was one of the artists of the younger generation after the war who took an interest in the abstract movements in the early 1950s. At the beginning of the 1950s, abstract art came to Finland primarily in the form of Concretism, but simultaneously, a more delicate abstract movement emerged, and Anitra Lucander was among those cultivating such conceptions in her art. In this thesis, I observe and analyze through Anitra Lucander s art this central movement in Finnish modern art that has not yet been extensively studied. I examine how Anitra Lucander s art connects with the style change in Finnish art. I scrutinize the factors that affected Lucander and turned her towards abstract expression, and the effect her art had on emergence of abstract art in Finland. I will also consider the development of her art, the reception and critique of her art and the effect the critique had on her position in the 1950s art world. Because of a lack of earlier studies, I will undertake basic research, relying on empirical primary source material, where the starting point is to place the phenomenon under examination in the historical and cultural context. The most significant study materials are the artist s paintings and graphics from 1948 to 1960, newspaper and magazine articles from the same era, archive sources and interviews with Lucander s relatives, fellow artists and friends. An interesting aspect of the topic is the fact that Anitra Lucander was the only woman among the important pioneers of early Finnish abstract art. Through Lucander s art, I also examine the position of female artists in the tradition of Modernism as well as in the Finnish art world of the 1950s. This theoretical background is provided by the studies of feminist art historians, such as Marsha Meskimmon, Gill Perry, Griselda Pollock and Anne Middleton Wagner. Lucander s position in the male-dominated Finnish art scene of the 1950s, and how she achieved her position, emerges as one of the central themes of the study. I will also observe whether gender is evident in Lucander s art and expression, as well as her reception and critique compared to the reception of her male colleagues art. From a woman s point of view, I reveal the masculine rhetoric and gendered attitudes in the critique of the era. As a theoretical and methodological frame of reference, I use discourse analysis. Anitra Lucander encountered modernistic, international art movements during her journeys to Paris in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Her art evolved from the geometric Concretism of the early decade towards more delicate and painterly abstract expression. After the mid-1950s, she had developed her signature expression; through Cubism and a collage technique, she developed in her painting a delicate, coloristic imagery, which can be characterized as Lyrical Abstraction. Lucander did not consider abstract expression to be categorical, but saw the abstract and the nonfigurative as equals: the line between the abstract and the figurative is very often fleeting in her art. Already in her own time, Lucander achieved a position as one of the most talented young artists of her generation and her work was included in significant exhibitions. This success can definitely be attributed to the fact that she embraced Modernism in its extreme form, abstraction, already at the beginning of her career and networked with male painters who shared her outlook and modernistic expression. For her, this was either a conscious or an unconscious method of adapting to the male-dominated Finnish art field in the 1950s. In spite of acclaim and attention, Lucander had to encounter the gendered attitudes in the critique of the time, and her art was often perceived through stereotypical views as overly feminine and dependent. However, with her art, Lucander played an important role in the breakthrough for colorism and abstract art in Finland in the 1950s.

Juncal Ballestín: una creadora de "objetos con memoria" durante los años 80

[ES] La artista alavesa Juncal Ballestín desarrolla una obra caracterizada principalmente por sus referencias al arte objetual, el surrealismo y el arte povera. A partir de aquí, recaba su interés en la búsqueda de diversos objetos con una marcada memoria, es decir, objetos ya utilizados y que han recogido diferentes experiencias, pensamientos y vivencias de sus antiguos dueños, lo que proporciona a su producción escultórica una sólida base significativa, social y vivencial.

Arte concreta: racionalismo e abstração como contribuições para o design - um estudo na obra de Geraldo de Barros

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Poesia visual brasileira no contexto de crise

In this project, we tried to analyze, in a very short way, the relations between Brazilian Visual Poetry and a phenomenon in modern literature known as crises of the verse. In sequence, we tried to situate this poetry in a provisory category which the current criticism sees it as the contemporary Brazilian poetry. For sure, the Concretism and its esthetics deployments assured space for the visually in poetry.

ARTGEO: ensino interdisciplinar

The ARTGEO Project aimed at integrating science, art, and technology, emphasizing geometric elements which must be explored within the teaching process. Geometry, present in the most primitive civilizations, assists man in settling relationships and organizing his space. It has been clearly identified in human constructions, consisting of an important instrument of knowledge and domain of nature. The art, in its turn, can mediate the elaboration of knowledge, whether it is scientific, technical, or philosophical. Science and art are products that express the imaginary representations from distinct cultures. The Brazilian Concretism, for its relations with the geometry, is the period in art history chosen as reference. Technology was represented by the computational environments, as a didactic support and an instrument for the accomplishment of practical activities. Microsoft Word is one of the basic softwares for this proposal because of its easy access in most public schools.

Finismundo a última viagem e o périplo haroldiano

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Unfolding times, rediscovering gazes: a study of “Missy in the window” by Lula Cardoso Ayres

The aim of this paper is to make a reading of “Missy in the window” (s/d) by pernambuco artist Lula Cardoso Ayres (1910-1987). From the formal-geometric imagery repertoire typical of the 1940s and 1950s, when the Brazilian art, and even the work of Ayres, was heading to concretism, we read the gesture as an intrinsic element in the image. The theoretical foundation is made from the thought of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, in particular the text "Notes sure le geste", 1991, in which the "gesture" is the main reason of his reflections.