German Expressionism: Der Blaue Reiter and its legacies

Description

This book presents new research on the histories and legacies of the German Expressionist group Blaue Reiter, the founding force behind modernist abstraction. For the first time Blaue Reiter is subjected to a variety of novel inter-disciplinary perspectives, ranging from a philosophical enquiry into its language and visual perception to analyses of its gender dynamics, its reception at different historical junctures throughout the twentieth century and its legacies for post-colonial aesthetic practices. The volume offers a new perspective on familiar aspects of Expressionism and abstraction, taking seriously the inheritance of modernism for the twenty-first century in ways that will help to recalibrate the field of Expressionist studies for future scholarship. Blaue Reiter still matters, the contributors argue, because the legacies of abstraction are still being debated by artists, writers, philosophers and cultural theorists today. Front Matter Dedication Contents List of figures List of contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: why does Der Blaue Reiter still matter? Is Der Blaue Reiter relevant for the twenty-first century? A discussion of anarchism, art and politics The dynamics of gendered artistic identity and creativity in Der Blaue Reiter The ‘primitive’ and the modern in Der Blaue Reiter almanac and the Folkwang Museum The ‘savages’ of Germany: a reassessment of the relationship between Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke Kleinkunst and Gesamtkunstwerk in Munich and Zurich: Der Blaue Reiter and Dada Type/Face: Wassily Kandinsky and Walter Benjamin on language and perception Feeling blue: Der Blaue Reiter, Francophilia and the Tate Gallery, 1960 Die Tunisreise: the legacy of Der Blaue Reiter in the art of Paul Klee and Nacer Khemir Index