Engineer, Agitator, Constructor: The Artist Reinvented - by Jodi Hauptman & Adrian Sudhalter (Hardcover)

About the Book

"How the modernist avant-gardes from Dada to constructivism reconceived their roles, working as propagandists, advertisers, publishers, graphic designers, curators and more, to create new visual languages for a radically changed world. "We regarded ourselves as engineers, we maintained that we were building things...we put our works together like fitters." So declared the artist Hannah Hèoch, describing a radically new approach to artmaking in the 1920s and '30s. Such wholesale reinvention of the role of the artist and the functions of art took place in lockstep with that era's shifts in industry, technology, and labor, and amid the profound impact of momentous events: World War I, the Russian Revolution, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the rise of fascism. Highlighting figures such as Aleksandr Rodchenko, Lyubov Popova, John Heartfield, Marianne Brandt, and Frâe Cohen, Engineer, Agitator, Constructor: The Artist Reinvented demonstrates the ways in which artists reimagined their roles to create a dynamic art for a new world. These "engineers," "agitators," "constructors," "photomonteurs," "workers" - all designations adopted by the artists themselves - turned away from traditional forms of painting and sculpture and invented new visual languages. Central among them was photomontage, in which photographs and images from newspapers and magazines were cut, remixed, and pasted together. Working as propagandists, advertisers, publishers, editors, theater designers, and curators, these artists engaged with expanded audiences in novel ways, establishing distinctive infrastructures for presenting and distributing their work. Published in conjunction with a major exhibition, Engineer, Agitator, Constructor celebrates the recent transformative addition to MoMA's holdings from the Merrill C. Berman Collection, one of the great private collections of early-twentieth-century political art and design. Essays by eminent scholars, conservators, artists, and poets consider the era's revolutionary art forms, such as photomontage and the New Typography; the essential role of women in the avant-garde; and the networks linking these artists across geographic and ideological borders. The exhibition presents the social engagement, fearless experimentation, and utopian aspirations that defined the early 20th century, and how these strategies still reverberate today"--Taken from publisher description.

Book Synopsis

How the modernist avant-gardes from Dada to constructivism reconceived their roles, working as propagandists, advertisers, publishers, graphic designers, curators and more, to create new visual languages for a radically changed world

"We regarded ourselves as engineers, we maintained that we were building things ... we put our works together like fitters." So declared the artist Hannah Höch, describing a radically new approach to artmaking in the 1920s and '30s. Such wholesale reinvention of the role of the artist and the functions of art took place in lockstep with that era's shifts in industry, technology, and labor, and amid the profound impact of momentous events: World War I, the Russian Revolution, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the rise of fascism. Highlighting figures such as Aleksandr Rodchenko, Liubov Popova, John Heartfield and Fré Cohen, and European avant-gardes of the interwar years--Dada, the Bauhaus, futurism, constructivism and de Stijl--Engineer, Agitator, Constructor: The Artist Reinvented demonstrates the ways in which artists reimagined their roles to create a dynamic art for a new world.

These "engineers," "agitators," "constructors," "photomonteurs," "workers"--all designations adopted by the artists themselves--turned away from traditional forms of painting and sculpture and invented new visual languages. Central among them was photomontage, in which photographs and images from newspapers and magazines were cut, remixed, and pasted together. Working as propagandists, advertisers, publishers, editors, architects, theater designers and curators, these artists engaged with expanded audiences in novel ways, establishing distinctive infrastructures for presenting and distributing their work.

Published in conjunction with a major exhibition, Engineer, Agitator, Constructor marks the transformative addition to MoMA from the Merrill C. Berman Collection, one of the great private collections of political art. Illuminating the essential role of women in avant-garde activities while mapping vital networks across Europe, this richly illustrated book presents the social engagement, fearless experimentation and utopian aspirations that defined the early 20th century, and how these strategies still reverberate today.

Review Quotes

Engineer, Agitator, Constructor: The Artist Reinvented, at the Museum of Modern Art, explores the ways, in the 1920s and '30s, adventurous art was put into the service of politics and social change in Soviet Russia, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and elsewhere in Europe.--Karen Wilkin "Wall Street Journal"

Superabundant and full of eye-opening creative churn.--Rachel Saltz "New York Times"

The scope is encyclopedic, surveying a time when individuals sacrificed their artistic independence to ideological programs of mass appeal [...]That needn't constitute a failure. It may be a clear-eyed choice made on principle.--Peter Schjeldahl "New Yorker"

Looks at the reinvention of the role of the artist and the functions of art that took place in tandem with historical shifts in industry, technology. and labor amidst the impact of World War I...-- "Architectural Record"

Stunning rarely seen images and a well-constructed text about known and lesser known artists and works of the early twentieth-century avant-garde help shape this exhibition catalog [... ]the overall book manages to convey a cohesive picture of the collection, movements, and artists represented ...made art for a changing world through activism, agitation, propaganda, use of technological innovations, advertising, and marketing.--Barbara Ann Opar "ARLIS/NA Reviews"