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August 09, 2003 Mulling Over Modernism From 1915 to 1929, American Modernist art went through an intense process of redefinition. Alfred Stieglitz and the cadre of artists shown at his New York gallery were partly banking on the latest aesthetic inventions and theories spawned in Europe to direct their work. This situation changed dramatically around 1915, when a number of artists arrived in New York... in particular, French artist Marcel Duchamp. In 1915, disappointed by the mainly nature-based abstraction he saw, Duchamp proclaimed in newspapers and magazines that American artists were too dependent on outmoded European traditions and had ignored far greater subjects… namely, the skyscraper and the machine. Duchamp’s comments set off a serious discussion that lasted right through 1929, prompting Stieglitz and his group to define what made their work innovative, original and American. The controversy that ensued from Duchamp’s reaction to the state of American art is the subject of Debating American Modernism: Stieglitz, Duchamp, and the New York Avant-Garde, an exhibit organized by the American Federation of Arts (AFA).
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