What does “avant-garde” mean? In what way were the Futurists an “avant-garde”? What were their goals and techniques, aesthetically and politically? What was their attitude towards, or relationship with, modern industrial or media technologies? (For this and the next question, think about the values these movements stood for, the areas in which they attempted to act, and what kind of people or society they hoped to bring into existence.)
Similarly, in what way were the Russian and Soviet artists of the 1910s and 1920s an “avant-garde”? What were their goals and techniques, aesthetically and politically? What was their attitude towards, or relationship with, modern industrial or media technologies?
What was the role of women at the Bauhaus? How would you characterize their contribution to design culture at that time?
How would you characterize the contradicting legacies of the Bauhaus? How does expanding the history of the Bauhaus – whether in terms of the contribution of women, or encounters with non-European contexts – change how we see modernism today?
