Clash of Idealogies over Avant-Garde and Modernism

Art historians tracked changes in, and compared nationalist rhetoric in modernism and avant-garde endeavors that was raised at an international symposium in Stockholm, The European Artistic Avant–Garde c. 1910–1930: Formations, Networks and Transnational Strategies. A workshop in November at the CAS Institute of Art History focused on one aspect of the avant-garde and modernism movements, namely, the clash with national, the transnational and the cosmopolitan forces. Beginning in the 19th century, countries of Central and Eastern Europe struggled for national independence that was achieved during and after World War I and had important cultural and artistic consequences. “The workshop served as a platform for rethinking the methodological tools used to understand and explain the complexity and the multiplicity of avant-garde forms in these regions of Europe, a subject that is still under-researched,” a workshop spokesperson said.