Artist under technocracy : Gyorgy Kepes and the Cold War avant-garde
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation explores the fraught relationship between art and science during the Cold War through the work of artist, designer, and visual theorist Gyorgy Kepes (1906-2001). Faced with a crisis of confidence in the contemporary relevance of the arts, Kepes cultivated collaborations with the sciences at Chicago's New Bauhaus and especially at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he taught from 1946 until his retirement in 1974. Kepes evocatively termed his interdisciplinary mission "interthinking" and "interseeing." This study examines the aesthetics and politics of these powerful, and still timely, ideas. It asks: Can the "two cultures"—art and science—actually work together for a common purpose? Or are they fundamentally incompatible, condemned to mutual skepticism of their respective motivations and methodologies? What is the purpose of art in a world dominated by science and technology? Scholars have previously described Kepes's ambitions as a reactionary glorification of the imagery and ideology of science. This study does not ignore the regressive associations of Kepes's work, but it also considers its progressive potential and provides a more nuanced, and conflicted, account of Kepes's contradictory practice. Using new archival evidence, this dissertation puts forth two major arguments. First, it demonstrates how Kepes developed a hitherto unrecognized paradigm for aesthetic practice in a scientific context: the "artist under technocracy." This figure operated within rather than against a scientific institution; seeking refuge, he retreated from the art studio to the research laboratory. Second, it situates Kepes as the major artistic figure within a startling constellation of experts engaged in sophisticated war and weapons research. While many artists renounced this technocratic culture—many also encouraged Kepes to do so—Kepes instead chose to remain part of it. He attempted to shift and shape this technocratic culture from a unique position under it. This study tracks these themes across four chronological chapters and examines Kepes's study of camouflage during World War II; his development of visual design at MIT in the 1950s; his work in the 1960s on an unfinished and unpublished magnum opus he called "The Light Book"; and the Center for Advanced Visual Studies that he founded at MIT in 1967. "Artist under Technocracy" provides a genealogy for interdisciplinary phenomena that are commonplace in both the academy and the art world today, such as the study of visual culture and the use of new media.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2016 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Blakinger, John R |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Art and Art History. |
| Primary advisor | Lee, Pamela M |
| Thesis advisor | Lee, Pamela M |
| Thesis advisor | Nemerov, Alexander |
| Thesis advisor | Troy, Nancy J |
| Thesis advisor | Turner, Fred |
| Advisor | Nemerov, Alexander |
| Advisor | Troy, Nancy J |
| Advisor | Turner, Fred |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | John R. Blakinger. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Art and Art History. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2016. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2016 by John Richard Blakinger
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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