The colloquium introduces a methodolgy provisionally called Spatial Art History. It is actually part of the introductory chapter to a monograph titled From Constructive Space in Modern Art to a Spatial Art History. Reassessing Constructivism through Circle, which I have been writing during my Fellowship at Erfurt.
The monograph focuses on aesthetic theories of space in the first half of the twentieth century. Taking the book Circle edited by Naum Gabo, Ben Nicholson and Leslie Martin and published in 1937 as a springboard for avant-garde views on space, this book traces the relevance of space to modern art. On the basis of such conceptions and their limitations, the book develops a methodology based on recent theories which conceive of space as neither simply natural geography nor an empty container but as being produced (Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja and the Spatial Turn, but also Martina Löw). Provisionally termed ‘Spatial Art History’, it considers things in their spatio-temporal appearance (art works, books, etc) as the product and producer of society (artists, readers, spectators, etc), whereby society on the one hand and works as things on the other perform correlatively, advancing continously and multi-directionally (Bruno Latour and Gilles Deleuze). This performative act brings to the fore both, society and thing and is thought of as a spacing. This methodology will be applied to
Circle (1937), which has defined constructive art and theory in a way that already considers the art work as the producer of space.
The monograph focuses on aesthetic theories of space in the first half of the twentieth century. Taking the book Circle edited by Naum Gabo, Ben Nicholson and Leslie Martin and published in 1937 as a springboard for avant-garde views on space, this book traces the relevance of space to modern art. On the basis of such conceptions and their limitations, the book develops a methodology based on recent theories which conceive of space as neither simply natural geography nor an empty container but as being produced (Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja and the Spatial Turn, but also Martina Löw). Provisionally termed ‘Spatial Art History’, it considers things in their spatio-temporal appearance (art works, books, etc) as the product and producer of society (artists, readers, spectators, etc), whereby society on the one hand and works as things on the other perform correlatively, advancing continously and multi-directionally (Bruno Latour and Gilles Deleuze). This performative act brings to the fore both, society and thing and is thought of as a spacing. This methodology will be applied to
Circle (1937), which has defined constructive art and theory in a way that already considers the art work as the producer of space.
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