On her book Four Metaphors of Modernism: From Der Sturm to the Société Anonyme
Cover Interview of May 21, 2018
The wide angle
The book argues for a new paradigm: only in considering Der
Sturm and the Société Anonyme together, can we grasp the extent of their
respective influences on Euro-American modernism; both decenter Paris as the
capital of modern art. I also argue for the unacknowledged centrality of
metaphor in modern art through an exploration of four recurrent metaphors that
shape the realm of possibility of art in these intertwined networks.
Consideration of metaphor returns allusion and the real to modernist abstraction—a
field long thought to be pure and devoid of reference. This re-envisioned modernism,
in turn, is more feminine, intermedial, and relational than has been previously
understood; the modernist principle of masculine, medium-specific autonomy all
but disappears here.
How did such a book come about? My dissertation, followed by
my first book, Paul Klee and the Decorative in Modern Art, pointed me
toward this project. I was interested in Klee’s early career, and I learned at the
Sturm archive at the State Library of Berlin that it took off under Walden’s
tutelage in the 1910s. At the same time, I was impressed by the immensity of
the Sturm collection, which I was fairly certain had not been studied
thoroughly by scholars writing in English. Many years later, I had my hands
full studying Der Sturm alone when I discovered its ties to the Société Anonyme.
I felt these connections were imperative to pursue, especially because the
American angle might appeal to American readers. The addition of the Société
Anonyme added a few years to this book’s writing, but I think it tells such a
rich story that it was worth it. Indeed, the extra time allowed the metaphors I
kept coming across to crystallize in my mind, such that I decided to eschew a
conventional historical narrative and, instead, frame each section with a
pressing metaphor (which is to say that there were others that felt less urgent
and did not make the cut).
Spontaneous generation is one of those wrong theories that clutter the basements of the biological sciences and that now look so very obviously wrong that it is hard to see how anyone could have taken them seriously in the first place. Why wouldn’t it occur to anyone that flies might be laying eggs that were too small for us to see? How simple would the crucial experiment be? What I have tried to do in much of my work is to turn this ‘obvious wrongness’ on its head—why, exactly, does it seem so obviously wrong?—and see what the new picture that emerges from that inquiry says about science and our belief in its results.Daryn Lehoux, Interview of November 13, 2017
It’s commonplace to say that humor is subjective, since what’s funny to you might not be funny to me. But humor is also a loaded concept. If you – or your people – have no sense of humor, or the wrong one, that means you’re less rational, tolerant, understanding, or civilized. You don’t get it. Or, worse, you lack something human. Modern Chinese debates about humor were very much caught up with these fundamental questions of value.Christopher Rea, Interview of October 26, 2016
The wide angle
The book argues for a new paradigm: only in considering Der Sturm and the Société Anonyme together, can we grasp the extent of their respective influences on Euro-American modernism; both decenter Paris as the capital of modern art. I also argue for the unacknowledged centrality of metaphor in modern art through an exploration of four recurrent metaphors that shape the realm of possibility of art in these intertwined networks. Consideration of metaphor returns allusion and the real to modernist abstraction—a field long thought to be pure and devoid of reference. This re-envisioned modernism, in turn, is more feminine, intermedial, and relational than has been previously understood; the modernist principle of masculine, medium-specific autonomy all but disappears here.
How did such a book come about? My dissertation, followed by my first book, Paul Klee and the Decorative in Modern Art, pointed me toward this project. I was interested in Klee’s early career, and I learned at the Sturm archive at the State Library of Berlin that it took off under Walden’s tutelage in the 1910s. At the same time, I was impressed by the immensity of the Sturm collection, which I was fairly certain had not been studied thoroughly by scholars writing in English. Many years later, I had my hands full studying Der Sturm alone when I discovered its ties to the Société Anonyme. I felt these connections were imperative to pursue, especially because the American angle might appeal to American readers. The addition of the Société Anonyme added a few years to this book’s writing, but I think it tells such a rich story that it was worth it. Indeed, the extra time allowed the metaphors I kept coming across to crystallize in my mind, such that I decided to eschew a conventional historical narrative and, instead, frame each section with a pressing metaphor (which is to say that there were others that felt less urgent and did not make the cut).