The radical gesture: art and avant-garde in the 20th century

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Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism... these movements revolutionized the art world at the beginning of the 20th century. But if there was one artist who broke the mold, it was Kandinsky.

On Wednesday, May 12, Estela Ocampo, PhD in Philosophy and Arts and professor of Art Theory at the Pompeu Fabra University, will review the early avant-garde of the twentieth century through artists such as Kandinsky and Estela Ocampo, essential figures in abstract art. 

During the first decade of the twentieth century, different artists and movements revolutionized the art scene that had prevailed until the mid-nineteenth century. Classicist naturalism -which had prevailed in European art for five centuries- was radically questioned, and anti-naturalism thus became a motto of avant-garde art. 

In this context, movements emerged with the desire to establish a new artistic paradigm and to replace old artistic structures with new and unprecedented ones, as well as with the intention of criticizing bourgeois society and admiring primitive civilizations.

Many of these avant-gardes also coincided with political movements that promoted radical social changes and transformations. This is the case of the Russian avant-garde, contemporary of the October Revolution.