The Great Upheaval: Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Collection, 1910-1918 exhibit made its only stop outside of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of New York at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). The vibrant art collection features the leading artists of the twentieth century: Pablo Picasso, Henri Rousseau, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Marc Chagall, Vasily Kandinsky, and many others.
The exhibit, comprising 70 works in total, embodies a testament of storytelling through art, which unknowingly shaped the work of future generations. This Pan-European movement consisted of artists from ten countries coming together to break down the barriers of traditional art.
The exhibit is organized chronologically, beginning with the precursors such as Gauguin and Cézanne, and ending with the works that were produced during World War I. Walking through the timeline of the exhibit, visitors see works of artist such as Picasso’s Reoccur — allowing first-hand observations of the evolution of the artist’s absract style.
In an interview with The Varsity, David Wistow, the interpretive planner and art history expert at the AGO, explains that with a technological revolution occurring overnight, European countries went from having no means of long-distance communication and transportation to seeing the first telephones, radios, cars, trains and airplanes. In turn, this triggered a great sense of exhilaration, creativity, and innovation across the continent within a blink of an eye. For the first time in history, this leap in innovation, specifically in communication, allowed for the creation of networks between artists from all corners of Europe.
Art could now be moved around and artists in Milan could see work of artists from Paris.
Inevitably, not all fairy tales have happy endings. The numerous innovations led to the creation of a consumer society. Disenchanted by this reality, artists wanted to free themselves from these materialistic ways, and indeed, the artists found gateways to mentally escape this reality by collaborating together, creating never-before-seen art forms. This energy was consequently reduced to shreds overnight in the wake of the First World War. The last room of the exhibit is characterized by the years of the war, from 1914 to 1918. The art that came out of these years is astonishing, covering a surprisingly wide spectrum of themes — from vibrant and colorful pieces illustrating the sounds of the weapons, to injured and disembodied self-portraits of the artists as soldiers themselves.
Tracey Bashkoff, the chief curator of the collection and exhibit, claims that because of the “strong connections between these iconic works, the exhibition kind of curated itself.” As Bashkoff explains: “Artists banded together in groups, a phenomenon that not only increased the artists’ chance of public exposure through collective exhibitions, but also encouraged greater experimentation and facilitated means of interchange.” As I paced through the grand rooms, it was both fascinating and intriguing to observe the change and the growth of the artists, apparent in their art throughout these eight groundbreaking years.
The new pace of life and interconnectedness introduced between 1910-1920 allowed artists to pioneer a range of styles, from cubism and futurism, to abstract art — transforming traditional subjects through varied coloration. The sky really was the limit for these game-changers as they engaged in experimentation.
I encourage you to explore this period of exciting political, social, and technological change, as I did. It allows one to look back from a modern perspective and observe the impact these works had on the course of twentieth century art and life.
The Great Upheaval: Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Collection 1910-1918 is at the Art Gallery of Ontario until March 2, 2014.
