Radio Free History

After World War 2, the art world leaned into Abstract Expressionism, and most realistic styles were demoted to a lower status in prestige circles. We look at the cultural context of New York in the years 1946-1960 to see why that happened.https://www.subscribestar.com/radio-free-historyhttps://ko-fi.com/radiofreehistory

How Art Got Ugly continues as we look at propaganda from World War 2. In school, we were taught about the world we live in, but how much of it is really an illusion, carefully curated in the 1940s?

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How Art Got Ugly continues as we move into the 1940s, and examine how mainstream American Art went from American Gothic to Jackson Pollock in less than 20 years. We take side jaunts to look at the legacies of Nelson Rockefeller, Peggy Guggenheim, Hans Hofmann, John Graham, and the Museum of Modern Art.

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We finish our survey of 1930s art by looking at architecture. We look at the evolution of Modernist architecture, and we look at the ideological architecture of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. We also take a detour to look at the 1937 Paris Expo.

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After a decade of radical aesthetics in the 1920s, art of the 30s went back to being figurative, not least because it made for better propaganda for dictators in need of it. We look at Socialist Realism in Stalinist Russia, and the aesthetics of Nazi Germany.

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Intro:  Ska Revolution by DavidKBD (Shared under CC BY 4.0)
Outro: Skank the Summer by DavidKBD (Shared under CC BY 4.0)

Kruptos joins us for a long discussion about the decline of Rome, and what parallels, if any, we see in the world as the 20th century geopolitical order seems to be crumbling.

Find Kruptos's writing and podcast at https://www.seekingthehiddenthing.com/

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How Art Got Ugly continues, as we move from the Modernist aesthetics of the 1920s to the more conservative and realistic art of the 1930s. https://www.subscribestar.com/radio-free-history https://ko-fi.com/radiofreehistory

Gio joins RFH to talk about Futurism and art from 100 years ago, why some of it was profound, and the ways in which it remains relevant to the culture of today. We talk about culture on every level, from philosophy to internet memes.

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A continuation of the last episode, as we finish our deep dive into 1920s Paris's avant garde. We look at the Purists, the Surrealists, Art Deco, the 1925 Expo, and the legacy of 1920s Paris on modern aesthetics and architecture. https://www.subscribestar.com/radio-free-history https://ko-fi.com/radiofreehistory