Sarah Richter reviews The Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World, at Tate Britain
20/06/2011
The Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World | Neeta Madahar & Madame Yevonde | Tate Britain, London Review by Sarah Richter for Aesthetica Magazine Blog
Vorticism was a British Avant Garde movement that occurred simultaneously with WWI and although the summer exhibition at the Tate Britain, the Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World, contains work that exhibits infusions from Cubism, Primitivism and Futurism, the Vorticists main aim was to break with and challenge the objectives of the aforementioned groups. The Vorticists were concerned with achieving the recognition that Britain deserved in the art world. Long overlooked as a centre for artistic production, London was seen as not having any sort of artistic predilection, and if any, much lower than that of heart of artistic innovation, Paris.
The movement, whose name was coined by American poet Ezra Pound, was a rejection of the propriety that defined Edwardian England and embraced the radical changes of the modern world. Voritcism, was led by the British artist Wyndham Lewis and encompassed more than just art but also writers, poets and sculptors.
The exhibition is chronologically arranged with the viewer’s introduction to Vorticism being the piece that started it all: Jacob Epstein’s Rock Drill (1913-14). The sculpture is comprised of an androgynous figure that seems to be caught between a knight in armour and a human. There is something reminiscent of an insect come to life, or some science experiment gone wrong as the figure sits atop a machine gun, operating it like a drill bit. The figure straddles the machine which is situated on a tripod base and commands the attention of the viewer. The presence of the figure is eerie, overwhelming and yet... [read the full article on the Aesthetica Magazine Blog].
Image: Dorothy Shakespear, Composition in Blue and Black (1914 – 15), Emerson Art Gallery Hamilton College. Courtesy Estate of Omar S. Pound.
The Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World continues at Tate Britain until 4 September.
Sarah Richter is a candidate for the MA in Art History at Richmond the American International University in London.
Aesthetica engages with contemporary art, contextualising it within the larger cultural framework. For further information, please visit the Aesthetica Magazine website.
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