The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris

"This book reshapes our understanding of the art-into-life ambitions of the European avant-gardes. Early twentieth-century artists' desire to abandon traditional forms of art making (easel painting, sculpture), exit established venues for art viewing (the gallery, the Salon), and integrate directly with life has been intimately tied to the definition of the historical avant-garde. Reorienting the typical focus on Soviet Constructivism and Berlin Dada, Rachel Silveri examines the art-into-life projects of a range of multinational practitioners living and working in interwar Paris. All were concerned with ethical questions--"How should I live?" "How should I relate to others?" "What is a good life?"-that they sought to address beyond the canvas and the page, using their bodies, identities, and social interactions as material to redesign and remake. With chapters exploring Tristan Tzara's performances of a Dadaist identity, Sonia Delaunay's fashions and self-branding, and the collective endeavor to operate the Surrealist Research Bureau, this book traces how an "art of living" developed against normative types of "lifestyle" in France between 1910 and 1930. As Dada becomes an identity, Simultanism becomes a business, and Surrealism becomes a workplace, ethical practices of self-making converge with issues of gender, ethnicity, and ways of relating to others, yielding a new narrative of the avant-garde endeavor to merge art and life"-- Provided by publisher.