Frederick Kiesler: Artist, architect, visionary--a study of his work and writing. (Volumes I and II).
Item
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Title
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Frederick Kiesler: Artist, architect, visionary--a study of his work and writing. (Volumes I and II).
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Identifier
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AAI9009780
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identifier
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9009780
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Creator
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Sgan-Cohen, Michael Samuel.
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Contributor
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Adviser: E. C. Goossen
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Date
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1989
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Architecture | Fine Arts | Education, Art
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Abstract
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This study takes a comprehensive look at the little known work of a versatile artist with a complex mind who produced a considerable amount of work including writing. It offers to make it accessible on a descriptive, critical and interpretive level.;Kiesler (1880-1965), a European Jew, studied in Vienna where he was active to the middle 1920s. He left for Paris in 1925 and then moved to the United States in 1926. He was a member of De Stijl, although he developed his own ideas. He was as interested in spherical forms and the spiral, as he was in De Stijl's cubicals. His 1924 Space-stage, built in Vienna, was a spiral construction--a stage as set, and his 1925 City in Space, created in Paris, was a suspended, elementarist, multi-cubical model of a future city. He had great expectations from America, but it was not open to his grand designs, such as a Universal Theater or an Endless House. He did, however, build the Film Guild Cinema in New York in 1928. In the 1930s he intensified his interest in design as related to technology and commerce. He designed stores and store windows, planned multi-media innovative department stores, and wrote a book titled Contemporary Art Applied to the Store and Its Display, published in 1930. He developed his theory of Correalism--an interdisciplinary issue-oriented and comprehensive design strategy, not a style. It insisted on integrating mental, psychological, even cultural elements into any sound design. Kiesler's connection with Marcel Duchamp was important and qualifies his integration with Surrealism in the 1940s. A high point was Kiesler's design of Art of This Century gallery in New York in 1942, a major project within the meager chapter of Surrealist architecture. From the early 1950s to his death Kiesler revived his conception of the galaxy--an open, relational conception of painting, or sculpture. Thus he made some of America's earliest environmental works of art. He also further developed models of the Endless House--a cornerless shell building and a unique specimen in modern architectural history. His late work is a unique coordination of formal and spiritual elements. He made the Last Judgement, 1955-1963, an environmental sculpture and Us You Me, an environmental galaxy installation (unfinished when he died). His Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem, 1965, stands for much he thought and accomplished.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
