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Chapter 6 of 10All chapters

Chapter 6 of 10

Modern art

Breaking the frame.

The early movements

Cubism fractured viewpoint, Futurism chased speed, Expressionism distorted for feeling, and Dada attacked the idea of art itself after the First World War.

  • Kandinsky, Mondrian and Malevich reached abstraction around 1910 to 1915.
  • Duchamp's readymades moved the question from making to choosing.

After 1945

Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Minimalism and Conceptual art each redefined what counted, shifting the centre of the art world from Paris to New York.