David Ebony— An eccentric heiress with an all-consuming passion for avant-garde art and artists, Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) just happened to change the course of 20th-century art during her tumultuous lifetime. She befriended, sometimes bedded, and often financially supported some of the most important artists and writers of her day. She
Published earlier this year, Tatiana Flores’s groundbreaking new book Mexico’s Revolutionary Avant-Gardes: From Estridentismo to ¡30-30! offers an insightful narrative about the early-20th-century movement that came to be known as the Mexican Renaissance. Thanks to her extensive research in previously unpublished archival materials, she is able to paint a
Even for those who speak German, the word Merz may be difficult to translate. Coined in 1919 by the avant-garde artist Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948), Merz is more of an idea than an object; more of an approach to art than art itself. A truncated version of the German word for