The 1939 New York International Exhibition: Art, Architecture and Politics in the Failure of the 'World of Tomorrow'
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22530/ayc.2013.N3.1.286Keywords:
20th Century Art, 1939, New York, World’s Fair, A rtistic Politics, Spanish PavilionAbstract
The New York World’s Fair opened in April 1939 with the aim of becoming a symbol of world peace for the countries that were looking for knowledge and respect among each other. With this objective, the American city pursued being the meeting place for the modern nations. Nevertheless, this statemen t coincided in a context where the strongest differences among opposite ideologies soo n lead to the outbreak of the Second World War. The present paper analyses this i nternational event, where the most leading trends of architecture, plastic and pe rformance arts, media, technology and leisure were mixed. It studies the staging of a utopian map where to measure the strengths, both in the artistic and architectonic p rojects of cancelled pavilions, as well as in the participation of the main powers. The cas e of the Spanish Second Republic is analysed in its context. Although the World’s Fair obtained a great success and focused the international attention, the ideas abou t the city and the world of tomorrow in peace immediately failed. Art, propaganda, artistic politics and war were involved on the stage of the failure of utopia.Downloads
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