This thesis focuses systematically on the phenomenon of collective housing which emerged in the late 1920s in the USSR, western Europe and also in Czechoslovakia. It concentrates mainly on Czechoslovak architectonic scene with a specific variant of ideas about collective housing, adopted largely due to an influential Czech theoretist Karel Teige. In the first chapter, the architectonic millieu of 1920s and 1930s is introduced; in this period, theprogram of "scientific" functionalism which is crucial for the rise of the concept of collective house, was formulated,. The following chapters summarize collective housing efforts in the USSR and Sweden as an influential sources for Czechoslovak architects. The next sections are dedicated to two collective houses built in Czechslovakia after WWII: one in Zlín and another in Litvínov. The whole text is concluded by a brief summary of how the idea of collective houses developed further in 1960s and by an interpretation of the phenomenon through the work of Pierre Bourdieu and David Harvey.

The diploma thesis De Stijl and Czech Avant-Garde Art of the 1920's and 1930's focuses on the Dutch art movement De Stijl (1917-1931) and the relationship of its protagonists to the Czech avant-garde scene of the inter-war era; both on the practical as well as theoretical level. The work aims to examine the as yet rather insufficiently mapped interconnection between the creative output of De Stijl's artists, led by the movement founder Theo van Doesburg, and the body of work of Czech artists active in the First Czechoslovak Republic period. The crucial part of the text is grounded in the works of Theo van Doesburg and Karel Teige, leading personalities of the inter-war art scene of the aforementioned countries. The thesis concentrates on selected thematic areas of their wide scope of interests: typography, film, Bauhaus and architecture.

The diploma thesis De Stijl and Avant-Garde Art in the Czechoslovakian Interwar Period focuses on the Dutch art movement De Stijl (1917-1931) and the relationship of its protagonists to the Czech avant-garde scene of the interwar era; both on the practical as well as theoretical level. The work aims to examine the yet rather insufficiently mapped interconnection between the creative output of De Stijl's artists, led by the movement founder Theo van Doesburg, and the body of work of Czech artists active in the First Czechoslovak Republic period. The figures of Theo van Doesburg and Karel Teige are prominent throughout the whole thesis. These two artists were considered as leading personalities and ambassadors of the avant-garde movements in their respective countries. The thesis focuses especially on architecture as the relations between the Dutch and Czech artists were the most salient and most intensive in this area.

This dissertation is a comparative study of the Russian and Czech avant-gardes and their responses to the crises of representation and artistic language in the first decades of the 20th century. In particular, it examines the theoretical and creative output of two artists who worked at the intersection of the word and image: the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and the visual artist Karel Teige. Both artists were central figures in the founding and theoretical articulation of Russian Futurism and Czech Poetism, respectively. The chapters trace these artists’ artistic evolutions, from their earliest conceptions of a crisis in art to the development of solutions for overcoming this crisis. The theoretical and creative output of these figures is examined both within the artists’ individual oeuvres, as well as in light of their respective artistic movements and the broader tendencies of the international avant-garde. Chapter 1 traces Mayakovsky’s response to the crisis from his initial impulse toward abstraction, characteristic of the Russian Cubo-Futurist movement in the verbal and visual arts more broadly, to the introduction of a political agenda into his art. On the basis of Mayakovsky’s participation in collective Futurist publications, his individually authored theoretical essays, and narrative poems, this chapter argues that the poet’s solution to the crisis of language coalesced around the possibility of realizing democratic representation in art. The chapter shows that in poems written between 1914 and 1921, Mayakovsky was concerned with the question of how to accommodate others’ voices in lyric poetry, how to allow them to speak in and through his works. His vision of a more democratic form of representation necessitated the poet’s metaphorical self-sacrifice, which he repeatedly performed in his poems on the level of plot. This sacrifice enabled him to realize his vision of democratic representation in the idea of collective authorship performed in his narrative poem 150,000,000. Chapter 2 highlights Karel Teige’s response to the crisis of artistic language and representation in his theoretical essays and artworks. By contrast to Mayakovsky’s politicized response, Teige prioritized formal innovation. More specifically, this chapter argues that Teige viewed the fusion of the word and image in a multimedia art form as a solution to the parallel crises that afflicted the visual and the verbal arts. This desired fusion remained a constant of Teige’s artistic solutions throughout the 1920s. His first attempts to overcome the crisis are contained in the Poetist conception of “image poetry,” which incorporated words, painted images, photographs, and other materials. The photograph, understood as a direct imprint of reality, introduced the element of the real into image poetry and thereby transfigured the word and image. After image poetry, Teige went on to replay his formal solution to the crisis of representation in another fused form—the typophoto, which was integrated into the experimental multimedia book ABCs (1926). The introduction and conclusion frame these case studies in terms of the broader trends that inform the artistic experiments of these figures. More specifically, the introductory chapter grapples with questions of how the crisis of language and representation at the turn of the 20th century can be conceptualized. Arguing that the artistic experimentation of the 1910s and the 1920s represents a continuity of what Foucault calls the modern episteme, the introduction at the same time seeks to address the fissures and breaks represented by abstraction in art and the proto-structuralist understanding of the sign in linguistics. The conclusion addresses the role of figurative language in the articulation of the crisis and maintains that while the language of crisis was productive for artistic experiment, it confined the avant-garde to perpetual renewal of forms and artistic language.

Thesis (Doctoral) -- İzmir Institute of Technology, İzmir, 2006. / Keywords: natural sciences, instrumentalisation, inter war period. Includes bibliographical references (p. 162-172).

The thesis deals with the issue of linking visual representation of a literary work of art, especially with the connection of Karel Teige typographical book envelopes to the poetry collections of Czech authors of the first half of the twentieth century. It focuses on the period of Czech avant-garde and new possibilities and limits of genre, artistic and semiotic definition. Attention is also devoted to contemporary anthology, professional journals and articles, especially by Karel Teig's production, in which he illustrates his concept of modern art. It also includes the marketing and aesthetic-educational character of visual imagery in literature for children and youth.

Aim of this work is to make a comparison of three generations (1918 - 1989) of discourse art theorists and to point to their similarity. Specifically, the main personalities and spokespersons of Czech avant-garde art and underground, who are Karel Teige, Vladimír Boudník, Egon Bondy, Milan Knížák and Ivan Martin Jirous. This work analyses the content the interpretive models which are contained in the manifestos and manifestations text (Chapter 2) and reconstruction experience and feeling of historical avant-gards based on work with ego-documents (Chapter 3). The result of this analysis is a description of the differences (and dynamics) of development of avant-garde, but especially characteristic of avant-garde and underground mental world. The analysis shows that the artistic avant-garde (Teige) and underground (Jirous, Knížák), as well as the second generation standing on the edge of the avant-garde and underground (Boudník, Bondy) show great similarity with many common features. Individual features common to the avant-garde and underground are summarized in the conclusion. Key words avant-garde, underground, czech art, manifest, feeling, Karel Teige, Vladimír Boudník, Egon Bondy, Milan Knížák, Ivan Martin Jirous

Univerzita Karlova v Praze Filozofická fakulta Ústav české literatury a literární vědy Diplomová práce Petra Bílková KONEC KARNEVALU poetismus na přelomu 20. a 30. let THE END OF THE CARNIVAL Poetism on the verge of the 1930s Praha 2012 Vedoucí práce: doc. PhDr. Jan Wiendl, Ph.D. Abstract In the first half of the 1920's, in the Czech avant-garde, a new art began to form - Poetism. On the basis of individual manifests and programmatic articles it was defined as modus vivendi. In the 1920's many principles and ideas were shaping the future, not only for the society, but also for the artistic movements. Poetism featured mainly an original concept of art and life; the authors of theoretical articles were mainly Karel Teige and Vítězslav Nezval. Within a few years the concept of life as a careless game and a source of joy faded and bitter- sweet topics began to penetrate Poetism. At this time, the poetics of Poetism changed from the original cheerfulness and everyday beauty to serious existential topics - the evidence is provided by many works of art. This transformation affected poetry the most. In poems made by authors, who came out of Poetism, inspiration thereby gathered is still evident; however, more serious issues are coming to the fore. Each of those poems expresses a distinct reconciliation with the...

Dissertation Abstract Introduction to the conceptual basis of Vratislav Effenberger's thought (Dialectics of the genesis of the concept of idea models) Mgr. Šimon Svěrák The thesis introduces a reader to the basic aspects of the theoretical system of Vratislav Effenberger, the main theoretician of post-war Czech surrealism. It does so through the construction of a developmental dialectic of the main concepts of Effenberger's work of the 1960s, which culminates in the concept of so-called idea models. In this period, Effenberger primarily addresses the question of the nature of the existential forms of the concept of total meaning in the post-war social and psychological situation. He formulates his reflections as a critical reassessment of the theoretical legacy of Karl Teige and a question of the possibility of further continuity of the Surrealist worldview. The thesis demonstrates that Effenberger first rejects the notion of ultimate meaning, through which psychosocial reality can be grasped as a meaningful whole, and replaces it with a notion of conflict. However, the internal logic of his theoretical system gradually leads him to the conclusion that human consciousness cannot exist without the idea of ultimate meaning and that such meaning exists only in the form of the idea model. The idea model is...

The content of the thesis is the surrealistic object and its reflection among the czech theorists. The first part of the thesis describes the problematic of surrealistic object and subject-objective relations in surrealism. Breton's philosophical approach is introduced, as well as his concept of object's crisis. The first part also outlines the meaning of found object, concept of convulsive beauty and Dali's paranoic-critical method as a source of surrealistic imagery. The second part of the thesis is focused on the reflection of surrealistic object presentation and on relations between arts and reality according to the concepts of Jan Mukařovský. The third part of the thesis is dedicated to conceptualization of aesthetics of Bohuslav Brouk in the light of surrealism. In this part the scope of Brouk's understanding of subject-objective relations is briefly described, as well his interpretation of surrealistic object.The last part of the thesis outlines the Teige's conception of surrealistic work in the terms of the sources of surrealistic imagination.