Danish Avant-Garde and World War II - The Helhesten Collective

This is the first book to focus on Helhesten (The Hell-Horse), an avant-garde artists' collective active during the Nazi occupation of Denmark and one of the few tangible connections between radical European art groups from the 1920s to the 1960s. The Danes' deliberately unskilled painterly abstraction, embrace of the tradition of dansk folkelighed (the popular) and its iterations of egalitarianism and consensus reform, called for the political relevance of art and interrogated the ideologies underlying culture itself. The group's cultural activism presents an alternative trajectory of continuity, which challenges the customary view of World War II as a moment of artistic rupture.

List of contents

Introduction; 1 Dansk Modernisme Reconsidered; 2 "What about Culture?" Interwar Politics, Art Criticism, and Experimental Art; 3 Helhesten and the War; 4 The New Realism; 5 Spring Is Here: 13 Artists in a Tent; Conclusion: Thank You for Being with Us

About the author

Kerry Greaves is Mads Øvlisen Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Art History in the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Summary

This is the first book to focus on Helhesten (The Hell-Horse), an avant-garde artists’ collective active during the Nazi occupation of Denmark and one of the few tangible connections between radical European artists’ groups from the 1920s through to the 1960s.

Report

"This work complicates histories of resistance activity under National Socialist occupation both in Denmark and in general through its nuanced reading of the ideology, publishing activities, and exhibition practices of the artists' collective Helhesten. Dr. Greaves illuminates the group's brilliant and strategic uses of Danish history, symbolism, and values, as well as the cultural aesthetics of the Nazi occupiers, in their cultural work between 1941 and 1945."
--Patricia G. Berman, Wellesley College

Product details

• Authors: Kerry Greaves, Kerry (University of Copenhagen) Greaves, Greaves Kerry
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 21.01.2023
• EAN: 9781032475738
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3247573-8
• No. of pages: 238
• Series: Routledge Research in Art and Politics
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > General, dictionaries; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, Denmark, Theory of art, European History, ART / History / General, ART / European, ART / History / Modern (late 19th Century to 1945), ART / Art & Politics, ART / Collections, Catalogs, Exhibitions / Group Shows, History of art / art & design styles, Politics & government, c 1500 onwards to present day, History of Art, Second World War, Politics and government, Modern warfare, c 1940 to c 1949, History and Archaeology, HISTORY / Wars & Conflicts / World War II / General, HISTORY / Europe / Nordic Countries