You just never know from where (or when) the inspiration for blog posts will strike. Last week my Second-in-Command (a.k.a. Josh) and I became embroiled in a heated debate concerning the Art Deco movement and the degree to which it has influenced countless facets of everyday life. Fortunately thanks to the intervention of our better halves (Maddie and Desiree) we narrowly avoided coming to blows, managing to eventually reach a compromise.

Once the proverbial dust had settled, I got thinking, and so in an attempt to give you, our reader, some content besides our usual witty remarks, shameless self promotion and rambling ramblings, here’s some food for thought on a genre that underpins much of what we know as modernity.  If you’ve ever wondered what happened between the days of horses & carts and motorcars, if you’re not sure how WWI & II were in any way related to the subdivision of Africa, and if you’re wondering what any of this has to do with Art Deco, please read on…

People use a lot of different terms and terminologies to describe Electric Firefly, from funky to retro to punk.  The descriptions are endless really, some offering “classic” and others “modern”. The Generation Y set, now they’re decorating their own homes, like to invoke the oldest possible thing they can possibly ever imagine and define them as “80’s”… so that 80’s chic has become 80’s sik (sic).  They also use words like “chronic” and “hectic” when they really mean “cool“.

Electric Firefly Electric Firefly hopes to uphold and share its interest in the philosophy of Art Deco, which was not of itself a design movement, but the product of eighteenth century industrialisation and the increase in technology, trade and travel it provided.  The conception of modernity and social self-awareness began the historical shift towards mass production, consumerism and short-short-life popular culture.  The art & design of the era was retrospectively collated, associated and dubbed Art Deco in the 1960’s by an art critic, who defined it a series of progressive steps in the development of art, architecture, communication and fashions, prompted by economic forces like The Depression and social ones such as colonialism and The First World War.

For me, identification with Art Deco relies on the use of pre-electronic technologies and early industrial processes to create something useful, affordable and beautiful.  It has to be practical and make you think of words like “form” and “function”, but above all, beautiful.  So here is the first of maybe 4 or 5 posts through which I hope to tell you everything I know about Art Deco, through its development and appearance in art and design, what it is and what it represents.  I learnt about it from the exhibition Art Deco: 1910-1939 from London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, which I saw at the NGV in Melbourne in 2008.

I’d also like to propose the inception of the “Art D’Eco” movement that continues this philosophy into the new millennium with a heavy emphasis on environmental sustainability.  But first, let’s go back in tiiiimmmme (cue wavy dream sequence)…

Part 1 – A Brief Historical Background

Although the term “Art Deco” was coined in the 1960’s, it refers to the development of modernity in art and design between the Belle Epoche of the late 19th century and the post-1945 restructuring of Europe and the world.  That generation saw the last colonies of the Spanish Empire fall to the rising US Empire; it saw World War, The Communist Revolution and Great Depression.  Europe’s nobility were being assassinated left, right and centre, and Mussolini carpet bombed Ethiopia to incite nationalist fervour in Italy.

This is widely known as the Modern period, where progress and the future were central to European ambitions and which was, arguably, humanity’s second lowest ebb (the lowest being the Big Brother ‘phenomenon’).  Modernity loomed overwhelmingly in the minds of people at the turn of the twentieth century as the new millennium brought with it some anxieties and fear.  Just as the 1990’s saw a popular turn back to nature, the outdoors, rock climbing and the deconstruction of fashion (flannelette shirts, black) of the outrageous 80’s fashions (shoulder pads, fluro/hypercolour), popular culture in the 1890’s swayed back to Classicism in the hope of reliving a simpler, pre-modern life that was fast falling to the machinations of modernity and globalisation.  Societal self-awareness gave to nineteenth-century kitsch what Roseanne Barr gave to twentieth century cynicism.  Colonisation was the policy of European powers and the exploitation of less powerful peoples became a matter of good government.

As the national treasures and cultural identities of India, Africa and most of Southeast Asia became the property and playthings of Europe, people began to dream of a lost, more omantic, pre-industrialised existence.  Europeans were losing a vital connection to their own histories as modernity began to homogenise cultures into markets.  Art that was inaccessible to the common man was knocked off on the cheap and Michelangelo turned in his grave.  Cheap copies of Egyptian artefacts came into vogue that, with time, became concrete sculptures of Greek goddesses once carved out of marble.  It is really interesting when you think that the contentious contemporary issue of copyright piracy, downloading and “flattering replicas” of designs that people have worked really hard and spent lots of money to develop, pause, began at the time when piracy on the high seas was all but eradicated, temporarily.  Yes, now pirates carry machine guns and yes, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ made it cool again, but buying cheap, low-quality fake brand name stuff is not cool.

The increase of women working in factories during WWI lead Coco Chanel to create the pantsuit (based on the sexy boilersuit look that now only appears in calendars in mechanics’ workshops the world over) and the “La Garçonne” style of short bobbed haircuts and a demure, tomboy look.  In contrast to her later creations of bejewelled elegance, La Garçonne urged gender equality by appropriated masculine utility with a feminine twist.  In technical talk, these were the first rumblings in the fashion world of the kind of societal self-awareness and deconstructionism that really defines Modernism: that which would evolve into punk and Seattle grunge, but that’s a stretch for this article so I might save it for later blog ramblings.

Gollywogs sprouted on suburban lawns and Africa remained a heartless darkness in the western mind.  Japanese feudalism came to its end and Japanese people started wearing business suits.  Spain, Germany and Italy were careering towards right-wing dictatorship and Russia towards a left-wing one.  The creative mind of the Free World responded to the mechanised, industrialised War with designs that mimicked the organic forms of nature.  Affordability, through mass-produce-ability was essential to all commodities during that period of economic hardship of the 1920’s and The Great Depression of the thirties.

Transport improved and increased during this period, with the growth of both cars and aeroplanes.  Although slow and expensive compared to Jetstar’s $900 round trip to London (which given the strength of our dollar means you’re practically making money), the world was finally affordable and accessible to the growing middle class.  Even for those who could not afford to be tourists, travel reached everyone through journalism and the popularisation of travel stories as light reading.  Stanley Livingstone captured “The” Congo for Leopold of Belgium, as he captured the hearts and minds of people at home with his feats of derring-do.  The burgeoning advertising industry became a vehicle for the rebirth of print art that brought the world to the people and glamourised the marvels that modern travel allowed.

As the world got smaller, New York and Paris became neighbours.  They were the most economic and socially advanced cities of the time and at the forefront of design and technology, thus becoming synonymous with progress and modernity itself.  They brought together the world’s oysters and showcased the cutting edge of all things modern.  This was a time when opulence was epitomised by skyscrapers like The Chrysler Building (1930) and ocean liners such as the RMS Queen Mary, but this is something we’ll come back to later.

This was the origin of industrial design & manufacturing:  artisans began to design furniture with neoclassical styles that, while still handmade, could be replicated easily and more cheaply than ever.  Industrialisation removed the designer from the manufacturing process, allowing them to take big steps in the development of design technologies, new materials, manufacturing processes and capabilities, as well as adapting to the increasing value of tastes and trends in ever-growing markets.

And with that I seem to have smashed the 1000-word limit, so I’ll leave it at that for now.  Stay tuned for more in-depth examination of Art Deco in coming weeks (fade to black).

Questions? Comments? Usual deal… use the comments section below.