european avant-gardes of the 1910s and ’20s

The age of the “historical avant-gardes”, considered one of the periods of greatest upheaval in European art, ran from the first decade of the 20th century, until the 1920s. The avant-gardes were artistic groups that emerged simultaneously in much of Europe in response to the crisis that had assailed all the values of civilized society. They radically changed the concept of visual art, formulating in the space of a few years a legacy of ideas and concepts that would be indispensable for all subsequent movements and currents. First and foremost, they declared the definitive abandonment of naturalistic mimesis, commencing a trend that led to the birth of abstract art. The Giancarlo and Danna Olgiati Collection features the greatest names of the historical avant-gardes – from Russian Cubo-Futurism to Suprematism and Constructivism, via Italian Futurism and European Abstractionism – including Kandinsky, Malevich and Rodchenko among the Russian artists; Balla, Boccioni and Severini among the Italian Futurists; and Léger and Schwitters among the European Abstractionists.