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Article: OPEN EYE: `Still shocking, still exotic' More than a new fashion, Art Deco was an emphatic rejection of the values of the past.
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- March 4, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2003 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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To its detractors, it was frivolous and escapist; it was a sell-
out to capitalism. But to millions more it was, and remains, the art
of dreams. Art Deco is the eclectic visual embodiment of the interwar
years - picture palaces, Manhattan skyscrapers, ocean liners - the
world of F Scott Fitzgerald, of Bertie Wooster. It epitomises a
turbulent era where glamour, hedonism and the thrill of the new sat
alongside desperate poverty and mass unemployment.
Yet compared with its main 20th-century rival, modernism, Art Deco
has received relatively little attention. The balance is to be
somewhat redressed with an exhibition at the V&A opening this month,
heralded by the first TV documentary to ...