Virtually explore the Centre Pompidou with Smarthistory as your guide
Some background
videos + essays
Link to the Centre Pompidou's website
The last work of Eva Hesse
Hesse proves that powerful, emotionally charged art doesn't have to be pretty.
Dada’s “Approximate Man”: A Portrait of Tristan Tzara by Marcel Janco
This mask is a rare document of the Dada movement and an embodiment of the so-called “approximate man.”
Raoul Hausmann, Spirit of the Age: Mechanical Head
A century before democracy was tested by social media gone rogue, Hausmann understood the dark side of technology.
Pablo Picasso and the new language of Cubism
Picasso was a technically skilled draftsman—so why did he choose to take his forms apart?
Georges Braque, Le Viaduc à L’Estaque, (The Viaduct at L’Estaque)
An homage to Cézanne, but also a reaction to having seen Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Braque is exploring.
László Moholy-Nagy, Composition A.XX
Moholy-Nagy influenced the Bauhaus in its shift toward industrial aesthetics and materials.
Kiki Smith, Lying with the Wolf
Smith imbues a normally-violent story with tenderness in the embrace between a woman and a wolf.
Louise Bourgeois, Cumul I
Male and female forms reveal and conceal themselves simultaneously in this polished marble sculpture.
