Leger: Modern Art Exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

November 10, 2013 The exhibition is called Leger: Modern Art and the Metropolis and it's everything from avant- garde paintings to graphic design, films, architecture, and theatre-works that helped redefine art and city life in post-World War I Europe. Fernand Leger's monumental work The City, painted in 1919, is the centerpiece of the exhibition. "More than simply representing a city, it captures the experience of walking on the urban street," says Curator Anna Vallye, "it's a painting that this exhibition argues opened up an entire watershed era in the history of the western world."

It was during this time that the boundaries of what could be defined as art were expanded to include architectural models, theatre design, advertising posters and film projections. Vallye says it was in the 1920s that "artists who, like Leger, started their career doing paintings, ventured into films and started to create films that were just as complex and just as exciting and just as innovative as paintings had been."

The exhibition includes 179 works by artists who converged in Paris in the 1920s. Leger was at the heart of it all, a leader in the avant-garde movement. Vallye describes it as "a time of great social and cultural freedom and this atmosphere was very energizing for so many creative artists and creative makers."

Leger: Modern Art and the Metropolis is on exhibit through January 5th and then it heads to Venice. This is the only U.S showing. For tickets, go to www.TheArtsInPhilly.org.

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