Thursday, January 04, 2018

Vintage Avant-garde


Sooner or later even things that are modern and daring look quaint. These costumes were made by the German expressionistic artist and dancer Lavina Schulz in the 1920s. They are via La boite verta.

I did like the detail that she and her husband lived without furniture, but lived in their dance tights so they could choreograph dances and design costumes. Sadly, although perhaps predictably, she came to a sorry end, shooting her husband and then herself as financial ruin closed in on her.

The photographs were taken by Minya Diez-Dührkoop, another German artsy-fartsy type who travelled in the same circles as Lavina.




2 comments:

Morgan said...

As “look at me, I’m weirder and therefore better than you” acts go, this is pretty good. Might give the kids some ideas for retro-Halloween costumes, too.

ambisinistral said...

Yea they're not bad. I wonder what the dances in them looked like. Regardless, these actually were 'avant-garde' when they were made, rather than the tiresome retreads of this sort of artistic approach we're seeing 100 years later.

And they would make great Halloween costumes.