Author(s): Ulrike Groos

Entertainment

In the 1920s and 1930s jazz from the United States took Europe by storm, conquering the ballrooms and dance halls, bars and cafes, music halls and movie theaters. The new music was the first popular phenomenon-it was pop before pop existed- and enthralled the bohemian world and affluent middle class as much as it did adolescents and intellectuals. With works by major artists such as Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, Marlene Dumas, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock, Romare Bearden, Andy Warhol, K.R.H. Sonderborg, Verena Loewensberg, A.R. Penck, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, I Got Rhythm: Art and Jazz since 1920 demonstrates how jazz provoked a remarkable response from the art scene throughout the twentieth century. This book unites diverse artistic explorations of jazz, starting with paintings of the classic modern period, continuing with works of European and American postwar abstraction, and culminating in contemporary installations and video pieces.