“Things And The Images of Things” (The Shock of The New Part I) (#11)

There is something about the Modernist art movement that really speaks to me, and when I first discovered this documentary by Robert Hughes, I immediately became obsessed.  It’s a pretty good overview of the general shape that Modernism took over the years.  The late ’70’s aesthetic, the foppish art criticisms, the overall englishness of it just speaks volumes about the perspective this film takes, and I have been trying to find a way to use it on the air for years.

While a number of genres have come and gone over the years, music has rarely taken on a modernist approach to sonic art.  If it happens at all, you get something like Talking Heads, and at best, Mission of Burma, and while they give you an artistic perspective on music creation, only a handful of artists actually…