**Resident Member** Deborah Robin: Ed.D., Nova Southeastern University; Regional Director of Operations, Keller Graduate School of Management.; Art History Instructor, Art Institute of Phoenix and Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art
Monday, September 14th, 2026: 3:00 – 4:00 pm, Koffler Great Room at ASA and Zoom
For centuries, everyone agreed on what art was supposed to be: made by hand, pleasing to the eye, a faithful mirror of the world. Then came the camera, two world wars, and a century of upheaval; artists tore up the rulebook. In this six-part series, titled BREAKING THE RULES: How the 20th Century Reinvented Art, we’ll watch the old certainties fall, and discover how the chaos of the modern world reshaped what art could be. No background in art is needed, just curiosity.
In Part 1, we’ll explore how World War I slaughtered a generation and shattered Europe’s faith in its own “civilized” culture. In response, a group of artists declared war on art itself, exhibiting a urinal as sculpture, reciting nonsense poetry, and cutting up the world into absurd new collages. We’ll meet the provocateurs of Dada and the single, mischievous question they left behind: what even is art?