The Powers that be

United Kingdom, 1980

Film
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Episode number 2 of Series “The Shock of the New Series”.
Part 2 of an 8-part series which presents a social history of the impact and development of the visual arts in the 20th century by art critic and writer, Robert Hughes. In this episode Hughes examines how World War I and politics influenced art by way of the development of Dadaism in Germany and Constructivism in Russia. He also explores how architecture moved from modernism to a more classical style as a result of preferences displayed by Hitler and Mussolini.

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Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

director

David Richardson

producer

Lorna Pegram

production company

BBC

RM Productions

Duration

01:01:00:00

Production places
United Kingdom
Production dates
1980

Appears in

The Shock of the New Series

Group of items

The Shock of the New Series

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Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

302215

Language

English

Audience classification

G

Subject categories

Crafts & Visual Arts → Architecture, Modern - 20th century

Crafts & Visual Arts → Art and society

Crafts & Visual Arts → Constructivism (Art)

Crafts & Visual Arts → Dadaism

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Colour

Holdings

VHS; Access Print (Section 1)

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/81145--the-powers-that-be/ |title=The Powers that be |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=15 July 2025 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}