Steve Edwards, Martin Gaughan and Gail Day, Plenary 1  This discussion forms part of the study day that explores concepts of avant-gardism, and the ways in which these have been deployed to historicise and interpret twentieth century art.

Dada to Surrealism: Continuity  Speaker: Martin Gaughan, writer and former Head of the History and Theory of Art at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff .This talk traces some of the issues which informed work in the different Dada centres, establishing their origins and concerns, and considering how the relationships between the different moments can be characterized.

Steve Edwards, USSR in Construction  Speaker: Steve Edwards, Research Lecturer in History of Art at The Open University. This talk looks at Russian art from just before World War 1 until the middle of the 1930s, considering the relation between Constructivist art and the politics of the period. In the wake of the 1917 revolution many avant-garde artists identified with the aims of the Bolshevik regime.