Maps, Mapping, Modernity: Art and Cartography in the Twentieth Century

While the history of cartography has freed itself from debilitating debates over the scientific and artistic status of maps, considerations of the relationship between art and cartography have continued to focus largely on pre-modern maps, avoiding critical examination of twentieth-century art and science in cartography and leaving intact the impression that these followed distinct paths in the modern period. In this paper, however, I have drawn on theoretical work in Science Studies and taken account of modern art's separation from aesthetics to suggest that an examination of art and cartography in the twentieth century should focus on mapping practices rather than on maps as such. A summary overview of modern-art movements and selected works indicates a continued, if critical, engagement of avant-garde artists with cartography, and the examination of more popular newspaper artwork produced in the context of the intensely modern visual culture of mid-twentieth century Los Angeles indicates a similarly close connection between modernity, art and cartography.