week 6, week 7, week 8, week 9, week 10
6. Mark Rothko, Brown, Blue, and Brown on Blue, 1953
The idea is to produce something that is universal. They want to find a language that is inclusive rather than divisive and unique. Anyone can have that experience in from of the canvas -This guy had a huge ego and create a different experience and if you don't get it then whats wrong with you- this iw --Pulls lightness of out darkness to make it shine. His paintings contained flat color planes stacked up. Said the subject was "tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on". Tries to elicit emotional response through manipulating colors. Abstract expressionism at most reduced level (trying to end the movement, pretty successful) --10 Feet Tall
5. Diego Rivera, Controller of the Universe, 1934 (Mexico City) (after his Man at the Crossroads)
This is significant because is was destroyed due to controversy. In the later (surviving) version at the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Man, Controller of the Universe, a worker at the center directs an enormous machine at the crossroads of the political ideologies dominating this period: capitalism (to the figure's right) and communism (to the figure's left). Though the composition is bursting with activity, Rivera establishes order by using the central figure as a vertical axis: if we fold the scene down the middle, spaces and objects (like the two giant magnifying glasses) align.
4. Diego Rivera, Man at the Crossroads, 1933 (originally at Rockefeller Center, New York City; destroyed)
Rivera was making a political statement of the crossroads between capitalism and socialism. Rockefeller appears to be playing cards with prostitutes in a jail cell and Lennon is pictured on the other side with health and workers hanging on to him. Controversy surrounding Rivera hiring a Communist to paint the mural caused Rivera to leave Lennon in the painting. The painting was pulverized. § Modernity present § John D. Rockefeller commissioned a communist artist to help § Figure in the center § Representation of syphilis § On the sides, there are symbols for solidarity among the workers § Rockefeller would break the strikes § The board of standard oil decided to remove the painting. They didn't jus remove it, they actually destroyed it. The interesting thong is that is could have been removed and put somewhere else and put in the museum of modern art, but the board said they paid for it and owned it and therefore will do what they want with it They debated, and ended up destroying it. Diego Rivera repeated the painting in Mexico City
- Went to kooning and asked to erase a one of his drawings -It took him 3months and 300 erasers - What does it mean to erase a great artist's work? -Maybe it means getting rid of a certain kind of art, a type of art that was starting to dominate art school
Robert Rauschenberg, Erased De Kooning, 1953
-The idea is questioning if art can be replicated or is it truly unique. "Combine" is a term Rauschenberg invented to describe a series of works that combine aspects of painting and sculpture.
Robert Rauschenberg, Factum I, 1957
^^^
Robert Rauschenberg, Factum II, 1957
Another combine -A bunch of elements coming together -He has painted the face of the goat in many bright colors. It is a statement in that it cant really be solved. It resists interpretation - It has been said that these artists were gay and a lot of their productions allude to their closeted sexuality -The idea too is that the meaning is refused and cannot be deciphered - There isnt a clear position being taken. And this is the beginnings of what we will see developing in Pop Art. For now, this was considered Neo-Dada. It was non sensical, produced in a politically charged atmosphere
Robert Rauschenberg, Monogram, 1950-59 (front view)
2. Paul Padua, The Storyteller, 1944
What genre is this? --Home from the front --Paula Padua was one of Hitler's favorite painters. The whole family is gathered around the soldier who has returned from war. He is wearing his uniform. They are all listening to his stories about being out in the battlefield. The painting was used as a tactic to inspire people to go to war; making them look heroic; fighting for the father land.
Horacio Ferrer, Madrid (Black Airplanes), 1937
What genre is this? Artist committed to the republican cause. Significant historical presence because, like guernica, it represents the horror of the fascist bombings. The problem was that at time the artist was creating the picture the avant-grade had to think about form and content. This one is much more explicit than the guernica one, the people don't have to think much about it. The woman's are out, this shows it happened unexpectedly.
Fred Wilson, Mining the Museum: Metalwork 1793-1880
brought attention to what we see in a museum in a different way: - This mission included accounts of colonization, slavery and abolition, but the museum tended to present this history from a specific viewpoint, namely that of the its white male founding board -installation was another way that Wilson reshuffled the museum's collection to highlight the history of African Americans. -The installation juxtaposed ornate silver pitchers, flacons, and teacups with a pair of iron slave shackles -created awareness of the biases that often underlie historical exhibitions and, further, the way these biases shape the meaning we attach to what we are viewing
Surrealist Group Portrait, 1929
image on website for art ○ Eyes are all closed in the portrait representative of the surrealist movement to research the brain and dreaming and what not
Marina Abramovic, Rhythm 0, 1974
see above *spectators to become collaborators, rather than passive observers.
-this work is a response to the Abstract Expressionism of the prior two decades -creates a more dynamic feel to the shallow space- no blending or shading, it is centered around contrasts
Roy Lichtenstein, Little Big Painting, 1965
Rene Magritte, The Human Condition, 1933
§ A painting within a painting § The panting looks like the window, but is the window a window... § The question is, how do we know what is unknowable, and understand our world The question of representation: when do we know what we know and how do we know it- this is what he pursues for most of his life
7. Mark Rothko, Slow Swirl by the Edge of the Sea, 1944
§ Borrowed from Joan Miro Carnival of the Harlequin, 1924 § Biomorphic forms present § It is suggestive but doesn't give you the whole setting The reason they are going for these architypes because they are looking for a language that anyone can access -The figures have broken out of grid and move freely in a less defined space. New to the painting is a sense of transparency that would become central to his mature works. -Abstract Expressionism
Benday dots: printing process invented in the 19th century using the density of dots and often overlapping dots to produce colors. Overlapping yellow and red dots= orange, red dots widely spaced produce pink often used in printing cartoons -Shows Icons of the time in cartoon form
Roy Lichtenstein, Masterpiece, 1962
○ "the legacy of jackson pollock" ○ Talking about the push to abstraction. ○ Questions continuing in the pain or give up entirely ○ Argues that jackson polluck really pushed art out of the campus, onto the edges and into the world
Roy Lichtenstein, Portrait of Allan Kaprow, 1961
-He is obviously not looking like this, looks like a cartoon -Roy was an icon of the time so was recreated in this form to appeal to media depictions of him and his repetitive appearance in media
Roy Lichtenstein, Portrait of Ivan Karp 1961
20. Kader Attia, The Repair: Occidental and Extra-Occidental Cultures, sculptures
* The Reparation, Kader Attia turns into a historian, an archaeologist, an anthropologist and ethnologist in search of objects that can show us how societies rebuild themselves, face one another, intertwine and respond to one another -brings together seemingly unrelated worlds, as it detects beneath appearances the ground-swells that bind them together
Asco, Spray Paint LACMA, 1972
- Asco, four young Chicano artists in East LA -signed their names to the entrance of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), claiming the public institution as their own private creation -in response to a LACMA curator's dismissive statement that Chicanos made graffiti not art, hence their absence from the gallery walls Significance/Idea: - In signing the museum, Asco collapsed the space between graffiti and conceptual art, at once fulfilling the biased thinking that justified their exclusion and refiguring the entire museum as an art object itself Raises the question ... what is art? What should we talk about? What is the museum actually for, what does it depend?
12. Art Workers Coalition, protest against Museum of Modern Art's decision to pull funding for poster, Museum of Modern Art, 1970
- New York's MoMA, which at first had agreed to fund production of the poster, but soon refused all involvement, due to an obvious ideological conflict between the beliefs of some trustees - firm supporters of the Vietnam war - the poster was outside the museum's "function" - AWC's network of volunteers managed to find alternative funding, and after the image had appeared in newspapers and at antiwar demonstrations, AWC artists brought And babies into the MoMA gallery Significance/Idea: - ideological conflict between the beliefs of some trustees (firm supporters of the Vietnam war) and what the poster was denouncing - the poster was not just a reaction against the historicizing bent of official war photos; they seemed to cry out against the "grayness" of museums and against the prime symbol of the international museum system
Andre Masson, Yves Tanguy, unidentified artist, Cadavre Exquis (Exquisite Corpse), 1924
- The drawing uses the technique of Cadavre Exquis, where three people complete each others drawing. -
Art Workers Coalition, And Babies? And Babies. 1970
- poster was produced by an alliance of artists opposed to American military involvement in Vietnam, and combines words and images that had already attracted a great deal of notoriety in the USA -disturbing image of Vietnamese families murdered by American soldiers at My Lai is captioned with chilling phrases taken from a television interview with one of the soldiers who was present during the massacre
Carolee Schneemann, Interior Scroll, 1974
- stood naked on a table, painted her body with mud,struck "action poses", until she slowly exracted a paper scroll from her vagina while reading from it: -> "I thought of the vagina in many ways-- physically, conceptually: as a sculptural form, an architectural referent, the sources of sacred knowledge, ecstasy, birth passage, transformation" -female sensuality in connection to the possibilities of political and personal liberation from predominantly oppressive social and aesthetic conventions -by locating the root of artistic creativity at her genitals, Schneemann shifted away from the masculine precedent in art toward a feminist exploration of her body
19.Kader Attia, The Repair: Occidental and Extra-Occidental Cultures, slide show/installation
- through repair that non-Western cultures begin to take back their liberties - in the slide show Open Your Eyes— a juxtapose is presented in photographs of African artifacts that have been repaired with images of wounded soldiers in World War I whose faces were subjected to rudimentary cosmetic surgery - reveals that there is a cultural gap between the Western and non-Western worlds through different understandings of the aesthetics of the human body.
1. Yoko Ono, Cut Piece, Carnegie Hall performance, New York, 1964
- uses the human body as the medium - third performance presented in NY -ono, the artist sat kneeling on the concert hall stage, wearing her best suit of clothing, with a pair of scissors placed on the floor in front -members of the audience were invited to approach the stage, one at a time, and cut a bit of her clothes off - which they could keep Significance: - a protest against violence and against war (specifically the Vietnam War), and as a feminist work "gainst ageism, against racism, against sexism, and against violence" - this art performance allow artists to consciously call attention to a woman's subjectivity, crucial in a male dominate art world - requires the physical and emotional involvement of the artist
19. Lee Krasner, Noon, 1947 (from her "Little Image" series)
---very colorful, very similar to composition. It was very simmiliar to the abstract paintings that the men created (splatter paintings), however to not seem that they copied their husbands, they did this abstract painting much more put together to make it different. --this paiting was inspired by caligraphy and diffrent forms of writing, and uses repetive, archtypal shapes to convey abstarct expression. --this peice is very small compared to that of many other abstract expressionist peices.
1. Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937
--History painting Notes from class on this piece: -post bombing April 26 1937, 1,654 people killed, 889 wounded city leveled- on a Saturday at noon, german airplanes came in and bombed the city. They dropped bombs that sparked fire and then machine gunned people. Every 20 minutes they repeated the bombing until 7:45 at night ○ This was a civilian target. The nazis wanted to test their bombs and chose a target that had not yet been touched by war § Massive large painting, kind of a history painting that told the story of the event without depicting it literally § Woman is depicted with a dead child, for example § Man coming through the window with a lamp like liberty § Represents the irrational of the event and the violence. It was painted in a monotone of grays. Put lines in them as if it were newspaper- traces of synthetic cubism The artists who are trying to cope with the situation are taking different attacks as to how to talk about an event that was so horrifying -It does not depict one single event, but rather the horrors of war. -The bull can symbolize irrationality and violence, Notes from elsewhere: --It was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, a Basque Country village in northern Spain by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces, on 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Republican government commissioned Picasso to create a large mural for the Spanish display at the Paris International Exposition at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris. Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace. Upon completion Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed. This tour helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the world's attention. The lights depicted in the painting represent modernity and the lines in the flattened figures are meant to represent the news papers that reported the tragic event. --Retelling the horrors of the events without being literal, almost like a metaphor
10. Barnett Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimis, 1950-51. ○Here, the zip has become straight edge
--this painting along with many of newman's other peice, contained lines down the middle called a "zip" --the peice is meant to be vieded up close so that u get lost in the image and your personality /character merges with the image --this artist created a peice that he hoped could NOT be appropriated by mass culture.
John Heartfield, Hurrah! Die Butter ist alle! [Hurrah! The butter's all gone!], published in AIZ, 1935
-A baby is biting on the battle ax, this is essentially mocking the glorification of war. War is portrayed as amazing and in a good light in the most ridiculous ways. -This was actually published in a communist magazine. -The piece is nonsensical and satirical. -The people in the picture are eating iron. All of their money has gone towards taxes, so in the mean time all they are left with is chewing iron. -Emphasizes and calls attention to the absurdity of the advertisements the nazis were putting out at the time
17. Willem de Kooning, Woman I, 1950-51
-Abstract Expressionism -Started off as an abstract painter. Shocked the art world by doing figurative painting. -For most abstract expressionists the struggle of getting their feelings on the canvas (Pollock did it by throwing paint). Kooning did this by working over the painting over and over again. This piece took over 2 years to be finished. His struggle was to get it right. Many people would urge him to finish the painting, but he had a definite idea of what he wanted it to be. -Celebrates women in huge canvases covered in huge slashes, stabs, splashes, and streams of lush colors -Aggressive representations that juxtapose societal ideas of femininity. Calls upon thought that flesh is the reason painting was invented.
9. Barnett Newman, Onement I, 1948
-Abstract Expressionism ○ Line down the middle is "zip" ○ "there is no such thing as a good painting about nothing" but these paintings were not about nothing" ○ "Old standards of beauty were irrelevant: the sublime was all that was appropriate: an experience of enormity which might lift modern humanity out of its torpor" ○ Thinks of the paintings of being alive and painting is performer ○ "I hope that my painting has the imact of giving someone as it did me the feeling of his own totality, of his own separateness and individuality
8. Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1949.
-Abstract Expressionism: Action Painting and Color Field Painting ○ Color field painting: a kind of abstract expressionism Stained pigments, soaked into canvas, layering
Gino Severini, Hospital Train, 1915
-After the field ambulances and the first aid posts, the wounded were evacuated to the rear in specially designed trains to hospitals where they could be cared for. - This theme appeared very early on in the dailies, with photographs and drawings of the halts in stations where volunteer nurses gave the patients something to drink and dressed their wounds - From these illustrations, Severini kept just the image of the nurse dressed in white, composing a synthesis of plastic elements, railway signals, train smoke, stations passed through and red cross flags. - In this way he applies the Futurist method of depicting the speed and the topicality of the war although there are only traces of the latter here.
Marcel Duchamp, $2000 Reward, 1923
-Artist incorporates himself into art. This breaks conventions because the viewer is essentially reminded that they are viewing a painting. -There is a use of alias, something that the artist did fairly often. -This is a readymade because it was a poster found in a restaurant. He just altered it. -He added two pictures of himself, but was not dressed as any of his alias.
Hannah Hoch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the First Weimar Beer-Belly Epoch, 1919-20
-Collage made up of news clippings and sales catalogs. It is depicting current events. -Technology is a bad thing and it eventually leads to war. - It was an artistic revolt and protest against traditional beliefs of a pro-war society,. -It literally has the words dada and anti-war pasted onto it. -it is one of the first photomontages of the DADA art movement. § Made it on the wall at the 1st international Dada Fair in Berlin, 1920 □ Event where everyone got together and they put a prussian art angel on the ceiling- said something about the military. This went against censorship, they shut down the event Stuff was put on the walls in a weird way, on top of each other - collage was large given what it was made out of.
Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, no. 2, 1913
-Cubism was used because it is not a single frame, rather multiple perspectives of one subject. -This painting was too crude to be shown at the Salon. In fact, it was removed. -The multiple frames were inspired by photography. -This painting is satirical and caricature like because it doesn't depict anatomical lines. -He was into showing motion and things happening all at the same time (like painting sequences)
Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Selavy, 1921
-Duchamp becomes a part of his artwork by putting himself in the photograph and playing the role of a woman. -By dressing up as a woman, he is breaking conventions because he is potentially cross dressing. -Rsose Selavy, the name sounds like the French phrase "Eros c'est La Vie." -Eros, that's life. This is a pun.
Marcel Duchamp, The Large Glass or The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even, 1915-1923
-Duchamp claimed it was incomplete in 1923, but someone dropped it a few years later and it shattered. Only then, was it deemed as complete. -Published "The Green Box" which are notes that suggest possible readings. One reading would be that there is erotic tension between the bride and bachelors. -This is playing with the ordinary because there are so many possible meanings. -This is an exploitation of male and female desire. -The bride is hanging and the bachelors are only left with the option to masturbate. More notes on this piece: ○ Duchamp, the Bride stripped bare by her Bachelors, Even, (The Large Glass) 1915-23 § Chocolate grinder here again § On the bottom: □ The bachelors □ Turning the chocolate has something to do with masturbation § On the top: □ Figure with a large cloud coming off of her: □ He says she is a going to fall down into the pool of the bachelors □ Says the men are taking the fluid from the chocolate grinder and there is a movement between these two § There is actually a key to all the parts of the painting so that everything can be identified □ It is a very abstract concept- it is much like the idea of prolonging the mystery of the object □ Attains aesthetic contemplation □ Talking about what creates a work of art and how does it work? § The questions Duchamp proposes for us □ What does culture do? What is its purpose? Why is it sacred? Why do we get offended? What is art? □ How does "value" get assessed in a work of art? Does the artist have the final say? □ What are the distinctions between art and commercial products? What are the criteria? Who determines that? □ Are artists like manufacturers? Or do they have something special? He is opening question for what art is and how to make an argument for this. He is trying to get us to think about what we want from art
.George Grosz, Victim of Society, or Remember Uncle August, the Unhappy Inventor, 1919
-Grosz had served in WWI and had frequent violent spells, which contributed to the chaos within his works -This could essentially be described as a collage because of the glued on nose and spark plug. -Could be an attempt to show how people who participated in the war were left extremely harmed physically. -Droopy military hat can signify anti-war. -Emphasized the element of obscurity and absurdity in the Dada movement. § Real buttons § Spark plug for nose § The portrait is very disturbing, juxtaposed eyes § Doubly disturbing because walking around, there was no way to not see people like this because so many people were disfigured from the war § Everyone was touched by the war and no one was insolated from the effects of the war such as these vets
George Grosz, Republican Automatons, 1920
-Has anti-war message, absurd and strange scene -People with mechanical hands waving around medals. Pretty ironic. -figures have robotic/missing limbs, mocks glorification of amputees and veterans -holding on to a flag, with a mechanical arm. -Depicts an anti-war message for the German War -Poking at the idiocy of nationalism. -Hurrah for our nation...he is claiming that nationalism is ridiculous and only results in loss and devastation.
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917
-It is a readymade artwork because it is created out of mass produced objects. -The object raises the question "What is art?" -Duchamp re-purposed the object to reflect a different meaning than it's intended purpose. -This faced much criticism, it was rejected as art.
Marcel Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q.
-It is a readymade because Duchamp uses a mass produced postcard and a reproduction of the Mona Lisa. -This also raises the question "What is art?" Duchamp just added some letters and facial hair. Is this art? -LHOOQ, = She has a hot ass. -He sexualizes the Mona Lisa. -He essentially takes the masterpiece down from its pedestal. -In endowing the Mona Lisa with masculine gestures, he alludes to Leonardos supposed homosexuality. Duchamp makes a joke on this- makes fun of how mona lisa has become a commodity
16. Willem de Kooning, Excavation, 1950
-Large canvas that shows the working and re-working of paint.This painting is significant because it plays with the technique of layering. The concept of the "excavation" comes from trying to reveal each layer of the painting.
18. Lee Krasner, Composition, 1947
-Lee Krasner was Koonings wife. Women were not given the recognition they deserved. Most times they were referred to as wives. They had a sort of obligation to clean up their husbands style. Kooning had large messy works, so Krasner did small composed things. -This painting was inspired by calligraphy and different forms of writing, and uses repetitive/archetypal shapes to convey abstract expressionism.
14. "Jackson Pollock: Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" Life, 8 August 1949
-Life magazine was extremely conservative, but realized they had to deal with things that resonated in popular culture. They can't ignore Pollock. The article itself is mocking his work. -Answer to the question: "Are you kidding me? This guy throws honey bees in his paintings"; something he never did; alludes to the how must people reacted to a Jackson Pollock with the general attitude of "i can do this".
11. Jackson Pollock, Male Female, 1942
-Reflects lots of the ideas from his untitled. Sexual differentiations on the poles lots of disagreement as to which is which
15. Cecil Beaton, Model in front of Jackson Pollock painting, for Vogue, March 1951
-Showcased how mass production could ruin the meaning of things -Pushed against the universal language and struggle. Treated the art piece like wallpaper.
Joan Miró, The Hunter, 1923-24
-Surrealist painting dreamscape with biomorphic forms - reflective of a dream and the unconscious as it does not make sense -The word "SARD," short for "Sardana," the national dance of Catalonia, is painted in the foreground. This word is also a reference to the fragmented letters and words found in Dadaist and Surrealist poetry.
Chirico, "The Child's Brain" (1914)
-The barren landscape and man's closed eyes all allude towards a dream scape and break from the convention of portraiture. -The audience doesn't know who's brain the title is alluding to. Is it an actual child's brain? My brain? -Andre Breton, the leader of the surrealist movement and writer of the surrealist manifesto, spotted this painting on a bus and jumped out to buy it -This marked the turning point of surrealism. -This is a suggestive painting, the viewer has to work and make an effort to understand. Somethings are not very clear.
Martha Rosler, House Beautiful, from Bringing the War Home, 1967-72
-The house beautiful , bringing the war home challenges the idea that aesthetic objects are covering what is happening (war) in civilization - personal space is being altered -Link between art and politics to address the divide between the brutality of war and the luxury of American consumerism in the present. Significance/Idea: - during a time of increased intervention in Vietnam by the United States military -during a time of increased intervention in Vietnam by the United States military
Giacomo Balla, Abstraction, Speed, Noise, 1913
-The idea of motion is depicted within the painting through progressive advancing across the surface of the painting. -The painting is designed to have the viewer dart their eyes to multiple places on the painting. This created a sense of movement. -This is futurism because this movement is obsessed with depicting speed an progress.
Francis Picabia, Portrait of a Young American Girl in a State of Nudity, 1915
-The illustration of the spark plug is rendered completely different by it's title. -Picabia's clean and stern depiction of the spark plug lacks any artistic pretension and represents the ideal American girl, an embodiment of the new century and modernity. -The spark plug is stripped of all adornments, but is still powerful and erotically charged. Spark plug captured faithfully and playing on the idea of what art can suggest through a simple piece of machinery- something that can be sexualized
Gino Severini, Blue Dancer, 1912
-There are actual sequins on the dress of the dancer. The penetration of light on the sequins depicts movement. -The movement depicted then makes the futurism. -This is made into a cubist style because it offers so many different perspectives. -This also opens the playing field for dada and all new things because it is essentially showing new techniques.
Futurist serate, Turin, Italy, 1910
-This contained multimedia art. There was poetry, paintings, and the performers even wore masks. -The performance was transient. -It questioned "What is art?" Could this performance be considered art. -It captured the speed and energy of the crowd and new technological advancement. -This was an attempt to celebrate all that is new and the desire to remove all old things.
Rene Magritte, The Human Condition, 1933
-This painting breaks conventions because there is no way for the viewer to tell if they are looking at a easel or windows. -The painting could allude to how humans have a hard time understanding what they have. -It is very dreamlike, a characteristic of surrealism. -. This work also stands as an assertion of the artist's power to reproduce nature at will and proves how ambiguous and impalpable the border between exterior and interior, objectivity and subjectivity, and reality and imagination can be.
12. Jackson Pollock, Full Fathom Five, 1947
-This painting introduces Pollock's abstract expressionism by conveying his belief that using flat forms restores truth to art and that painting is not merely about replicating an object on a canvas.
Carlo Carra, Patriotic Celebration (Free Word Painting), 1914
-This picture is composed of fragments cut from newspapers and magazines with words and letters in varied typefaces printed on multi-colored paper. -The fragments are arranged in a spiraling vortex. So they seem to blast outward, thus creating some sort of movement. -Represents how the center of human consciousness is just barely in control of all the information we are surrounded by. -
Hugo Ball, Karawane, Cabaret Voltaire, 1915
-This piece was sound poetry, and consisted of a fairly strange poem called Karawane. It consisted of nonsensical words. -Could this be considered art? -This is Dada, anti-war because it attacked traditional styles and broke conventions. -This was performed at the Cabaret Voltaire where lots of artists fled to avoid drafts during World War 1. -Allowed the artists to continually collaborate and truly embrace their artistic freedom. -Cabaret Voltaire was a night club formed in Zurich by Hugo Ball
Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, copy of 1913 original
-Utilitarian function is removed. The wheel cannot be used, since it is mounted upside down and you can't sit on the stool. -Questions the notions of originality. He created more than one of them. Raises the question "Is it still a Duchamp original?" -This is a readymade because it contains mass produced objects. -Also raises the question "Is this art?"
Hans (Jean) Arp, Collage Arranged According to the Laws of Chance, 1916-17
-Was created by the artist throwing paper, and wherever it landed, it was glued down -This is very contradictory because it looks like they were rearranged and then they were glued down. -Arp is calling attention to how the concept of how rationally organizing and premeditated thinking have been destroyed by the war -directly acknowledges the war's impact on artwork
Carolee Shneemann, Meat Joy, 1964
-a group of men and women, stripped to their underwear, danced and writhed around with each other on plastic sheeting, while rubbing raw fish, chicken, and sausage, as well as wet paint, onto their bodies. - highly sensual; there were aspects of feeling, smelling, hearing, seeing, and even tasting. - erotic, disgusting, comic, choreographed, and spontaneous. Significance/Idea: - celebrates and reasserts aspects of women's bodies that have been traditionally ignored or repressed by the male-privileged mainstream. - included nudity and an explicit rejection of traditional, dismissive ideas about female sexuality.
Vito Acconci, Following Piece, 1969
-activity that took place everyday on the streets of New York, between October 3rd and 25th, 1969 -Acconci decided to follow people around the streets and document his following of them Significance/Idea: -Following Piece was concerned with the language of our bodies, not so much in a private manner, but in a deeply public manner. -our bodies are themselves always subject to external forces that we may or may not be able to control -Following Piece was part of the revolution that took place in the art world in the late 1960s that tried to bring art out of the gallery and into the street in order to explore real issues such as space, time, and the human body.
Judith Baca, Detail, Great Wall of Los Angeles: Division of the Barrio and Chavez Ravine
-created by Judith Baca and collaborators - each year they added 350 feet and a decade of history seen from the viewpoint of California ethnic groups: Their contributions and their struggles to overcome obstacles -considered the longest mural in the world, by 1980 the mural, dubbed "The Great Wall" rather than its official name "The History of California," stretched more than a third of a mile and had consumed some 600 gallons of paint - production of the Great Wall has involved the support of many government agencies, community organizations, businesses, corporations, foundations, and individuals - Each section of the Great Wall was developed through a process called "Imagining of Content," which was developed at SPARC ○ Family was removed from their home and then it was bulldozed. ○ Dodgers stadium built here instead ○ Project began because she was asked to create a mural and they were going to create a park- they did this (it was to beautify the area) Mural tells history of the times- hitler is on it?
Marina Abramovic, Rhythm 0, 1971
-invited spectators to use any of 72 objects on her body in any way they desired, completely giving up control - stood motionless for six hours, the performance was stopped,because some were becoming increasingly violent -some held the loaded gun to her head and others tried to protect her and wiped her tears Significance/Idea: - Abramović's belief that confronting physical pain and exhaustion was important in making a person completely present and aware of his or her self -reflected her interest in performance art as a way to transform both the performer and the audience
Salvador Dali, Paranoiac Face, 1935
-saw original post card and then said he saw a face in the original so then he recreated it here. Tapping into the unconscious and what our minds see -The landscape is incredibly baron, there is no water its very dream like. This is a characteristic of surrealism.
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Vito Acconci, Seedbed, 1972 & view
Acconci masturbated, basing his sexual fantasies on the movement of visitors above him - narrated these fantasies aloud, his voice projected through speakers into the gallery: --> "I'm doing this with you now . . . you're in front of me . . . you're turning around . . . I'm moving toward you . . . leaning toward you . . ." -visitors entered to find the gallery empty except for a low wooden ramp Significance/Idea: -seminal work that transformed the physical space of the gallery to create an intimate connection between artist and audience, even as they remained invisible to one another -way in which male and female share objectification -made vivid the idea that Western art is built upon this kind of pleasure
I don't have notes on this one
Andy Warhol, Do It Yourself, 1962
§ What happens when you see something over and over again? You are desensitized to it. Do we know who she really is § Silk screen, does one large campus in color. He has varried the amount of ink going onto the screen to modify each one so they are not identical § She is on people's minds after she committed suicide- people think it could have been murder, why was she unhappy, etc. There is an urge to know about this star. § We know her because she is repeated in the media, and therefore repeated on the canvas. § Then he does it in black in white- speaks to the film § This print done for liz taylor, jackie kennedy. § Diptych: reference to the church or a small thing you would pray to. This does sort of suggest that stardom, commercialism is our religion. These celebrities are our saints. § He is not painting it directly. A lot of people reprint his work. Raises question of "is it a warhol" if it is reprinted, etc. § It is calling our attention to it. It is a painting. They arent exactly what you would see in a pulp magazine § Warhol, whether you like him or not, questions "what is meaning?" what is the relationship to mass media? How being seen and seeing is accelerating at an incredible rate -
Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych, 1962
§ Accidents that happened after Saturday night festivities § Instead of producing inspiration, these suggest how we receive the news and interpret media § He is just producing it for us. § What is the effect and use for us wanting to see the terror happening in the world- slowing down to see a car crash- why do we do this, etc. § How do we take in information- its all polls, how many percentages § This kind of work kind of addresses that- things that lose the real § At this time, what is going on in the world ○ The new sentimentality He puts art on, sees terror in humor and has no values
Andy Warhol, Race Riot, 1963
§ Project was making fun of the theme of the fair which was peace through understanding § Project ended up being a disaster- instructed that it be covered because it wasn't american § So he covered it with silver paint § Reproduced the inmates in single form after the fair There was a stardom involved in it
Andy Warhol, Thirteen Most Wanted, 1964 (1964 World's Fair, New York)
§ Made in the "factory" § Said art should be a more impersonal process- artists should be speaking to their time and the campbell soup was of the time § His entire career was about being in the "in" crowd § There is no artist that talks about this stuff and manages his own persona better than him In that sense, they retreat into expression similar to the first series he did for campbell ○ Warhol, campbell's soup can 1962 § Instalation shhot, 32, Campbell's soup can Ferus Gallery in LA 1962- all 32 flavors at show, put LA on the map as art place § This is a painting (oil on canvas) not a silkscreen; a hand stamp was used for the gold fleur de lys, otherwise they were handpainted. Tomato rice is missing the gold band! § The idea of flatness, surface, unique to america
Andy Warhol, Two Hundred Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962
§ He opened up this storefront in grenich village □ Made out of plaster and put on chicken wire □ It was a gallery space but the art were objects sort of- it was like a fake store □ Said a lot about how art in galleries are separate from regular objects □ Institutions of art were now coming under fire □ But nobody would walk into the store □ Objects had dripped paint too □ People wouldn't really go in cuz it was weird
Claes Oldenberg, The Store, 1961
- In a very cool and detached way, he uses stencil letters to neutralize the expressiveness and expressive possibilities of the artwork he is creating -The idea of abstraction - Limited in expressing who they were because they were gay. Cant really talk about expressionism -Here, there is the gesture, but it is much more restricted -It is not loose, not throwing the paint onto the canvas What is a false start? Its kind of like "ok im gonna start abstraction, sike"
Jasper Johns, False Start , 1962
This painting was created in 1955 two years after Johns was discharged from the military. Johns said that he was inspired by a dream of the US flag. Johns' first painting. The painting itself is flat It was constructed out of newsprint which was then covered with the encaustic and color. Pop Art. Johns steered clear of headlines, or national or political news, and used inconsequential articles or adverts. The "things the mind already knows" were his ideal subject because of the host of varied meanings each carried with it. Then and now, some viewers will read national pride or freedom in the image, while others only see imperialism or oppression.
Jasper Johns, Flag, 1954
Encaustic: technique using liquid wax mixed with pigments -Dries very quickly -Difficult to handle -Not free-flowing or spontaneous Faces are anonymous, no eyes, window on the soul, there is an anonymity, repetition, flatness of the surface Abstractions
Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces, 1955
18.Kader Attia, The Repair: Occidental and Extra-Occidental Cultures, Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany, 2012 (installation shot)
Large room - included object that had been made in WWI - craved sculptures from African Artists - faces destroyed from war, wood - lower disk in the mouth - books: history of surgery - disfigured soilders - how people treat surgey , what it is suppose to do? - sculpted them out of marble
13. Jackson Pollock, Number 1A, 1948, 1948
§ Doesn't usually name his canvases, would usually just number, autumn rhythm and the last one is pretty rare § There was stuff in the canvas imbedded in the cavas like sand and raw materials § In this you can see the size, and speak of power. They are powerful because they were the bigest pictures that anyone had seeen in a gallery before § They are complex but also very simple § As if acting in an arena and leaving the traces of your presence in the arena on the canvas § It doesn't take long before jackson pollock and this type of painting starts to become a cliché- it was reproduced everywhere § Reproduced in vogue with cecile beaton and jackson pollock paintings behind them □ We don't know how he allowed this or if he did approve this, but it tends to push against the idea of a universal language because in this instance its like wallpaper □ Life magazine- is he the greatest artist in the united states- had to deal with things that were relevant in the society □ The magazine is conservative and was actually kind of mocking him - like are you kidding me he throws honey bees in the paintings □ Kind of mocking of like THIS is what american painting is? Anyone can do it □ In reality, it was so controlled that it is really easy to spot a jackson pollock □ The paintings would expand and this concept was asociated with american imperialism- US was taking over everything. This horrified the european artists
John Heartfield, Hurrah! Die Butter ist alle! [Hurrah! The butter's all gone!], published in AIZ, 1935
§ From a speech § Butter and lard have at most made the peole fat § At most, taxes are going to military In the meantime, have something to chew on, so everyone in the photo os chewing on something
Meret Oppenheim, Fur-Lined Teacup (Luncheon In Fur), 1935
§ Observed the discomfort that comes from women being viewed as sexual objects. § Taking a teacup, associated with women, and put fur on it because getting hair in your mouth is uncomfortable. Associating an object with less pleasant asides makes an allusion to how oral sex is uncomfortable -By taking an ordinary object and covering it in fur, she rendered it completely useless and instead transforms it into something beautiful and exotic
Rene Magritte, Untitled, 1929
§ The forest meant the mind, woman meant the desire -The painting itself disappeared which alludes to the title "hidden in the forest." - As soon as Breton gets the painting, and the woman starts to disappear. This happened three times, trying to preserve it kind of ruined it -The woman represents sexual desire because she is in the nude and this connects to the unconscious because we often desire sex unconsciously. -Forest=unconcious
Max Ernst, Vision Induced by the Nocturnal Aspect of the Post Saint-Denis, 1927
§ Vision induced by something he saw at night The image is not so important as the process of how to access
André Masson, Battle of the Fishes, 1927
○ Oil, sand, gesso (glue), pencil, charcoal on canvas ○ Red paint fish blood maybe When applying red paint was just kind of seeped on there (can tell bc of the pink oil surrounding it- wasn't blended, just kind of plopped on there) -This could be a representation of the negative effects of the war. -This piece is symbolic of situation that the first Great War left all of the people in Europe in the early 1900's. -The fish in respect to the composition are like the people apart of their community. -Most of them are distraught and stranded, but some are hurt or dead. Lines and sand help communicate the chaos and destruction that has been to the community.