Exam 3
Liza Lou, Kitchen, 1996
A full-scale and exactingly detailed kitchen encrusted in a rainbow of glistening beads, Liza Lou's monumental installation took five years to make. After researching kitchen design manuals as well as historical tracts about the lives of nineteenth-century women, Lou made drawings and three-dimensional models to achieve a loose outline of Kitchen's floor plan. She then fashioned the objects out of paper mâché, painted them, and applied the beads in a mosaic of surface pattern. This work, in Lou's words, "argues for the dignity of labor"—a labor that here manifests as process and subject alike, and which is linked to gender, since crafts and kitchen work are traditionally female domains. Kitchen might also be read as a commentary on American life—even the American dream—with its ubiquitous products (Tide and Cap'N Crunch), aspirations (glittery surfaces and suburban assimilation), and realities (dishes in the sink and other kitchen drudgery).
Chim↑Pom in collaboration with Junichi Kakizaki, Radiation-Exposed Flowers Harmony, 2011
Certainly no one caused the earthquake that resulted in the disastrous tsunami and subsequent nuclear power plant meltdown in Fukushima, Japan in 2011. But the power plant's inability to survive the natural disaster, according an independent Japanese commission, was wholly predictable. The culpability of the Japanese power companies and regulators was the subject of a project by the Japanese six-person artist collective Chim↑Pom (the name is derived from a slang word that means "cock" or "prick"). Within a couple months of the disaster they had mounted an exhibition in Tokyo, the centerpiece of which was Radiation-Exposed Flowers Harmony. The piece consisted of flowers and plants collected within a 20 mile radius of the Fukushima power plant, and then, with the aid of flower artist Junichi Kakizaki, transformed into a gigantic, monstrous ikebana. Japanese ikebana is more than what we think of as simply arranging flowers; it is the art of creating a living thing in which humanities closeness to nature is celebrated and revered. In this installation a Geiger counter sat beside the flowers, always reading a low level of radioactivity, and before the exhibition was over, the flowers had begun to rot.
micheal arad and peter walker 9/11 memorial
Critics note that some are still buried under the site, making it sacred ground • Critics say that because the site is sacred ground in the minds of some family members it is therefore inappropriate as a site for a gift shop, admission prices, or gawkers • The edges of the squares are covered with bronze plaques inscribed with the names of the 2,977 who were killed, including those on the hijacked flights on 9/11, those at the Pentagon, and the rescuers who tried to help people escape, as well as victims of the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 Dedicated 10 years after the 9/11 attacks Square footprints of the fallen towers are now filled with waterfalls that represent the huge loss of life (2,977) Includes the 9/11 Memorial Museum
Bayeux Tapestry
Dates from around 1066-82 275-foot-long embroidery Wool stitches on linen Made by very skilled women Took more than 10 years to make Repeated patterns throughout establish overall rhythm Depicts events surrounding Battle of Hastings, 1066 Normans, led by William the Conqueror, won Defeated Anglo-Saxons had to give up power over England Commissioned by William's brother, Bishop of Bayeux Read left to right Detail of Battle of Hastings Shows fierce battle in which the victor is not yet established Embroidery Directional stitches show mass of horses Texture conveyed on armor of soldiers Figures and animals outlined in contrasting colors 13
thomas Eakins portrait of dr. samuel d. gross
Eakins witnessed an operation along with medical students Combined detailed observation with dramatic lighting centered on the body and the doctor Document of surgery Shows early use of anesthesia Shows tools and gore of actual operation Shows emotional response of mother, although she was likely not present at the real event
Anselm Kiefer Breaking of the Vessels
German artist born only months after end of World War II Grew up in a society ashamed and often silent about WWII Artworks force viewers to consider horrors of Nazi regime 27-foot-high sculpture made mostly of lead, iron, and glass Refers to the loss of millions of Jews during the Holocaust References to Kabbalah, collection of Jewish writings "Ain-Sof" (written on arched glass at top) is a Jewish term meaning infinite presence of God 10 labels on shelves signify 10 vessels containing essence of God Large, seemingly burnt books Books were literally burned by Nazi party supporters Books made of heavy lead, signifying their emotional weight Books represent knowledge Loss of knowledge when so many murdered The knowledge of the past should not be forgotten Glass Refers to Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass), 1938 The sharp glass makes it dangerous for a viewer to approach the artwork, symbolizing the fear and pain many feel at looking at the truth of the Holocaust
Mary Mattingly , Triple Island, 2013
In light of what seems like almost inevitable ecological doom, artist Mary Mattingly has created projects designed to show us how we might survive, and fundamental to her vision is her conviction that humanity must reduce its footprint on the planet. In 2009, in her Waterpod Project, she and three crew members lived aboard a 30-by100 foot barge that drifted through New York's waterways for five months, docking at sites throughout the city's five boroughs so that citizens could explore it and consider its possibilities. Fitted out with living quarters, a greenhouse, a windmill, and a chicken coop, it was completely self-sustaining. In late July 2013, Mattingly took up residence in her Triple Island on a barren stretch of Manhattan waterfront facing the East River that had served as a collection site for destroyed and abandoned automobiles after Hurricane Sandy. It consisted if a living space, a community garden, and a greenhouse, each on its own separate 16-by-16-foot island, and each constructed on floatable 55-gallon drums should the river rise as it did during the hurricane of October 2012. Like the Waterpod Project, Triple Island was designed to be self-sustaining, depending on regenerative natural systems, such as composting, rainwater collection, and localized power sources, including a solar power system
Harvest of Death, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1863 Timothy O'Sullivan
Known to have arranged corpses and clothing for his photographs Field of casualties after important Civil War battle Removal of some of the clothes suggests that thieves have taken from corpses Closer view of individual soldier makes the loss of life personal
Lee Krasner, Celebration, 1960
Krasner once proclaimed, "I swing from the lyric to the dramatic,"and her mature style consists of highly gestural brushwork that can be alternately blissful and ferocious within the same composition. Celebration embodies this approach particularly well, combining gentler organic shapes with frenzied thrusts, whiplashes, and spatters of paint. Its expansive scale fills the visual field of observers who stand a customary distance from it, providing an uncanny experience of envelopment. Krasner is identified as an abstract expressionist due to her abstract, gestural, and expressive works. She worked in painting, collage painting, charcoal drawing, and occasionally mosaics. She would often cut apart her own drawings and paintings to create her collage paintings. She also commonly revised or completely destroyed an entire series of works due to her critical nature. As a result, her surviving body of work is relatively small. Her catalogue raisonne, published in 1995 by Abrams, lists 599 known pieces. Her changeable nature is reflected throughout her work, which has led critics and scholars to have very different conclusions about her and her work.Her style often goes back and forth between classic structure and baroque action, open form and hard-edge shape, and bright color and monochrome palette.
Linder, Untitled, 1976
Linder's feminist appropriation and subversion of pornographic imagery recall the photomontages of another Dada artist from Berlin - Hannah Höch This is one of a group of Untitled photomontages Linder created in 1976-8 from women's fashion magazines. It shows a sepia-toned couple locked in a romantic embrace. The man's arms are round the woman's waist and his forehead pressed to hers. His eyes look deeply into her eyes, but instead of encountering the reciprocal gaze of his beloved he looks into burnt out holes containing an inverted pair of grey eyes that stare away from him, out of the picture. The burnt edges of the holes, doubling as lids, are being held open by an oversized fork: where the woman's 19 clasped right hand formerly rested tenderly against her lover's cheek, it now appears to be gripping the fork in front of his face. Two prongs disappear behind the bridge of her nose into her left eye, forcing it open, while the other two seem to pierce her right eye. A narrow section of flesh-coloured skin visible between the edge of the burnt socket and the eyeball emphasises the violence of the image.
Mickalene Thomas, Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe: Le Trois Femmes Noires, 2010
Mickalene Thomas inserts into the history of painting, black, sexually self-possessed women who are the objects of her desire and also stand-ins for herself. What are the differences between her work and her source (Manet's painting Lunch on the Grass)? In her work, she replaces two men with women, so the trio is self-assuring and based on equality, rather than a hierarchy of gender, class, and race. The figures are all clothed, but sexy, enjoying their sexuality but not cheapened or for sale, catching the viewer's gaze with equal assertiveness.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Napoleon on his imperial throne
Napoleon Bonaparte conceived of his official state art program with the same aim of asserting his power and might be celebrating major events by commissioning paintings, sculptures, and architecture. The paintings and sculptures were prominently displayed in public settings and the architecture was situated at important junctions in Paris. All were meant to present the physically small but extremely ambitious man as hero and leader of France or to remind the public of his efforts on their behalf. No image captures Napoleon's sense of himself better than this portrait by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. In this commission from Napoleon, Ingres depicts him as a monarch who embodies the total power of his country. Ingres combines two well-known frontal images of the deities Jupiter, or Zeus, and God the Father with the imperial attributes of the historical emperors Charlemagne (mentioned in the portrait we looked at last week) and Charles V of Spain.
Coatlicue, c. 1500, Mexica (Aztec)
Numerous snakes appear to writhe across the sculpture's surface. In fact, snakes form her entire skirt, as well as her belt and even her head. Coatlicue's name literally means Snakes-Her-Skirt, so her clothing helps identify her. Her snake belt ties at the waist to keep a skull "buckle" in place. Her upper torso is exposed, and we can just make out her breasts and rolls in her abdomen. The rolls indicate she is a mother. A sizable necklace formed of hands and hearts largely obscures her breasts.
Patricia Piccinini, The Young Family, 2002
Part of an installation entitled We are Family that consisted of six sculptural groupings. The Young Family shows a sow-like creature lying on her side while three small offspring nestle and suckle at her exposed teats. This work is a convincingly realistic construction of silicon, acrylic resin and mixed media. The creature resemble no ordinary breed of barnyard animal but incorporate a jarring combination of traits: human eyes and flesh, primate arms and hands and snout, floppy ears and a stubby tail of uncertain animal origins. With eyes brimming with feeling, the weary-looking mother appears disturbingly self-conscious, she is a sentient being occupying a body invented in a laboratory. This creature as well as others created by the artist refer to transgenics, a rapidly growing field of research that involves combining genetic material from different sources to create plants, animals and other organisms with modified or new traits. Transgenics research experiments proceed at a pace much faster than natural evolution and provide strategies for melding the characteristics of different organisms, including different species. The potential of using this scientific tool to engineer new life forms raises urgent moral and philosophical questions, especially when human genetic material is involved. Piccinini's transgenic creatures visually fracture the mental categories that keep humans and other species distinct and separate. They challenge the basic belief in a common, inviolable human identity, which is one of the last bastions of essentialism—a belief that members of a group, in this case the human species, share unchanging traits that define all members as one and separate them from all other creatures. Kim Toffoletti noted, " [Puccinini's imagery] raises the fundamental question of what constitutes identity, difference and being in a posthuman age." Piccinini steers clear or making polemical pronouncements but her sculptures visualize scenarios that have revolutionary implications. They not only challenge us to reconsider what it means to be human but reopen the issue of fundamental rights tied to human identity. 7
jasper johns flag
Pop artist Painted familiar objects that are usually "seen but not looked at" Viewer must participate for optical illusion to occur Top flag is made of colors complementary to those of the actual American flag Through afterimage effect, viewers' eyes will tire of black, green, and orange, and instead see red, white, and blue on the blank flag below
Leonardo da Vinci Vitruvian man
Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was not only a painter, but also an engineer, anatomist, botanist, and mapmaker • Vitruvius was an architect, engineer, and the author of Ten Books on Architecture, the only surviving treatise on architecture from the ancient world • In this treatise Vitruvius outlined the ideal proportions of a man, and argued that architecture should imitate these proportions • The length of both arms combined is equal to the height of a man, the distance from an elbow to the tip of a finger is one-quarter the height, and a man's foot is one-seventh his height Mirror writing Text based on ideas of ancient Roman architect Vitruvius Shows Leonardo's interest in the proportions of the human body Frequently studied corpses, exploring the science of the body
Snow We are not dead
Snow photos-series of images by photojournalists. Female. To honor bravery and draw attention to psychological transformation. How many young men returned as shadows of their former selves. Photographed when they were sent, 3 months later and just days after they returned. Private Chris MacGregor, 24 11th March, Edinburgh: "Obviously I'll miss family but other than that I am going to miss my dogs more than anything. They are my de-stressers and keep me sane. I think I'll miss TV too though. I try not to think about the worst case scenario." 19th June, Compound 19, Nad Ali, after an IED incident: "Most people get used to being away from home but I find it hard. It's your fear that keeps you alive here. But I believe if it's going to happen, it's going to happen and theres nothing you can do about it. If the big man upstairs could do anything, there'd be no dead soldiers. They'd all be alive. It still hurts when you hear about a soldier dying. You think about what their families are going through. You ask what they died for and what we are achieving here. I am not sure any more. That Afghan soldier losing his legs just now... I don't know...." 28th August, Edinburgh, after being evacuated due to sustained knee injury from Iraq: "My legs just gave up. I think it was the weight - 135 pounds or something. I just had to accept, my body was telling me to give up as I had pushed it. I was telling it to go, it was telling me to stop. When squaddies come back they still have a lot of adrenaline and anger in them. I had to have anger management after Iraq. If I get like that now, I just go for a walk with the dogs. It is the best way to deal with it, instead of being all tense and ready to snap at folk. The first thing I did when I came back, appart from kissing and cuddling the misses and my bairn, was go for a massive walk with the dogs. I walked for miles and miles not caring where I stepped."
Lauren Greenfield, Girl Culture Series, 2002
The body has become a primary expression of individual identity for girls in contemporary American culture. Girl Culture investigates girls' relationships to their bodies and the ways in which they use body projects to establish their identities. The photographs explore the relationship between girls' inner lives and emotional development, and the material world and popular culture. They also reveal the exhibitionist nature of modern femininity through moments of vanity and performance in everyday life. Writer and filmmaker Jill Soloway spoke about the female gaze. She defined it as a "conscious effort to create empathy as a political tool...a wresting away of the [masculine] point-of-view" and went on to say that it's "more than a camera or a shooting style, [but] an empathy generator that says, 'I was there in that room.'" Departing from the "male gaze," a term Laura Mulvey coined in 1975 to define points-of-view that treat women as objects of male pleasure, the female gaze involves what Soloway calls a sort of "feeling-seeing." It's a practice "of changing the way the world feels for women when they move in their bodies through the world, feeling themselves as the subject." The documentary photographer and filmmaker Lauren Greenfield sets out to capture 28 the interior lives of her subjects—contestants at beauty competitions, girlfriends at high school dances, patients at eating disorder clinics, and teenagers at weight-loss camps—by using her lens to do what Soloway calls, "evoke a feeling of being in feeling." In the photo series Girl Culture, Greenfield takes a sobering look at American girlhood, paying particular attention to the harmful, sometimes dangerous ways girls and young women try to alter their bodies.
Mierle Laderman Ukeles, The Social Mirror, 1983
This work focuses on the problem of waste caused by growing populations and consumerism. Ukeles had a clean New York City garbage truck fitted with gleaming mirrors, which transform it into a piece of sculpture . The Social Mirror also has a performance element, as in this photograph taken when the truck was part of parade. The mirrors reflect the faces of the public making them aware that they make trash and are responsible for its impact. All of Ukeles's work since the mid-1970s has focused on ecological issues of maintenance, recycling, waste management and landfill reclamation. 24
triumph of the will leni riefenstahl
a film commissioned by hitler to glorify his rule, military strength and the nazi order or aryan supremacy established hitler as the first media hero of the modern age utopian image of harmony appealed to those whose lives were in disorder
Mark Dion, Neukom Vivarium, 2006
a hybrid work of sculpture, architecture, environmental education and horticulture that connects art and science. It features a sixty-foot-long "nurse log" in an eighty-foot-long custom-designed greenhouse. Set on a slab under the glass roof of the greenhouse, the log has been removed from the forest ecosystem and now inhabits an art system. Its ongoing decay and renewal represent nature as a complex system of cycles and processes. Visitors observe life forms within the log using magnifying glasses supplied in a cabinet designed by the artist. Illustrations of potential log inhabitants-bacteria, fungi, lichen, plants, and insectsdecorate blue and white tiles that function as a field guide, assisting visitors' identification of "specimens." Neukom Vivarium is the artist's first permanent public art work in the United States.
Assyrian lamassu
an enormous sculpture from Khorsabadm the capital of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians, known for their ruthlessness and brutality, dominated the Near East for more than 300 years. With enormous size and glaring stare, two large Lamassu guarded the palace gate to terrify and intimidate all who entered. A form of a divine genie, the winged creature is part lion or bull, with the head of a human being. The horned crown symbolizes the king's divine power (where have we seen this before?). Carved from one large block of stone, the Lamassu has 5 legs to show movement and stability at the same time. From the side, the Lamassu appears to be striding forward. The front view, however, shows the beast at a stalwart stand-still, blocking the viewer's forward movement. Stylized and natural elements are combined, with hair and wings depicted with linear and repetitive patterns, while the strong muscular legs and facial features are more naturally rendered.
george washington jean-antoine houdon
asked one of the most respected sculptors of contemporary figures to carve a portrait of him in his military uniform he resigned for the position of commander in chief of the continental army after the rev. war certain elements from ancient sculpture: white marble, contrapposto stance, fasces (represent the 13 colonies) famous gaze is iconic
attributed to jose de alcibar from spaniard and black, mulatto
example of colonial power in mexican art casta painting large numbers of mixed race (castas) by the end of the 18th century 1/4 of the pop was mixed casta paintings include a man and woman of different races with one or two of their children contrast between father and sons wealth demonstrated by dress spanish obsession with racial genealogy/ intermixing
edmund clark camp five, detainees cell
guantanamo bay detention facility at the us naval base in cuba project to explore three notions of "home": the homes of the American community stationed on the base; the complex of camps in which detainees are housed; and the homes where those detainees who have released now live. Camp Five, Detainees Cell shows the kind of cell that Omar Deghayes, one of the released detainees who are the focus of Clark's project, remembers well. When Deghayes was transferred to Camp Five, he was, he says, "held in isolation in a stark, white, concrete cell. It was a difficult place. It was very cold with the air conditioning always turned up high; the cell was painted bright white and harshly lit; and the lights were kept on all the time, which was especially painful after I was injured when an Emergency Response Force guard gouged one of my eyes. There was a flap that the guards lifted from the outside to look in, but I could never see out through it." Deghayes, a Libyan citizen who had had legal residency status in the UK since childhood, was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and transferred to the detention center that same year, when the facility received its first "unlawful combatants" (as opposed to "prisoners of war," a distinction allowing the US to ignore the Geneva Conventions). He was released on December 18, 2007, never having been charged with any crime, but blinded in one eye. Deghayes's description of the conditions in which he lived in Camp Five reflect the mechanisms of power 36 that the British philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham devised in 1791 for his ideal prison, the Panopticon, a circular building with a surveillance house at its center, allowing a single guard to observe all the inmates. In his book, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, the great French historian Michel Foucault outlined its major effect, which was "to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power."
Elefon helmet mask, Yoruba, after 1900
in Nigeria, among the Yoruba people, the highest-ranking woman is called Iyalode, or mother of all. The culture is patriarchal in structure; nevertheless, although rare, there are instances of 'Yoruba women serving as chief, and the Iyalode position is one of particular power, as this elefon mask suggests. The elefon are the ancestral emperors of the Yoruba city of Oyo, and this mask was meant to evoke them in dance. Like most African masks, it is worn by a male, and the mask proper- its bottom quarter- is male. But the top three-quarters consist of a representation of an Iyalode as chief. She carries a fly whisk in one hand and wears a tall conical crown and necklace of large coral beads- al symbols of a Yoruba chief. In her right hand, she holds the upside-down figure of another woman. This gesture represents the power of an Iyalode to exercise discipline over women who have erred. The Iyalode also represented the collective interests of women before the king. But perhaps most important here is that the Iyalode stands upon the head of a male, thus exercising her power over him as well. 6
Death of general Wolfe Benjamin west
neoclassical. During American and French revolutions many sacred images reinterpreted within the context of patriotism and country. Set in new world. America a romantic place to Europeans-native American to add to exotic quality. Compare to giotto's lamentation
spencer tunick everything she says means everything
on the day of the RNC, over 100 women stood nude holding mirrors to combat hate and make a statement about the importance of women and their rights in the 2016 election mother nature in cleveland holding the mirrors suggests women are a reflection and embodiment of nature
Edward Hicks the peaceable kingdom
painted between 1830 and 1840, is based on the following biblical passage: The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. (Isaiah 11) Hicks was also inspired by the Quaker William Penn and his treaty with the Indians, which is visible in the background as a copied detail from a famous painting by Benjamin West. This moment came to signify a utopian new world. Hicks's visual metaphors have become standard language for expressing the concept of peace. A luminous sky glows in the background, while lush vegetation frames the foreground figures. The animals are rendered in flat, decorative, imaginative style. There is a feeling of innocence and peace, without strife and turmoil.
olowe of ise veranda post palace at ikere
symbolizes kingly power shows a senior wife, the queen, standing behind the enthroned king the royal female towers over the king while crowning him, because she is the source of his power crown topped with bird- a symbol for the reproductive power of mothers yoruba aesthetic patterns
menkaure and his queen 2489-2471 bc
they stand side by side, young, strong and confident they display the Egyptian ideal of beauty and maturity. Kham is shown as large as Men, as pharaonic succession was traced through the female line. The compact pose makes the sculpture more durable and permanent, befitting the pharaohs as divine descendants of the Sun God, Re. The sculpture was carved from a block of slate, a very hard stone. One view was likely sketched on each side, according to the Egyptian canon of proportions, and then carved inward until all four views met.
