UCLA Art History C131B Midterm

Characteristics of Minimalist Art

""stressed cold restraint over emotional expression" "Like Pop, Minimalist Art is interested in challenging the presumption that art's meaning originates in the "genius" of the artist." "coolly severe geometries" simple shapes and few materials" "emphasized extreme simplification of form and color EMPHASIS ON OBJECTHOOD" "often quite large, becoming part of, and a tthe same time increasing awareness of, the surroundings and environment "just one part" of the environment; typically uses industrial materials like metal; interrest in constructivism as the modular industrial forms used in constructivism were placed in a way that would keep the structure intact and standing, thus eliminating subjectivity and emphasizing non-composition and also put on display the materials used and how they were placed relative to each other;

Allan Kaprow, 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, 1959

"(Happenings) "In this happening, the public was invited to complete a number of tasks using instructions outlined in a score. Kaprow used music theory with new developments in electronic music, theatre, and dance, all combined within a pioneering structure that demanded participatory involvement. 18 Happenings in 6 Parts was performed at the Reuben Gallery in New York and is one of his earliest and most important Happenings, often cited as a turning point for performance art. Kaprow authorized a reinvention of this piece just a few weeks before his death and it was performed in Munich's Haus der Kunst in November of 2006. A gallery divided into three rooms, semitransparent plastic sheets painted and collaged with references to Kaprow's earlier work, panels with words roughly painted, rows of plastic fruit, artist's hand-lettered instructions and programs, vintage posters, photographs, and videotapes

Claes Oldenburg, The Store, 1961

"(Happenings) "Oldenberg opened up The Store in a rented NY storefront, filling it with life-size and over-life-size plaster splaster sculptures of everyday things.Oldenberg was inspired by Kaprow's essay "The legacy of Jackson Pollock" to open The Store." He became part of the art by taking on the role of shopkeeper and the visitors thereby also become part of the art as shoppers. Meant ot be a cynical commentary on consumer culture and the commodification of art as the shoppers are bying things that only look useful due to their imitation of real goods, but are in fact worthless due to the fact that they can't be used fo anything but decoration and do not fulfil the purpose of what they were modeled off of. "Oldenburg organized his installation like a typical variety shop and sold his items at low prices, commenting on the interrelation between art objects and commodities. Although sold as if they were mass-produced, the sculptures in The Store were carefully hand-built and the lavish, expressive brushstrokes that cover the items in Pastry Case, I seem to mock the seriousness of Abstract Expressionism, a common theme in Pop art. Oldenburg combines the evocative expressionist gesture with the commodity item in a highly ironic environment." materials: Painted plaster sculptures on ceramic plates, metal platter and cups in glass-and-metal case

Roy Lichtenstein, Drowning Girl, 1963

"(Pop) "Lichtenstein created enlarged comic strip paintings with heavy outlines and Ben Day dots, the process created by Ben Day to produce shading effects in mechanical printing. To Lichtenstein, the dots represent a conscious parody of Seurat's pointilism, and also reveal to the extent to which feeling in popular culture is as "Canned" as Cambell's soup. Lichtenstein learned from teaching art to college students that the authentic gesture of Abstract Expressionism could easily be taught and replaced without any emotion at all. -- carried out as a completely academic enterprise." "Lichtenstein did not simply copy comic pages directly, he employed a complex technique that involved cropping images to create entirely new, dramatic compositions, as in Drowning Girl, whose source image included the woman's boyfriend standing on a boat above her. Lichtenstein also condensed the text of the comic book panels, locating language as another, crucial visual element; re-appropriating this emblematic aspect of commercial art for his paintings further challenged existing views about definitions of "high" art. As with the rest of Pop Art, it is often unclear whether Lichtenstein is applauding the comic book image, and the general cultural sphere to which it belongs, or critiquing it, leaving interpretation up to the viewer. But in Drowning Girl, the ridicule of the woman's situation (as is made clear by her ridiculous statement) is evident." materials: Oil on canvas - Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas

Roy Lichtenstein, Popeye, 1961

"(Pop) "Popeye was one of the very first Pop paintings that Lichtenstein created in the summer of 1961. At a later stage he would begin to focus on the generic human figures that appeared in cartoons of the period, but, early on, he chose immediately recognizable characters such as Mickey Mouse and Popeye (here, Popeye appears with his rival Bluto). The work is also distinct in being one of the last in which Lichtenstein actually signed his name on the surface of the picture; critic Michael Lobel has pointed out that he seems to have done so with increasing uncertainty in this piece, combining it with a copyright logo that is echoed in the form of the open tin can above it. Some have suggested that Popeye's punch was intended as a sly response to one of the reigning ideas in contemporary art criticism that a picture's design should make an immediate visual impact. Whereas most believed this should be achieved with abstract art, Lichtenstein here demonstrated that one could achieve it just as well by borrowing from low culture." materials: oil on canvas

Characteristics of Happenings

"A term coined by American artist Allan Kaprow in the 1960s to describe loosely structured performances, whose creators were trying to suggest the aesthetic and dynamic qualities of everyday life; as actions, rather than objects, Happenings incorporate the fourth dimension (time)." Could be set in any location; unknown outcomes; ephemeral as each performance would be different based on how the audience interacted with the set; meant to take on the commodification of art as these were experiences, rather than items that could be bought and sold, but it created a commodity anyway as the events were rather exclusive due to their temporary nature (this would be eliminated by fluxus events), meant to take art off of the canvas and into the real world; actions as art rather than creation of a lasting artwork (inspired by Pollack's action paintings);

Fluxus

"An international avant-garde movement that aimed to spurn existing art theories and aesthetics. Artists often gravitated toward performance art, or actions; and incorporated social activism into their works." anti-art or non-art; art was conceived as an artist-initiated experience rather than an object; could be performed anywhere by anyone; destroying the boundary between art and life; against high art and the way that museums were allowed to dictate what was art and who could make it; highlughted artists from backgrounds that were not usually celebrated in previous art movements; meant for the masses; element of chance, as fluxus event scripts were purposely open for interpretation; sometimes humourous; inspired less by Abstract Expressionist work than by Dada, particularly the works of MArcel Duchamp and his readymades, and by the music of experimental composers like John Cage, as well as Zen Buddhism; similar to happenings but didn't require a created set; without a clear end as what was importanbt was the creative process rather than the finished product; celebrated everyday, overlooked experiences and seeked to open up the boundaries of what was defined as art; blurs the line between performer and audience. Cite Huyssen, Andreas. "Back to the Future: Fluxus in Context." In In the Spirit of Fluxus, edited by Elizabeth Armstrong and Joan Rothfuss, 141-51. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1993. if any of the comparisons are for Fluxus works

Pop Art

"art based on modern popular culture and the mass media, especially as a critical or ironic comment on traditional fine art values."; blurred the line between fine art and objects meant for consumption; "imitated the techniques of commercial art (as the soup cans of Andy Warhol) and the styles of popular culture and the mass media;" emphasized existing popular images and cultural artifacts; cold and impersonal;

Modernism: medium specificity, flatness, oscillation between literal surface and optical

(Abstract Expressionism and Modernism) Medium specificity: the idea that the successfulness of a work of art can be defined by how well it uses the properties unique to its medium as that requires full understanding of that medium. One of the properties specific to the medium of painting is its flatness, so Greenberg, the originator of the idea of medium specificity, was interested in how artists were able to both show a painting's flatness and create a illusion of depth. Flatness: as stated by Greenberg in "Towards a Newer Laocoon" painting had been tainted by literature for centuries rather than trying to explore and manipulate its own medium specificity. By that he meant that painting felt a need to attempt to emulate literature and tell a story rather than just focusing on its visuals. To him, perspective was sort of a tool in this pursuit as it tried to convince the reader of an imaginary depth rather than showing the painting for what it was, a flat canvas. He felt that the avant-gardes regression of this into more and more flat artworks showed that painting was becoming more pure and medium specific rather than trying to emulate another medium.

Spontaneity and improvisation

(Abstract Expressionism and Modernism) Abstract expressionist painters rarely worked off of pre-drawn sketches, instead creating their work in an improvisatory way, adding elements as they felt necessary. In the case of artists who worked on large canvases, some of the already painted canvas would be removed at the end after the artist stepped away to take the full painting in.

Scale

(Abstract Expressionism and Modernism) Abstract expressionist works were often very large in scale, more so than other paintings. They had moved beyond the easel as action paintings in particular required a large space upon which the artist could act. Jackson Pollock believed that his work fell more in line with wall murals as a result. "create a sensation of being enveloped in the paintings"

Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950

(Abstract Expressionism and Modernism) An example of action painting. Pollock uses his signature autographical style of dripping and splattering the canvas with paint. Uses diluted black paint on an unprimed canvas, as well brown and white paint. All of the colors are neutrals. Evokes natural forms in the way that the lines are both think and thin and layer over each other in overlapping ways, much like a bird's nest or a tumbleweed. While Pollock is in control of his movements, his materials, and his colors, there is some aspects of this that are left up to chance as he cannot fully control how the paint splatters. Pollock would make his paintings by laying his canvas on the ground and then walking around and occasionally on top of it dripping and fling paint onto the canvas. He worked in a bold, purposeful, and performative manner that prioritized spontaneity as he would allow the painting to almost take on a life of its own as the layers of paint created new forms. His work is at once controlled and impulsive. "Do you consider technique to be important in art? JP: Yes and no. Craftsmanship is essential to the artist. He needs it just as he needs brushes, pigments, and a surface to paint on." Cite Jackson Pollock, "Answers to a Questionnaire," Harrison & Wood 570 "Two Statements" 571

Clement Greenberg vs. Harold Rosenberg

(Abstract Expressionism and Modernism) Greenberg believed that it continued the prior artistic trajectory by continuing to emphasize the flatness of painting and the painting's own medium specificity. Rosenberg believed that Pollock's work split from the prior evolutionary trajectory of painting, focusing less on the pursuit of further and further abstraction of forms and instead focusing on pure expression and action. The act of painting became the priority and the true art rather than the painting and the painting is essentially just a byproduct of that action. As Rosenberg states "at a certain moment, the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to act -rather than as a space in which to reproduce, redesign, analyze, or express an object, whether real or imagined.

Franz Kline, Chief, 1950

(Abstract Expressionism and Modernism) Kline's authographic style appears to be based on caligraphy and emphasizes line more than anything else. Kline worked with house paint creating fluid, flat works. The only colors seen in cheif are that flat black and stark, cold white. The lines in the painting are both straight and curved, thick and bold. There is ann illusion of depth created despite the flatness of the black paint because of the contrast between the two colors, but neither is really closer to the viewer, as the colors overlap each other. Kline's work is less spontaneous than Pollock's as Kline would, unlike most abstract expressionists, occasionally make sketches beforehand. It is a powerful and intense work said to have been inspired by a train engine though, because this is an abstract work, the train itself is not visible just the feeling of it.

depth

(Abstract Expressionism and Modernism) Though Abstract Expressionist paintings emphasized the idea of flatness more than any other art movement that had come before, there is still an illusion of depth, typically due to a contrast in color choices. Sometimes the order in which the different colored paints were applied were evident as well, which also creates an illusion that the paint applied later emerges from the painting more than the paint that was applied first.

Artists' procedures, implements, and materials

(Abstract Expressionism and Modernism) To create an autographic style, abstract expressionist artists often experimented with unusual methods of painting and by using tools and materials not usually used in painting. For example, Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline were known to work with house paint.

Expression/expressionism

(Abstract Expressionism and Modernism) a common characteristic of expressionist paintings is the artist's interest in understanding their own subconcious through the use of art. Their works of art therefore are therefore sort of like visual translations of their unique subconscious mind and their effort to understand it.

Autographic/calligraphic gesture

(Abstract Expressionism and Modernism) a distinctive, reoccurring trait in an artist's works that easily identify the work as a product of the artist. For Barnett Newman, it was his solid colored canvases with a vertical line (what he referred to as a zip) of another color interrupting it and creating a sort of depth. For Pollock, it was his splatter painting technique. For Rothko, it's his solid backgrounds with rectangular, colored forms.

Action painting

(Abstract Expressionism and Modernism) a type of abstract expressionist painting in which the artist drips, splashes, throws, pours, or splatters paint onto a surface like a canvas in order to create his or her work. It was made famous by Jackson Pollock.

Hans Namuth, photograph of Jackson Pollock painting, 1950

(Abstract Expressionism and Modernism) image showing Jackson Pollock at work. He can be seen stepping on top of the large canvas (shoeprints can sometimes be seen on his paintings as a result), essentially becoming part of his artwork, to splatter paint onto it. This emphasizes how this was an improvisatory act with Pollock making movements as he saw necessary.

Facture

(Abstract Expressionism and Modernism) the quality of the execution of a painting; an artist's characteristic handling of the paint. Abstract expressionist paintings are highly painterly, with visible brush strokes that show that this is the work of a human being and that it is a unique piece. Due to the spontaneous creation of these works, "mistakes" can be seen in the irregularity of lines, blurred edges, bleeding paints, drips that appear unintentional, and in the case of painters who worked with their canvas on the ground, footprints or shoeprints. The way in which these works were created, as well as the materials used, is often evident in the "mistakes" that can be seen

Shigeko Kubota, Vagina Painting, 1965

(Fluxus) "she is painting on a horizontal surface with a brush loaded with red paint suspended from her crotch. Now with the so we can clearly see this in the use of this kind of like horizontal arena of action. Clear allusion to invocation of Pollock's precedent" but at the same time it almost seems to be taking aim at the way that the majority of the celebrated, written about artists from the time of abstract expressionism were men despite ther e being women who worked in the movement.

La Monte Young, Composition 1960 #10 to Bob Morris, 1960, and Nam June Paik's performance of this work as Zen for Head, 1962

(Fluxus) A fluxus event script that just tells the performer to draw a line and follow it. Nam June Paik famously enacted this by dipping his head in a combination of tomato juice and ink and then dragging his soaked head along a peice of paper, thereby following the straight line he had created. Paik, like Cage and Brecht was a musician and was inspired by musical composition. "While realizing this score and bringing new artwork to life, we, used to be the audience who passively experience and receive the message the artists want to convey to us, now become the active participants and even collaborators; as it is the collective effort of the audience and the artist that bring the work into existence. Different from the traditional abstract expressionist paintings, where the artists' subconscious, heroic, and expressive gestures are prevalent throughout, chance procedures and indeterminacy dominate the creating process in the Fluxus events like this. The work is a fluid form; it lives in the words of the score, in the process of different people creating various kinds of work out of the score, and the final piece. To me, the working process can reflect the indeterminacy feature of Fluxus the most. While I chose to use a banal blue pen that was at reach when I read the score, my sister apparently made a cleverer choice by using celery with sauce. Also, I chose to just work on a regular piece of paper, and she used the plate as the place for painting. Our deliberate choices lead to different results yet, no matter boring or smart, both of the tools we used came from our daily lives, and we both finished our works in the domestic setting. Therefore, the line between art and life was blurred; people incorporate elements from their daily lives to bring art to life."

Genealogical questions: Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, music composition

(Fluxus) Check Lecture 7, Part 1 Dada artist Marcel Duchamp was highly influential to Fluxus artists as he questioned what qualified an object as just an object and not art. He would take everyday objects, known as readymades and recontextualize them by displaying them in the same way that art was. This blurred the lines between art and the everyday which was incredibly important to Fluxus artists. His art took aim at the art establishment in a humurous way with works liek "The Fountain" and this is another element that can be seen in some Fluxus works. John Cage also influenced the Fluxus artists through his use of chance and indeterminacy in his music which influenced the open to interpretation, ambigous nature of fluxus event scripts. He also taught a number of the artists Cage would apply. Avant-garde music was a huge source of inspiration for the fluxus artists and this can be seen perhaps most evidently in the creation of event scores which, though written using words rather than notes, is a written instruction by a composer on how to perform the score, much like a musical score.

Benjamin Patterson, Paper Piece, 1960

(Fluxus) Check Lecture 7, Part 2 "which is that when we look at an event score like this, it's not exactly clear whether the work itself resides in the score, in the performance. So witnessing this or in the resulting object, right? And I think that, that perceptual ambiguity is kind of like part of the larger Fluxus. I'm sorry, the conceptual ambiguity as part of the larger kind of provocation of fluxes. Benjamin Patterson is another Fluxus artist. He is interested because he interesting because he's another figure who comes directly out of a music settings. So he's a classically trained the double bassist. He had, he had very important ambitions of breaking the color barrier in classical music and really racially integrating the American Symphony Orchestra. Sadly, still not an option for a black man at the time. In 1960 or in the early 19 sixties, he travels to Cologne, Germany. He meets composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen who had been involved tangentially and some of George match Unisys activities there. He also meets John Cage. And especially with John Cage, he's immediately invited to participate in a performance which is where he meets people like Nam June pike, another artist associated with Fluxus who were in Germany at the time. And around Christmas of that year in 1960, he writes a letter back to his family at home, which included this new piece he'd written paper piece. And let's see. So what it what it specifies, it involves instruments. I don't know if you can see. Instruments of this piece are 15 sheets of paper and three bags. The duration down here is between 12.5 minutes and ten minutes. And the performers are instructed to shake, break, tear, crumple, rumble, bumble, rub, scrub, twist, poof and pop paper. So you can end, there's a kind of a superficial resemblance here" to some of the post-painterly abstract work

John Cage, 4'33", 1952

(Fluxus) Event script. A three part composition that should in total measure 4 minutes and 33 seconds, though the length of each particular section is open for interpretation. What matters most is that this composition is meant to be silent, with otherwise ignored noises, like the sounds of the audience and the street outside, forming the music. Explors the idea of readymade noise. What is music and what is sound/noise? Does it come down to whether the sounds were intentionally created as art or is it the role of the audience to decide to listen or merely hear? Depending upon the environment in which it performed the performance will always sound different making this a clear example of both Indeterminacy and chance operations. Influenced both Kaprow and the Fluxus artists.

Yoko Ono, Cut Piece, 1964

(Fluxus) Fluxus event in which the audience was told to approach the artist and use scissors to snip away a peice of her clothing. Throughout this, she sat motionless and did not react. Combines violence, sexuality, sexual violence, and art. Explores the dynamic between artist and audience.Blurs the line between performer and audience member as it is the audience memebers who are given the power, doing the cutting and therefore, the results of the event score are dependent upon their actions. The results will never be exactly the same as the audience has control while the performer/compser just complies with their actions. Feminist undertones as well. .

Fluxus event scores vs. Kaprow's Happenings

(Fluxus) Fluxus event scores make art out of the everyday actions that the performers and audience usually do and they also have elements of chance as the instructions are rather ambigous and open, allowing for each "performance" to have subtle differences, while the Happenings, despite also requiring audience participation, are more controlled and less grounded in the everyday reality of the participants. Kaprow creates a strange environment for his happenings whereas Fluxus event scores are based in and celebrate the banal. Anyone can perform an event score anywhere and can add variations due to the openess of the instructions.

Indeterminacy and chance operations

(Fluxus) Indetermancy: essentially means that things are left open to chance and allow for freedom of interpretation. John Cage was noted for his use of this in his compositions and it can be seen in the open-ended, ambigous nature of event scripts. Depending on who was performing the piece, each performance of it could be completely unique. Chance operations: another term introduced by John Cage, essentially this means that the composition of a work of art, regardless of its medium, is left up to chance. How this is done may be through the use rolling dice, flipping coins, etc. to determine different elements in the creation of the composition. For example, the unusual tunings of Cage's compositions were due to chance operations. In another example his 1951 composition "Imaginary Landscape No. 4" was meant to be played with 12 radios with one person changing the station at a determined time and another changing the volume at a determinede time. Those aspects were controlled but the music or sound playing on the radio was entirely up to chance and therefore no two performances would be alike. (reminds me of post-painterly abstraction) He wasn't the first to do this, as Dadaist Hans Arp also used chance operations in his collages by just dropping peices of paper onto the canvas and gluing them onto wherever they fell so that the composition of the collage was left to gravity and the environmental conditions of the room it was made in (like wind).

Event score

(Fluxus) Like musical scores, but for events, essentially telling the performer what must be done. Usually left ambigous in its instruction and essentially labels typically ordinary actions as performance/art. The person who writes the event score is the composer.

Readymade (objects vs. sounds vs. actions)

(Fluxus) Readymade objects: related to Dada and Marcel Duchamp who would label common objects as "art," sometimes framing it in a new way. It recontextualizes these objects by displaying them in a way that is usually reserved for intentionally created art. Raises the question of what is art and what is object, and how do we differentiate the two? Readymade Sounds: related to Fluxus and John Cage in his musical performances such as 4' 33" which were three part "musical perfromances" that were completely silent so that the "music" was really the sounds that the audience would usually ignore, like coughing. Raises the question of listening vs. hearing. Readymade actions: relates to George Brecht and event scores. In the event scores, everyday actions (as well as some sounds) are turned into performances.

"The Legacy of Jackson Pollock"

(Happenings)

Commodity

(Happenings)

Happenings (vs. conventions of theater)

(Happenings)

Allan Kaprow, Yard, 1961

(Happenings) Calls attention to the commercialization of the society by showing the waste. Allan Kaprow recreated a junkyard for this happening by piling tires onto each other and having the audience clamor over and onto them. It is in a way, a large-scale, immersive sculpture that allows the audience to engage with the art. It takes Jackson Pollock's idea of action painting, in which the actions performed to create the art were seen as perhaps more important than its result, and takes it even furthur by fully removing the canvas and instead letting the audience move in the art. The art fully surrounds them and they become part of it. It also blurs the line between art and life by taking readymade everyday objects and using them to create art.

Materials (Happenings)

(Happenings) Happenings were very losely defined as essentially immersive art expereinces that the audience was meant to be a part of. Therefore, a lot of creative freedom was given to the aartists who were free to experiment and use whatever materials they wanted to bring their vision to life. The scale and location was also left up to the artist. Oftentimes however, the materials were meant to be everyday readymade objects to help blur the line between life and art.

Blurring of art and life

(Happenings) Happenings, though they were stages set up for the audience to interact with, were meant to blur the lines between art and life and what was a commercial object and what was art.

Correspondence between form and procedure

(Minimalism)

Duration

(Minimalism)

Fabrication

(Minimalism)

Literal

(Minimalism)

Mark di Suvero, Nova Albion, 1964-65

(Minimalism)

Objecthood (vs. Art)

(Minimalism)

Perception

(Minimalism)

Seriality (vs. composition)

(Minimalism)

Theatricality

(Minimalism)

"specific object"

(Minimalism) "Judd's 1965 essay "Specific Objects"—though not a manifesto of minimalism as such, and inclusive of artists not usually associated with the movement—is one of the most well-known explanations of the priorities of minimalist artists. It identifies in broad terms a reductive new approach to making objects that are somewhere between painting and sculpture, but neither one nor the other.

Carl Andre, Equivalent I-VIII

(Minimalism) AY CHECK IN THE BOOK IF THESE WERE MEANT TO BE STEPPED ON AND CHECK IN THE READING FOR SCULPTURE AS PLACE! To Andre art was anything made by an artist and anything labeled as art by an artist. An artist to him was also anyone who called themselves an artist. This is a series of artworks that were each made of the same material, white lime and sand bricks, and the same number of them, but they were arranged in different rectangular forms. Each of the works in the Equivalent I-VIII series were displayed on the ground (reminds me of Jackson Pollock's canvases that were spread on the ground while he worked on them). The space in between the bricks was part of the structure, falling in line with the way that the environment a minimalist sculpture was displayed in altered the piece and therefore became part of it. Materials: Sand-lime bricks

David Smith, Cubi XII, 1963

(Minimalism) Cubi XII is entirely composed of vertically stacked square and rectilinear and geometric shapes made of stainless steel. The shapes in the sculpture recall both architectural and cubist forms and like cubist artwork, the sculpture is oddly flat despite it's three-dimensionality. Like most minimalist work, the viewer can percieve the shapes without seeing their entirety, but must move around them to fully take them in. This is heightened by its reflective material. Resembles found industrial objects put together to form a sculpture. Materials: Stainless steel

Donald Judd, "Specific Objects":"Half or more of the best new work in the last few years has been neither painting nor sculpture." & "The order is not rationalistic and underlying but is simply order, like that of continuity, one thing after another."

(Minimalism) Explain in your own words and explain how this can be seen in specific artworks.

Robert Morris, "Notes on Sculpture":"The better new work takes relationships out of the work and makes them a function of space, light, and the viewer's field of vision. The object is but one of the terms in the newer esthetic." & "One is more aware than before that he himself is establishing relationships as he apprehends the object from various positions and under varying conditions of light and spatial context."

(Minimalism) Explain in your own words and explain how this can be seen in specific artworks. Morris believes that Minimalism uses structures and forms that are easy to recognize, but makes them something different. Depending on when and where the viewer sees the artowrk, their perception of it will change, making the environment in which it is displayed, the lighting conditions, and the viewers perspective relative to the art an essential part of the artwork. The artist has control over only some of these things

Michael Fried, "Art and Objecthood":"the literalist (minimalist) espousal of objecthood amounts to nothing other than a plea for a new genre of theater, and theater is now the negation of art."

(Minimalism) Explain in your own words and explain how this can be seen in specific artworks.: Michael Fried did not care for minimalism and he believed that an object could only become art if it followed tenants of artistic composition and aesthetics. By this, he meant that while all artworks are technically objects, real art is able to "deny or suspend objecthood" making viewers forget that they are looking at an object by presenting interesting forms, concepts, and creating something meaningful. To him minimalist art didn not follow this and was therefore nothing more than glorified objects. He thinks they were made with the intent to create an object and then display it as art with the purpose of defying object-hood. To Fried the artworks were meaningless without an audience to react to them, and were therefore created entirely to generate a response from viewers who projected their feelings onto it, finding meaning where there was nothing but an unfinished structure masquerading as art. He describes them as anthropomorphic, being brought to life and turned into art only through the use of the viewer's imagination. He really did believe that this was an attack on art that exposed nothing but artists narcissism and superficiality. He compares it to theatre because to him, that medium also requires the presense of an audience and is meant to illicit emotion in them while being superficial and manipulative.

Donald Judd, Untitled, 1965

(Minimalism) Judd believed that medium characteristics like shape and color were art in and of themselves and didn't need to be part of a greater work to be recognized as art. Extreme medium specificity, wanted to show the material for what it was, in this case iron, rather than trying to turn it into something else. Judd liked to display his art in unusual ways. For example, Untitled is eight rectangular forms hung vertically off of the wall creating depth by moving into the public space, heightened by the darkness of the metal.Despite being separate forms they are displayed together to create one larger unified form. Viewers are perhaps meant to be drawn in by the unusual display and move around it to view it from all visible angles and therefore see the ways in which light reflects on the metal differently when it iseen from different angles. To Michael Fried this represents theatricality. To Judd, his work was "neither painting nor sculpture" as he discusses in his essay "Specific Objects," but something else entirely. DISCUSS THEATRE IF ASKED and add an altered version of this: "Minimalism also leaves a lot to the imagination; the viewer is left to form their own interpretations and understanding of what is presented to them. There is no disguise of the material meaning there is no illusion, essentially what you see is what you get. However, not every person is going to see the same thing because we all have different thoughts and experiences. Judd's Untitled is broken down to its simplest form and therefore is reliant upon what the viewer themselves bring even if it's just their reflection. The artwork alone is impersonal and nongestural or lacking in individuality. However, the artwork is still the main event with which the viewer is experiencing. The large scale of minimalist works lends to its theatricality. Fried's thoughts on theatricality in minimalism means that the artwork itself is insufficient in its communication and power to provoke a reaction instead it is contingent upon the audience engagement with the environment."

Robert Morris, Untitled (Three L-Breams), 1965

(Minimalism) These are three large, identical, stainless steel L-shaped structures. Each of the works is positioned differently, with one lying on the floor, another tipped over, and only one standing upright. Due to the material used by Morris, his hand appears to be removed from the work with nothing that implies that it isn't multiple industrial objects except for their interesting positioning and setting. That is perhaps exactly the point, as by removing textures and colors, form and shape are emphasized to the viewer. The shapes are simple and can be easily pictured by the viewer no matter where they stand in relation to the forms, but Morris wanted them to be experienced differently every time they were put on display and intended them to be arranged in new ways. Michael Fried's essay "Art and Objecthood" argues against the element of theatre that he sees in minimalist works like this one. To him, it is nothing more than a shape and therefore is not art but an object as it does not even pretend to be anything else in appearance. Fried further argues that "the literalist espousal of objecthood amounts to nothing other than a plea for a new genre of theatre; and theater is now the negation of art" (HW, 838). INCLUDE YOUR INTERPRITATION OF THIS QUOTE Materials: Stainless steel

Dan Flavin, monument for V. Tatlin, 1964

(Minimalism) To Flavin art was thought and concept. Flavin, like his contemporaries working in the minimalist art movement, worked with industrial, prefabricated material but his work stands out for his use of fluorescent lights. While light was important to minimalist art as it could change how viewers percieved the art, Flavin took it a step further by having his sculptures be the sourde of light. His art is more the light emitted by the material instead of the material and shaped his materials in order to shape the light. By using the fluorescent tubes as they would be purchased for buildings and just arranging them, rather than modifying their shape in some way for his art or creating custom tubes, the artist seems to remove himself from his art. It is dedicated to the Russian Constructivist artist Vladimir Tatlin and resembles one of his most famous sculptures, Tatlin's Tower/Monument to the Third International, in its tower-like shape. Constructivist art was a large inspiration for Minimalist art and that influence can be seen in the repetition of forms in Monument for V. Tatlin. CHECK TO SEE IF THE BOOK HAS INFO ON THIS Flavin's Monuments, made up of light bulbs that either burn out or are turned off, have an element of impermanence that memorializes the ghost of Tatlin's unrealized project. As Flavin stated, "The pseudo-monuments, structural designs for clear but temporary cool white fluorescent lights, were to honor the artist ironically." Materials: Cylindrical white fluorescent light

Andy Warhol, Coca-Cola 2, c. 1961

(Pop)

Seriality and repetition

(Pop)

Roy Lichtenstein, Little Big Painting, 1965

(Pop) "Lichtenstein was a prolific printmaker throughout his career. This print, reflects his interest in the importance of the brushstroke in Abstract Expressionism. Abstract Expressionist artists had made the brushstroke a vehicle to directly communicate feelings; Lichtenstein's brushstroke made a mockery of this aspiration, also suggesting that though Abstract Expressionists disdained commercialization, they were not immune to it - after all, many of their pictures were also created in series, using the same motifs again and again. Lichtenstein has said, "The real brushstrokes are just as pre-determined as the cartoon brushstrokes."" materials: screenprint on white woven paper

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe Diptych, 1962

(Pop) "Marilyn Diptych -Painting is a memorial to her and a commentary on the circumstance that brought her to suicide. Warhol depicts her as a personality, the creation of a Hollywood studio system whose publicity shot Warhol repeats over and over again here to the point of erasure. Turned to oil, acrylic, and silkscreen in enamel canvas." Taken from a promotional shot she did for a 1953 movie, cropped above her shoulders with her hair deciding the width. Warhol choosing to use a photograph of Marilyn from a decade prior may have been a way to show her at the peak of her popularity and power as a sex-symbol, the way that the public generally remembers her. At the time of her death, she was in poor physical health from gallstones, for which she had her gallbladder removed, endometriosis, and drug addiction, and she was suffering from depression. Her career as an actress was on the decline with her last movies underperforming at the box-office and being derided by critics at the time, and she had been fired from the last film she had been cast in before her death. It also separates the myth of Marilyn from her reality. She was a sex-symbol, but Andy Warhol was gay and so personal attraction was not the reason that he chose to create a series of artworks with her as the focus. Instead he focuses on what she meant and how the film industry of the 50s and 60s essentially used her to promote an image of "heterosexual desire." She committed suicide in 1962, not long before Warhol created the image The left print (the colorful one) is off Marilyn's face against a gold background, similar to Byzantine artwork in which biblical figures, emperors and empresses were placed against gilded backgrounds that symbolized an ethereal, otherworldly afterlife Also seen in Russian and early Renaissance works She appears saintly if only one of the Gold Marilyn Monroe prints is seen, but when combined with each other, the effect changes. The modern icon is not unique as it can be recreated over and over again, but its importance lies in what it symbolizes and the way in which it unites people through common recognition. This causes people to identify with the icon. Silkscreened, with some images, particularly in the black and white right side, more faded than other, as if symbolizing the fading of memory. The black ink is fugitive and leaving, while the colored ink is more permanent and unchanging Contrasts between her vivid public persona and her unknown, quieter private life, as well as her vibrance life and then her death One column of images in the right side of the Diptych is distorted with black ink severly obscuring Marilyn's face. Despite likely being a mistake, it appears almost as if to symbolize the moment of her death. Cite: Thomas Crow, "Saturday Disasters: Trace and Reference in Early Warhol"

Mass culture/consumer culture

(Pop) "Pop art focuses on the commodification of culture (marketplace is the dominant force in the creation of "culture")." Andy Warhol adapted images from commercial art into his own artworks. Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol both took their style and subject matter from things that wer ealready popular, comic books, newspaper, celebrities, mass produced items and stated that they knew people would buy their art because people already bought and were familiar with these things.

Andy Warhol, Brillo Boxes, 1964

(Pop) "Warhol said: "just look at the surface of my paintings and ... there I am. Theres nothing behind it."" "Still using the silkscreen technique, this time on plywood, Warhol presented the viewer with exact replicas of commonly used products found in homes and supermarkets. This time, his art pieces are stackable, they are sculptures that can be arranged in various ways in the gallery - yet each box is exactly the same, one is no better than another. Rather than the series of slightly different paintings that have been made by many famous artists (think Monet's haystacks or cathedrals) Warhol makes the point that these products are all the same and (in his opinion) they are beautiful! Making these items in his "factory" Warhol again makes fun of (or brilliantly provokes) the art world and the artist-creator. Brillo is steel wool, a product stereotypically used by housewives to keep cookware shining in their lovely American homes." "Warhol borrowed the likeness of a brillo soap pad box, a consumer object that would be identifiable in day-to-day life, as the subject of his art piece. Warhol takes a hollow cube and screenprints the Brillo label, mechanically stamping and layering the colorful labels on the six sides of the cube. Iconography here being the Brillo Box, form taking shape in the volume of the cube and the nature of the label pressed into the surfaces of the volume, and the process being the layers of color screen printed on the exterior. Likening himself to a machine, Warhol deletes all artistic expression important during the Abstract Expressionist movement—unique gesture/facture, the illusion of space, individuality, and raw subconscious emotion—in favor of a mass-produced copy of a commodity, an object that is unfeeling and impersonal. In the exhibition space, the Brillo Boxes were stacked and collated as a series, reminiscent of the stockroom of a supermarket, almost as if the boxes are pretending to be a real commodity and unaware of the artificiality, challenging the Abstract Expressionists inclination towards self-reflexivity. The boxes are literal 3D objects, taking up space, existing with no regard for illusions or artistic "tricks", yet still remaining hollow and useless, hiding behind the facade of a recognizable consumer product. Warhol copies and adapts the Brillo boxes into the realm of art all while negating artistic creativity and individuality, with Warhol stating himself that, "[I] think everyone should be a machine. [I] think everybody should be like everybody"" materials: Acrylic silkscreen on wood

Andy Warhol, Coca-Cola, 1962

(Pop) "reject self-conscious subjectivity"

Andy Warhol, Dance Diagram (Fox Trot, The Double Twinkle-Man), 1962

(Pop) A dance diagram perhaps meant to poke fun at action painters like Jackson Pollock, implying that art is not the result of genius but really just the result of teaching and that anybody can reprodcue the art and the supposedly genius way of painting liek the action painters if they just learn the steps.

Authorship

(Pop) Andy Warhol claimed to employ others to do the work for him in his studio, The Factory. This implys that art is not the result of artistic genius and that anyone is capable of creating art so long as they're taught what to imitate. Authorship used to mean that the author of the work, aka the artist, was the only one who could truly give meaning to their own work and explain what it meant, but as audiences began to be more involved in the art, they were allowed more and more to find their own menaning in the art

Ben Day dots

(Pop) Dots of equal size and spacing. They are used to imply color throughout a specific area and were popular in the printing of comics during the 50's and 60's.

Homology between form, iconography, and process

(Pop) In regards to Roy Lichtenstein he used all three to model his art off of comic books. Iconography: (the visual images and symbols used in a work of art or the study or interpretation of these.) His subject mstter and use of Ben Day are borrowed from comic books. Form: (the visible shape or configuration of something.) "he adopted a flat and impersonal style that emulated comics Process: he used stencils and various techniques of copying and tracing that emulate the mechanical processes of print media"

Impersonality

(Pop) Pop art is known for being rather cold despite the typical bright, bold colors used, because the artists celebrate, either ironically or unironically, mass consumerism and consumer culture. They use impersonal imagery taken from the world of advertisements and comic books in their artworks and make cynical comments about their work. For example, Andy Warhol stated that he didn't make his own art, that he wished he could be a machine, and that their was no hidden meaning in his art, it was exactly what could be seen on the surface level and should be taken at face value. Lichtenstein also stated that he chose his style because the medium that it was based off of was already popular, so he knew it would sell. However, this could very well have been a publicity stunt, statements meant to cause outrage and anger among those in the world of high art and genreate publicity, as works like Warhol's early prints of tradgedies taken from the newspapers have been interpreted by art critics like Thomas Crow in a way that exposes a deep hidden meaning. To Crow, Warhol was making use of screen-printing and repitition to make a statement on the way that media desensitizes viewers to events that should horrify and upset them. Violence and death should be shocking but imagery of them is used as nothing more than a marketing tool by media and eventually tradgedies are just seen as normal, everyday occurances.

James Rosenquist, F-111, 1964-65

(Pop) This is an 86 foot long collage paintings, spread across 23 canvases and aluminum panels. The sheer enormity of the work surrounds the viewer and makes it so that whereever they turn, they are just seeing new sections of it. 73 feet of the collage shows an F-111 fighter plane, that isin large part covered with seemingly random imagery taken from consumerist iconography. Bright colorful images that resemble advertisements are contrasted with atomic bomb explosions. interrupted by assorted images derived from billboards and advertisements of the day rendered large and in clashing, day-glo colors. Among the fragmentary advertisements are a tire, a cake, air bubbles, spaghetti, a light bulb, and a young girl using a hair dryer that resembles a missile head. Disturbingly, there is also a beach umbrella juxtaposed onto an atomic explosion, making reference to a particular military euphemism used at the time: "nuclear umbrella."Created during the Vietnam War, F-111 mixes fragments of consumer advertising (of the sort and scale that Rosenquist had become familiar with in his earlier career as a billboard painter) with military imagery, evoking what President Dwight Eisenhower warned of in his departing 1961 address as "the military-industrial complex." Indeed, the F-111 bomber represented the latest technological innovation in warfare and cost millions to develop. In an interview, Rosenquist imagined a man who "has a contract from the company making the bomber, and he plans his third automobile and his fifth child because he is a technician and has work for the next couple of years....the prime force of this thing has been to keep people working, an economic tool; but behind it, this is a war machine." By offering a vision of this jet, as Rosenquist described it, "flying through the flak of consumer society to question the collusion between the Vietnam death machine, consumerism, the media, and advertising," F-111 suggests complicity between this "war machine" and consumer culture.F-111 was originally designed to cover all four walls of the Leo Castelli Gallery's main room in Manhattan. Its size permits no vacant wall space to offer visual relief from the bombardment of fragmentary images. As such, it exemplifies Rosenquist's contribution to Pop art: grand scale collage paintings that encompass an amalgamation of consumer imagery in a manner suggestive of socio-political commentary. Materials: Oil on canvas with aluminum, twenty-three sections

Screen printing

(Pop) a technique in which stencils are applied to fabric stretched across a frame and paint or ink is forced through the unblocked portions of the screen onto paper or another surface beneath. Andy Warhol stated that he wished humans were more like machines and that he wished he were a machine. his use of screen printing allowed him to essentially become like a machine in his art, as he was able to repeatadly use the same screens to create highly similar prints that only differed due to how much ink was used and what colored ink was used.

Facture

(Pop) the quality of the execution of a painting; an artist's characteristic handling of the paint. Pop art and minimalist art both "Reject the energetic brushwork of action painting" Artists working in the pop art medium used techniques that would purposefully create non-painterly artwork. For example, Andy Warhol used screen printing and Roy Lichtenstein used Ben Day dots to replicaate the look of comic books.

Procedures, implements, and materials

(Post-painterly abstraction and Anonymous gestures)

What kinds of processes were used in the making of these works? How do they relate to above terms? (Post Painterly Abstraction)

(Post-painterly abstraction and Anonymous gestures)

Helen Frankenthaler, Mountains and Sea, 1952

(Post-painterly abstraction and Anonymous gestures) A large painting that exemplifies Frankenthaler's soak-stain process by which she would dilute her paints until they became more of a stain and were able to bleed, run, and merge with the canvas. This emphasizes medium specificity with its flatness as the paint is not so much layered on the canvas, as much as it is part of the canvas. Frankenthaler's bright colors are used to create the landscape of Mountain and Sea emphasizing that property of her medium. It is at once vibrant and flat.

According to the readings, what happens to painting "after expressionism"?

(Post-painterly abstraction and Anonymous gestures) According to Clement Greenberg the Post-Pinterly Abstraction artists continued the trajectory towards medium specificity, emphasizing their own flatness. However, they removed the auto-graphical qualities seen in Abstract Expressionist art, instead allowing their chosen materials to play a large part in the creation of the artwork. Non-painterly techniques like staining are experimented with. Greenberg also talks about how the edges of the canvas are no longer the ending of the painting, and the post-painterly abstraction works invite the eye to move beyond it.

Barnett Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimis, 1950-51

(Post-painterly abstraction and Anonymous gestures) Barnett Newman is known for his autographical element of painting his canvases entirely one color and then adding what he referred to as a "zip," a horizontal line done in anouther color that cut through the painting and forces the viewer's eye to move up and down across the canvas. The large canvases are meant to make the viewer feel enveloped by the artwork, almost like they are a part of it (reminds me of minimalist art). The zips reveal a painterly form as they are not perfectly straight, with slight dips and mars in the line. There are places in the zip that are narrower than others. This painting is done in a strong red paint with zips that either stand boldly against it, like the white and black zips, or are more subdued sue to being more similar in color to the paint, like the soft red-orange zips. The zips create geometric forms in the painting Cite Joselit 25

Frank Stella, Kingsbury Run, 1960

(Post-painterly abstraction and Anonymous gestures) Canvases are typically used as just a surface for paint to be applied onto, with little, if any attention given to it. It is meant to be hidden and function as nothing more than a support. Frank Stella essentially turns this concept on its head through his use of deductive structure. He shaped the canvas into visually interesting forms which not only split from the traditional shape of a painting, it also turned the canvas into a part of the painting. It could even be said that the canvas is made the star as the rest of the painting is decided based on the shape of the canvas. Works such as this also show the way in which Frank Stella's work moved Cite Michael Fried, excerpt on Frank Stella from Three American Painters, 40-8 if Frank Stella's work is one of the comparisons

Ellsworth Kelly, Colors for a Large Wall, 1951

(Post-painterly abstraction and Anonymous gestures) Ellsworth Kelley was known for taking pre-existing forms, in this case a tile like grid, and using them in his art. He removed part of the autographical elements of abstract expressionist paintings by eliminating subjectivity in the way in which he decided to color the tiles. Kelley created an algorithm that determined where the colors would go. While it is not entirely up to chance, it is a lot more so than the abstract expressionists.

Post-painterly abstraction (vs. painterly abstraction)

(Post-painterly abstraction and Anonymous gestures) In post-painterly abstraction, an artist's autographical gestures became less important and instead the focus was on how they could maipulate their materials and push the medium. Self-referentiality was emphasized as well, as the limitations of optical flatness were pushed

Morris Louis, Saraband, 1959

(Post-painterly abstraction and Anonymous gestures) Much like with abstract expressionism, there is no focal point here, instead attention is meant to be brought to the way in which Morris Louis manipulates and uses his materials. The physical properties of the diluted paints that Morris Louis uses are put on display as Louis allows them to run freely and move according to gravity. They overlap each other in veil or petal like layers, creating unique colors. The final outcome of Morris Louis's paintings, such as this one are decided by the paint and by gravity rather than through subjective autographic gestures. It creates a sense of depth both through the layers themselves as well as the colors, with the more opaque or darker colored layers appearing to recede while the more translucent and lighter colored layers appear closer.

Cy Twombly, Olympia, 1957

(Post-painterly abstraction and Anonymous gestures) The artist was known for creating paintings that appear to be inspired by both graffiti, particularly of the variety that one could find scratched into the walls of public restrooms. The lines are thin and crude looking, but the name refrences a famous work

Anonymous gestures and mark-making techniques

(Post-painterly abstraction and Anonymous gestures) The tecniques used in post-painterly abstraction paintings are often made with non-painterly techniques that do not show visible brushstrokes. The outcome of the painting is instead determined by the properties of the materials. Though Post-painterly artists continued to be experiment with different tecniques of painting, the autographic gestures seen in Abstract Expressionsit work is removed. More was also left up to chance. In the case of Ellsworth Kelly's grid-like artworks, an algorithm that he created determined which colors would be painted in which parts of the grid rather than his own opinion. In the case of Morris Louis, he allowed his highly diluted paint to freely run down the tilted canvas, essentially allowing gravity and the properties of the paint to determine the shape of the "strokes" (find a better term here) as well as the colors seen in the paintings. He chose his paints of course, but because the paint was so diluted, the paint overlapped in veil-like layers and formed new unintentional colors. In the case of Helen Frankenthaler, she diluted her paints until they became stains and allowed the paint to freely bleed and stain the canvas, forming unintended shapes just based on how the paint would spread and bleed.

Deductive structure

(Post-painterly abstraction and Anonymous gestures) Used in reference to artists like Frank Stella who used the shape of their canvas to determine what their paintings, in particular the lines in their paintings, would look like. This not only emphasizes the flatness of the painting, but also makes the canvas itself an essential part of the painting.

Facture

(Post-painterly abstraction and Anonymous gestures) the quality of the execution of a painting; an artist's characteristic handling of the paint.

George Brecht, Drip Music (Drip Event), 1959-62

Form: Content: An event script (see the picture) that has been enacted multiple times, with some performers just standing while creating the drip music, and others going further by utilizing things like ladders to drip the water from greater heights. It allows for a great amount of chance and indeterminacy as the sound of the performance will differ greatly based on what height the water is dropped from, the speed at which it drips and therefore the angle upon which the first vessel is tilted, and perhaps most importantly, the material that the second vessel is composed of. Makes art out of the everyday sound of dripping water as well as the act of dripping water. Brecht was a musician and Drip Music shows his interest in music as it empasizes an auditory experience and creates unique sounds based on the materials used in the vessels. The action and sound of dripping water is an everyday occurance for most but here it becomes za musical art simply because it is being intently listened to. Rejects the notion of authorship like all Fluxus works because it can be performed by anyone and it changes greatly based on who is performing it. Medium: Fluxus event script

Characteristics of Abstract Expressionism

expresses the painter's unconscious and emotions through form and color; no actual objects represented in a way that is recognizable; action painters; color field painters; non-traditional tools and painting techniques that often help to distinguish the artists and essentially create the "autographic gesture"; artist as genius; despite initially being derided, abstract expressionist art became quite popular and became canon teaching in art schools and was used as a propoganda tool by the CIA to showcase American individualism abroad during the cold war in opposition to the conformity expected of citizens of communist countries; not built off of previously made sketches, more in the moment; no clear focal point, nothing upon which the viewer is supposed to focus; evident brush strokes;