Art since 1945 (Midterm Images Study) (Last Names Only)

Happenings

*Acts to be considered art. (Influenced more by theater). *Is an event that combined elements of painting, poetry, music, dance, and theatre and staged them as a live action. The term Happening was coined by the American artist Allan Kaprow in the 1950s.

Events

*Occurrences with Importance. (influenced by avant-garde music)

Ruscha

Actual Size (1962) Movement: Pop art/ Conceptual art/ Modern art/ Contemporary art *Rather than simply painting a word, he considered the particular font that might add an elevated emotion to the meaning much like the way a poet considers a phrase. By painting a word as a visual, he felt he was marking it as official, glorifying it as an object rather than a mere piece of text. *His skewing of everyday objects with a twist spurs the viewer to look at something ordinary in a new light. This can be seen in his trompe l'oeil word paintings in which oil paint resembles common viscous fluids or, with a touch of humor, in his paintings of LACMA and Norm's - two Los Angeles institutions, both of which he depicts licked with flames. *The ever-present influence of Hollywood and media machines can be seen in the way he paints his solitary subjects upon the overall space of the canvas plane. Bold, large words or images floating on vast singular backgrounds mimic the opening screens of movies or fleeting glimpses of roadside billboards that must catch an audience's attention in one compelling instant. *His homage to the ordinary monuments of our lives, seen all around us but typically relegated to background noise, extends beyond the canvas. As seen with his book Twenty Six Gasoline Stations and others, he offers a deadpan look at the common and humble elements that float on our periphery, presented as a form of simple documentation rather than pristine art subject. This furthers the idea of Pop art as a vehicle for pulling out the mundane from its obscurity within our collective consciousness. *A can of Spam rocketing through space; in another, a real box of Sun-Maid raisins was flattened on a canvas, above the partly painted-over place name "Vicksburg." Exemplifying his dry-witted penchant for ordinary objects and airborne words, the 1962 painting portrays a can of the much-maligned processed meat streaking through space under a giant label. Other Works: -Boss (1961) -Annie, Poured from Maple Syrups (1966)

Pollock

Autumn Rhythm (1950) Movement: Abstract Expressionism/ Surrealism *While only one painting from his 1950 solo exhibition was actually sold, the show gained much attention. It was described by Art News as one of the three best exhibitions of the year, and Cecil Beaton staged a famous fashion shoot in the exhibition space, which subsequently appeared in Vogue. Autumn Rhythm was one of the major works which appeared in that show. As with many of his paintings, he began it with a linear framework of diluted black paint which in many areas soaked through the unprimed canvas. Over this he applied more skeins of paint in various colors - lines thick and thin, light and dark, straight and curved, horizontal and vertical. As the title suggests, the coloring, horizontal orientation, and sense of ground and space in Autumn Rhythm are strongly evocative of nature. The balance between control and chance that he maintained throughout his working process produced compositions that can have as much calm tranquillity as some works by Rothko. *Oil on canvas - Metropolitan Museum of Art Other Works: -Mural (1943) -Guardians of the Secret (1943)

Lichtenstein

Blam (1962) Movement: Pop Art/ Postmodernism *Art had carried references to popular culture throughout the twentieth century, but in his works the styles, subject matter, and techniques of reproduction common in popular culture appeared to dominate the art entirely. This marked a major shift away from Abstract Expressionism, whose often tragic themes were thought to well up from the souls of the artists; his inspirations came from the culture at large and suggested little of the artist's individual feelings. *Took the image used for BLAM from a 1962 edition of the comic book All American Men of War (#89) by Russ Heath. Lichtenstein's painting is not quite an exact replica of Heath's image, but it would be easy to confuse the two upon first glance, as he altered the image only very subtly. One of his many paintings that appropriate subject matter from popular comics, he defined his career by experimenting with the boundaries between high and low art, which raised such questions about the nature of culture and originality without providing any definitive answers. As with the rest of Pop art, it is unclear whether he is applauding the comic book image, and the general cultural sphere to which it belongs, or critiquing it, leaving interpretation up to the viewer. BLAM and similar works were painted using the Ben-Day dot technique, borrowed from comic book printing. Thus, not only is the larger image itself a reproduction, but it was also painted using a repetitive, almost mechanical technique. *Oil on canvas - Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT Other Works: -Popeye (1961) -Drowning Girl (1963)

Warhol

Brillo Boxes (1964) Movement: Pop Art/Postmodernism *Still using the silkscreen technique, this time on plywood, he presented the viewer with exact replicas of a 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 not any 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) he makes the point that these products are all the same and (in his opinion) they are beautiful! Making these items in his "factory" he again makes fun of (or brilliantly provokes) the art world and the artist-creator. *With Brillo Boxes, he also has a personal connection. He was originally from Pittsburg - steel city, the commodity that made the city prosperous and later quite depressed. Brillo is steel wool, a product stereotypically used by housewives to keep cookware shining in their lovely American homes. Did he like the product itself, think the store displays for the product ridiculous, or as a gay man, did he enjoy the contrast of steel and wool, in one friendly package? *Acrylic silkscreen on wood - Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California Other Works: - Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) -Coca Cola (3) (1962)

Lichtenstein

Brushstrokes (1967) Movement: Pop Art/ Postmodernism *Was a prolific printmaker throughout his career, and his prints played a substantial role in establishing printmaking as a significant art form in the 1960s. Brushstrokes, one such 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; his 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. He has said, "The real brushstrokes are just as pre-determined as the cartoon brushstrokes." Color screenprint on white wove paper, © Estate of RL - The Art Institute of Chicago Other Works: -Drowning Girl (1963) -Popeye (1961)

Saul

Bush at Abu Ghraib (2006)

Jorn

Dead Drunk Danes (1960) Movement: Modern Art/ Neo-Dada/ Contemporary *Founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the situationist International. *Always on the edge of the obscure. Was an expressionist, expressing complex emotions. *Often internationally sarcastic, obscure and misleading. *Was a writer for the books such as: +The Natural Order (1962) +Luck and Chance (1952) (inspired by F. Nietzsche) Other Works: -Letter to my son (1957) -In the beginning was the image (1965)

Rosenquist

F-111 (1964-65) Movement: Modern Art/ Pop Art *The most ambitious of his collage paintings, F-111 stretches 86 feet long across 23 canvas panels and aluminum sections, encompassing a viewer's entire field of vision. The painting depicts a full-scale, 73 foot long F-111 fighter plane 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. After its purchase in 1967, F-111 toured major institutions in Europe and was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1978, significantly bolstering Rosenquist's artistic reputation abroad. Oil on canvas with aluminum, twenty-three sections - Museum of Modern Art, New York Other Works: -President Elect (1960-61) -Marilyn Monroe, I (1962)

Johns

False Start (1959) Movement: Neo-Dada *For this piece, he eschewed the nonverbal symbols of his earlier works, instead relying upon the building blocks of language to draw viewers into a dialogue with the painting. The change of subject matter was occasioned by his desire to move beyond his earlier targets and flags. As he noted, "The flags and targets have colors positioned in a predetermined way. I wanted to find a way to apply color so that the color would be determined by some other method." By focusing on colors and the words that represent them, he abstracted each, removing the traditional associations that accompanied them. Rather than hand-paint each letter, he used a store-bought stencil - a readymade method by which he could create an image without revealing the trace of the artist's hand. He stenciled the words that denote colors on top and underneath the various layers of paint as he worked. He transformed the words into objects by rendering most in colors unrelated to those which they verbally represented - "RED" appears painted in bright orange in the center of the canvas. He revealed in the dissonance between the words and the colors, shifting their function from designation to a mere assembly of symbols, ripe for reconsideration. *Although he shifted media from encaustic to oil, he maintained his dialogue with the Abstract Expressionists through a technique he called "brushmarking." Influenced by John Cage's interest in the role of chance, he used the gestural technique of applying small sections of paint to the canvas purely according to arbitrary arm movements rather than any preconceived placement for each individual brushstroke. His use of brushmarking resulted in explosive bursts of color, as if in an erupting fireworks display, that highlight or obscure the uncannily hued words scattered across the canvas. The tension between the dynamic colors and the words dispersed among them creates the space for viewers to engage with what they see on a semiotic level. By incorporating language into his visual repertoire, he expanded his dialogue with viewers to encompass the function of visual and verbal symbols. His exploration of language stands as a clear precursor to Conceptual art's examination of words and their meanings in the late 1960s. *Oil on canvas - Private collection-Anne and Kenneth Griffin Other Works: -Three Flags (1958) -Flag (1955)

Johns

Flag (1955) Movement: Neo-Dada *Usually called a Neo-dadaist rather than Pop artist. *Was inspired by Marcel Duchamp. *His artwork laid the foundation for both Pop Art and Minimalism. Flag is his most famous work. *"False Start (1959)" is the most expensive painting by a living artist worth 80 million dollars. *"Flag" is a encaustic painting (hot wax painting), using heated wax adding colored pigments, then applied to the surface (usually wood, canvas and other materials). *Attracted to painting "things the mind already knows", allowing him to execute and focus on the painting. Other Works: -Three Flags (1958) -Target with Four Faces (1955)

Pollock

Guardians of the Secret (1943) Movement: Abstract Expressionism/ Surrealism *His tough and unsettled early life growing up in the American West shaped him into the bullish character he would become. Later, a series of influences came together to guide Pollock to his mature style: years spent painting realist murals in the 1930s showed him the power of painting on a large scale; Surrealism suggested ways to describe the unconscious; and Cubism guided his understanding of picture space. *Guardians of the Secret, often interpreted as a metaphor for the emergence of unconscious impulses into conscious thought, represents a synthesis of his sources. *The imagery draws on African, Native American, as well as prehistoric art, yet there are also touches of Miró and Picasso. *The abstract male and female 'guardians' have been interpreted in myriad ways: as Northwest Indian totems; Egyptian gods; even as conflations of playing cards and chess pieces wearing African masks. *They flank the sides, while along the bottom is a dog reminiscent of Anubis, the jackal-god of the ancient Egyptian underworld. An African mask, a scarab-like embryo, and a rooster, all line up like relics across the top. *The rooster is a symbol of fertility, but it may also recall the time he lost the tip of his finger as a child when he put his hand in the way of an axe meant to kill a chicken. In the center of the composition is a tablet, covered in an hieroglyphic inscription reminiscent of ancient tombs. When the canvas is turned upside down, stick figures in various poses emerge. Oil on canvas - San Francisco Museum of Art Other Works: -Autumn Rhythm: Number 30 (1950) -Mural (1943)

Tinguely

Homage to New York (1960) Movement: Dada/ PostModernism *On March 18, 1960, he unveiled what would later be considered his most famous work in the sculpture garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A number of artists and engineers collaborated on the project, including Robert Rauschenberg. The massive sculpture stood twenty-seven feet tall, was twenty-three feet wide, and was painted primarily white. Built out of various pieces of metal, bicycle parts, self-operating motors, a go-cart, a bathtub, a piano, all jutting out into space at odd angles and creating an absolute tangle of abstract forms. The original idea was to set the mechanized elements into motion, allow the audience to watch and figure out its changing path of movement, and then set off an explosion that would destroy it. The work was to be a masterpiece of self-destructing Kinetic art. However, 27 minutes into the premiere, one of the processes within the moving parts misfired and sparked a flame that engulfed the entire machine in a blazing fire. The spectacle to which this esteemed audience (including the Governor of New York) was subjected became as much a part of the artistic experience as the original work itself. *The launch of this intricate, self-destructing sculpture changed the nature of his oeuvre. Although he had already harnessed active viewer interaction in his Metamatics, this work's significance was to be even further enhanced by the experience of being present as it self-destructed. In total, the work was to assume an alternative symbolism, suggesting, for example the organic nature of New York City - known for both destruction and reconstruction, exhaustion and renewal. *A "fragment" of the original sculpture exists in the permanent collection of the MOMA. *Found objects, motorized elements - Museum of Modern Art Other Works: -Homage to New York (1960) -Metamatic No. 17 (1959)

Davis

Hot Still-Scape for Six Colors Seventh Avenue-Style (1940) Movement: * is credited with developing an American variation of European Cubism at a time when modernism was just beginning to infiltrate the country. Through slang words and imagery that were distinctly American, Davis's paintings established the country's presence in the burgeoning modern art world. *The artist was one of the first to consider jazz and swing music in conjunction with painting. His use of bright, pulsating colors, expressive lines, and repetitious shapes creates a visual rhythm in his paintings similar to the syncopation and improvisation of jazz music. *Davis introduced a new post-Cubist approach to abstraction by dispersing shapes, throughout the canvas and balancing bold colors in such a way as to deny a central focal point. This new method, in which all parts are equal so that the viewer's eye can wander unguided, signified an important step toward the complete abstraction accomplished by Abstract Expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock. *Davis transformed common consumer products and advertisements into singular works of high art that evoked the American populist spirit, prefiguring Pop art of the 1960s. *The painting's unusual title also offers a physical location: Davis's studio on 7th Avenue in the West Village, an area known for its outstanding jazz clubs. Davis's invented term, "still-scape," is a portmanteau combining the terms still-life and landscape. Indeed, in this painting, the artist brings together forms and colors from still-lifes and landscapes of his earlier work and adds new shapes. Bright, bold lines evoke the stripes on the cement of a city street or the letters of neon signs. Round shapes suggest headlights and street signs; their vibrating colors alluding to the noisy, bustling atmosphere of New York City. Upon completing the painting, Davis commented: "It is the product of everyday experience in the new lights, speeds, and spaces of the American environment." Other Works: -Chinatown (1912) -Owh! In San Paõ (1951)

Hamilton

Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? (1956) Movement: Pop Art *Introduced the idea of the artist as an active consumer and contributor to mass culture. Up until then (especially in Abstract Expressionist circles) the prevailing view was that art should be separate from commerce. He gave other artists permission to consider all visual sources, especially those generated by the commercial sector. There is no more influential idea in art to this day. For this artist, Pop art was not just a movement, but a way of life. It meant total immersion in popular culture: movies, television, magazines and music. As his alignment with the Rolling Stones and the Beatles (for whom he designed The White Album cover as a limited-edition print) demonstrates, he succeeded in bridging this gap between high art and consumer culture, paving the way for Andy Warhol, Studio 54, and the Velvet Underground. *With uncanny accuracy, his work seems to predict that of nearly every other major Pop artist. Details in "Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?" in particular, read like a crystal ball containing Warhol, Lichtenstein, Wesselmann, and Oldenburg, before these artists' careers had developed. Of course, the reality was that all these artists were looking closely at his work, and used it to come up with their own ideas. *He reminds us that Pop art originated in England. He was among a group of young British artists, architects and critics who got together in the 1950s to discuss aspects of visual culture that weren't considered part of a traditional artist's training - cowboy movies, science fiction, billboards, and household appliances. Most of these were imports from America, which made them especially fascinating. Before coming up with Pop, the term they used for the movement was "the new brutalism" - more descriptive of the deliberate assault on general art themes and depictions that one finds in his imagery. *This collage was created by him for the catalog of the seminal 1956 exhibition at London's Whitechapel Gallery, "This is Tomorrow." The exhibition is now generally recognized as the genesis of Pop art, and as early as 1965 this particular work was described as "the first genuine work of Pop." Within it are a contemporary Adam and Eve, surrounded by the temptations of the post-War consumer boom. Adam is a muscleman covering his groin with a racket-sized lollipop. Eve perches on the couch wearing a lampshade and pasties. The Artist used images cut from American magazines. In England, where much of the middle class was still struggling in a slower post-war economy, this crowded space with its state-of-the-art luxuries was a parody of American materialism. In drawing up a list of the image's components, he pointed to his inclusion of "comics (picture information), words (textual information) [and] tape recording (aural information)." He is clearly aware of the work of Dada photomontage art, but he's not making an anti-war statement. The tone of his work is lighter. He is poking fun at the materialist fantasies fueled by modern advertisement. This whole collage anticipates bodies of work by future pop artists. The painting on the back wall is essentially a Lichtenstein. The enlarged lollipop is an Oldenburg. The female nude is a Wesselman. The canned ham is a Warhol. Collage - Kunsthalle Tübingen, Tübingen Other Works: - Fun House (1956) - Interior (1964-65)

Kline

Mahoning (1956) Movement: Abstract Expressionism *Is most famous for his black and white abstractions, which have been likened variously to New York's cityscape, the landscape of his childhood home in rural Pennsylvania, and Japanese calligraphy. *The poet and curator Frank O'Hara saw him as the quintessential 'action painter', and his black and white paintings certainly helped establish gestural abstraction as an important tendency within Abstract Expressionism. Yet he saw his method less as a means to express himself than as a way to create a physical engagement with the viewer. *The powerful forms of his motifs, and their impression of velocity, were intended to translate into an experience of structure and presence which the viewer could almost palpably feel. *Mahoning, a monumental armature of bold black enamel strokes laid against a white background, seems to be a record of his spontaneous gestures; its ragged brushwork and slashes of pigment suggest the free movement of the brush across the canvas. Despite this appearance of immediacy, however, the painting—like many of his abstractions—was deliberately planned. He based it on a small, preliminary drawing made on the page of a telephone book that was projected onto the canvas. Atypically, he incorporated collage elements that seem to reference the drawing into Mahoning, affixing sheets of paper to the canvas under layers of black paint. The composition's strong internal structure plays against the frame of the canvas, with powerful diagonals that seem to break through the edges of the image. Although his paintings are not meant to represent landscapes, he titled a number of them, including this one, after towns near Wilkes-Barre, in the Pennsylvania coal country of his childhood. Other Works: -Black reflection (1956) -Painting No.7 (1952)

Warhol

Marilyn Diptych (1962) Movement: Pop Art/ Video Art/ Postmodernism *Was the most successful and highly paid commercial illustrator in New York even before he began to make art destined for galleries. Nevertheless, his screen printed images of Marilyn Monroe, soup cans, and sensational newspaper stories, quickly became synonymous with Pop art. He emerged from the poverty and obscurity of an Eastern European immigrant family in Pittsburgh, to become a charismatic magnet for bohemian New York, and to ultimately find a place in the circles of High Society. For many his ascent echoes one of Pop art's ambitions, to bring popular styles and subjects into the exclusive salons of high art. His crowning achievement was the elevation of his own persona to the level of a popular icon, representing a new kind of fame and celebrity for a fine artist. *Made of two silver canvases on which the artist silkscreened a photograph of Marilyn Monroe fifty times. At first glance, the work—which explicitly references a form of Christian painting in its title—invites us to worship the legendary icon, whose image he plucked from popular culture and immortalized as art. *demands our attention and announces the importance of the subject matter. Furthermore, the seemingly careless handling of the paint and its "allover composition"—the even distribution of form and color across the entire canvas, such that the viewer's eyes wander without focusing on one spot—are each hallmarks of Abstract Expressionism, as exemplified by Jackson Pollock's drip paintings. Yet he references these painters only to undermine the supposed expressiveness of their gestures: like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, whose work he admired, he uses photographic imagery, the silkscreen process and repetition to make art that is not about his interior life, but rather about the culture in which he lived. *Marilyn Monroe died in August 1962, having overdosed on barbiturates. In the following four months, he made more than twenty silkscreen paintings of her, all based on the same publicity photograph from the 1953 film Niagara. He found in Monroe a fusion of two of his consistent themes: death and the cult of celebrity. By repeating the image, he evokes her ubiquitous presence in the media. The contrast of vivid colour with black and white, and the effect of fading in the right panel are suggestive of the star's mortality. Other Works: -Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) -Brillo Boxes (1964)

Tinguely

Metamatic No.9 (1954) Movement: Dada/ PostModernism *His work was part of the movement of New Realism that emerged in the 1960s and sought an alternative expression of the new world order. They tended to take bits and pieces from life and combine them in new ways in order to infuse art with new significance. They stood in opposition of figurative art and abstraction and influenced the Fluxus movement noted for synthesizing a number of media in new, innovative, and consistently energized, ways. *A pioneer of kinetic sculpture, he worked in the Dada tradition, satirizing industrial society's overproduction of material with his complex assemblages of metal and machinery. Of his most renowned kinetic sculpture, Homage to New York (1960), Tinguely said, "it's a sculpture, it's a picture, it's an accompanist, it's a poet, it's decoration—this machine is a situation." He fabricated the 27-by-30-foot contraption from recycled metal scraps and designed it to self-destruct at the culmination of a half-hour performance, explaining, "the destruction is necessary because this machine is a grandiose spectacle that must live intensely." Tragicomically, a firefighter intervened when flames burst out, so it never played out as intended during the single performance held in MoMA's sculpture garden; however, the idea that an intensive, creative life leads to self-destruction lives on in his legacy. Other Works: -Homage to New York (1960) -Metamatic No. 17 (1959)

Saul

Mickey Mouse vs. the Japs (1961-62) Movement: *Considered one of the fathers of Pop Art. *Known for his cartoonish and colorful paintings which satirize American Culture. *His use of clashing colors and childlike marks are meant to both disturb and engage the viewer. *Said by the author: "I gave the title "Mickey Mouse vs. the Japs" because it does have a fair amount to do with Japan, as you can see - the color yellow; the word "banzai" is a Japanese symbol. However, I didn't tie myself down to that subject completely. I would lay anything else in. There's a can of motor oil that has no purpose having to do with Japan. There's Del Monte canned goods, which has nothing to do with Japan. There are various toilets running - one is running with little legs, a favorite symbol of mine. And, you know, a motorboat and all that... a piece of food with a menacing kind of a gun. These things occurred to me as a stream of consciousness. Due to the times, any sort of figuration was kind of a rebellion." Other works: -Quack-Quack, Trump, 78 (2017) (Acrylic on Canvas) -Bush at Abu Ghraib (2006) (Acrylic on Canvas)

Rauschenberg

Monogram (1955-59) Movement: Abstract Expressionism/ Pop Art *Well known for his "combines". *Used non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. *Was both a painter and a sculptor, and the "combines" were a combination of both. *Also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking and performance. *Influence young artists who later on developed later modern movements like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. *Experimented with silkscreen paintings. *Collaborated with John Cage at Black Mountain College in "The Event (1952)". Other Works: -Charlene (1954) -Canyon (1959)

Klein

Monotone Symphony Performance (1960) Movement: Performance Art/ Nouveau Realisme *The abstract painting that dominated French art in the 1950s was invariably premised on the notion that an artist could communicate with the viewer through the power of abstract form. But skeptics of modern, abstract art have always alleged that the viewers, like the faithful devotees of a false god, do more of the work than the artist, investing the forms with their own feelings rather than discovering the artist's. Viewed in this light, his monochrome blue paintings might be read as a satire on abstract art, for not only do the pictures carry no motif, but he insisted there was nothing there at all, only "the void." *On a clear night in March at ten pm sharp a crowd of one hundred people, all dressed in black tie attire, came to the Galerie International d'Art Contemporain in Paris. The event was the first conceptual piece to be shown at this gallery by their new artist. The gallery was one of the finest in Paris. Him in a black dinner jacket proceeded to conduct a ten piece orchestra in his personal composition of The Monotone Symphony, which he had written in 1949. This symphony consisted of one note. Three models appeared, all with very beautiful naked bodies. They were then conducted as was the full orchestra by him. The music began. The models then rolled themselves in the blue paint that had been placed on giant pieces of artist paper - the paper had been carefully placed on one side of the galleries' wall and floor area - opposite the full orchestra. Everything was composed so breathtakingly beautifully. The spectacle was surely a metaphysical and spiritual event for all. This went on for twenty minutes. When the symphony stopped it was followed by a strict twenty minutes of silence, in which everyone in the room willingly froze themselves in their own private meditation space. At the end of his piece everyone in the audience was fully aware they had been in the presence of a genius at work, the piece was a huge success! He triumphed. It would be his greatest moment in art history, a total success. The spectacle had unquestionable poetic beauty, and his last words that night were, "THE MYTH IS IN ART". Other Works: -Leap into the Void (1960) -Le Vide (1958)

Wesselman

Nude #1 (1970) Movement: Pop Art *One of the main practitioners of American Pop Art, along with James Rosenquist and Roy Lichtenstein. Although Pop Art made a statement against the heroic aspirations of Abstract Expressionism, Wesselmann never denied that Willem de Kooning's series of Women had been a permanent reference for him ever since he first set eyes on these works in 1953. His work evolved from De Kooning. *Nude #1 was executed in 1970, is structurally similar to the Great American Nudes series and shows a female nude lying across the entire horizontal surface of the canvas in the foreground. By flattening the form of the body against the picture plane, Wesselmann achieves a certain abstract, depersonalised effect that contrasts with the carnal handling of the erogenous zones — pubis, prominent bust and fleshy lips — which, as in most of his compositions, make this painting an allegory of the woman as a sex symbol. The accompanying compositional elements, such as the photographic portrait of the painter, an orange and a vase of red roses, are related to the paintings of the series entitled Bedroom, from previous years. The inclusion of his own portrait has led some scholars to interpret this painting as a self-portrait. The fact that it is positioned next to the female body makes this great American nude an erotic, masturbatory dream. Other Works: -Smoker, 1 (Mouth, 12) (1967) -Great American Nude #21 (1961)

Tapies

Painting (1955) Movement: Abstract Expressionism/Art Informel/TheWake *Began as a surrealist but developed into an abstract expressionism, under the influence of French painting and gained international reputation. *Was a law mayor before becoming a full time painter. *Later on his work started incorporating real objects such as stockings, buckets and mirrors. *Also used larger objects like a desk as the canvas (ea. "Desk and Straw"). Other Works: -Gray Ochre (1958) -Gray relief on Black (1959)

Saul

Quack-Quack, Trump, 78 (2017)

Rothko

Red Maroons (1962) Movement: Abstract Expressionism/Surrealism *Highly informed by Nietzsche, Greek mythology, and his Russian-Jewish heritage, Rothko's art was profoundly imbued with emotional content that he articulated through a range of styles that evolved from figurative to abstract. *His search for new forms of expression led to his Color Field paintings, which employed shimmering color to convey a sense of spirituality. *A prominent figure among the New York School painters, Mark Rothko moved through many artistic styles until reaching his signature 1950s motif of soft, rectangular forms floating on a stained field of color. Heavily influenced by mythology and philosophy, he was insistent that his art was filled with content, and brimming with ideas. *Said by the author about this piece: "I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on. . . ." *Most of the artist's mature works feature diffuse areas of color appearing to float against a background of different hue. A painstaking craftsperson, Rothko typically applied several layers of diluted paint to each canvas, sometimes rubbing the wet surfaces gently with cloths, in order to achieve his ethereal effects. Other Works: -Untitled, Black on Gray (1969) -Four Darks in Red (1958)

Johns

Target with Four Faces (1955) Movement: Neo-Dada *In this work, the artist effectively merged painting and sculpture while wittily engaging the viewer with "things which are seen and not looked at." As in Flag, he relied upon newspaper and fabric dipped in encaustic to build the intricately textured surface of the painting. However, he also made plaster casts of only the lower half of a female model's face over four successive months, and fixed these out of order in a hinged, wooden box that he attached to the top of the canvas. By incorporating the sculptural elements in the same space as the painting, he emphasized the "objecthood" of the painting, as Rauschenberg did in his "combine paintings" of the late 1950s. This merging of mediums reinforced the three-dimensional object-ness of the paintings and was the Neo-Dada response to the recent progression of abstraction away from representation to an ever more reduced imagery that merely reiterated the surface of the canvas. *Beyond the material surface of the work, the concentric circles of the target imply the acts of seeing and taking aim. However, he excluded the model's eyes from the plaster faces, and thus thwarted any exchange of gazes between the viewer and the faces in the work. This forced the viewer to examine the interactions between the painted target and the plaster faces. Viewed through the lens of the Cold War era, the seemingly benign images can imply the targeting of the anonymous masses by global political powers as well as by corporate advertising and the mass media. *Conversely, contemporary viewers might read the anonymity of the Internet in the work. Every individual's interpretation is shaped by his or her own history and knowledge. As part of his continued exploration of how people see the world around them, he intentionally chose the vague symbols of the target and a nondescript human face to solicit multiple, varied readings of this elusive work that straddles two historically distinct mediums. *Encaustic on newspaper and cloth over canvas surmounted by four tinted-plaster faces in wood box with hinged front - The Museum of Modern Art, New York Other Works: - Flag (1955) -Three Flags (1958)

Grooms

The Burning Building (1959) Movement: Happenings/Pop Art/Modern Art *He often came up with the particulars for his Happenings—which were noisy, physical, and carnival-esque—on the fly. The Burning Building, which followed 18 Happenings in December 1959, featured a cast of characters including the Pasty Man (the artist himself, wearing white face paint), the Girl in a White Box, and two Firemen. It was a great success with the audience; although he planned for one performance per night, by popular demand it was performed four times on opening night. Its success led to the first group show for Happenings, "An Evening of Happenings," in January 1960, organized by Kaprow. Other Works: -Keep Moving (2017) -Ruckus Taxi (1986)

Gorky

The Liver is the Cock's Comb (1944) Movement: Abstract Expressionism/ Surrealism *His diverse body of work was crucial to the emergence of Abstract Expressionism. He adopted the biomorphic forms of the Surrealist painters, but further freed those forms through the process of painting itself by emphasizing more lyrical color and personal content. *works reflect both the artist's traumatic past as a genocide survivor and the memory of the exquisite beauty of his early childhood surroundings in Armenia. Through the process of painting itself, he could begin to resolve his largely tragic life by transforming real people and real objects, remembered or present, into new realities, abstracted and controlled. *He pioneered the trend of naming his abstract compositions with titles directly referring to particular objects and places, thus fusing objective reality and subjective feeling in his works. *His work is particularly historical significant in that it provides the most important link between pre-war European modern styles and the emergence of Abstract Expressionism in America during the 1940s. *Though abstract to a great degree, this work nevertheless reveals his fondness for organic forms loosely based in nature and the sumptuous colors that would prove to be essential to his mature style. The work of Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky, as well as that of Joan Miro and Roberto Matta (who in 1942 suggested that he use more turpentine to loosen up the paint) provided strong influences on his painting practice. In 1945, Andre Breton, the author of the 1924 Surrealist Manifesto, praised this painting for its combination of nature and reality, filtered through memory and feeling. The scholar Harry Rand has discussed the content of this picture at length, pointing out the rooster-headed figure with the feathered groin at the right as the vain fool. Rand explains that the liver was once thought of as the seat of the passions (love and lust), thus punning on the "cock's comb" part of the title, and could also be construed as "one who lives," therefore asserting that life itself is vanity and all in vain. *Oil on canvas - Albright Knox Gallery. Buffalo, NY Other Works: -Staten Island (1927) -Agony (1947)

de Kooning

Woman I (1950) Movement: Abstract Expressionism *After Jackson Pollock, he was the most prominent and celebrated of the Abstract Expressionist painters. His pictures typify the vigorous gestural style of the movement and he, perhaps, did more than any of his contemporaries to develop a radically abstract style of painting that fused Cubism, Surrealism and Expressionism. *Strongly opposed the restrictions imposed by naming movements and, while generally considered to be an Abstract Expressionist, he never fully abandoned the depiction of the human figure. His paintings of women feature a unique blend of gestural abstraction and figuration. Heavily influenced by the Cubism of Picasso, he became a master at ambiguously blending figure and ground in his pictures while dismembering, re-assembling and distorting his figures in the process. *Was considered one of the most knowledgeable among the artists associated with the New York School. *Woman I is perhaps his most famous painting. The Museum of Modern Art in New York purchased it upon its first exhibition. He worked on the picture for two years, revising it constantly, and aggressively - his dealer noted that his canvases often had holes punched through from the violence of his brush strokes. *He applied newspaper to the surface to keep paint workable for long periods, and when he peeled it off, the imprint often remained, leaving further evidence of his process. Although he never conceived the pictures as collages, he employed the technique as a springboard to begin many of the pictures in the Women series,pasting magazine images of women's smiles in the position of the mouth, though this element rarely survived in the finished product. This use of popular media as inspiration is in some measure a precursor of Pop art, which developed as a reaction against Abstract Expressionism. *Woman I is noteworthy not only for this process, but also because it embodies two major themes in his work. The first is the depiction of the female figure. The woman depicted in Woman I is wholly unlike anything seen in Western painting - she is highly aggressive, erotic and threatening. Her frightening teeth and fierce eyes are not those of a stereotypically submissive, Cold war-era housewife, and he created her in part as a response to the idealized women in art history, such as Ingres's Odalisque (1814). *Secondly, the work is an important step in his lifelong exploration of the relationship between figure and ground. He causes the woman's form to blend into the abstract background by using brushstrokes that draw the ground and figure together. He also used similar pigments(whites, and fleshy pinks) for both the upper body and the space surrounding it; hence the woman dissolves into the background, the setting of which, typically, is indiscernible - a space he described as a "no-environment." *Oil on canvas - Museum of Modern Art, New York Other Works: -Pink Angels (1945) -July 4th (1957)

Kaprow

Yard (1961) Movement: Happenings/ Performance Art *Created Yard for Hauser & Wirth's opening New York show, Environment - Situations - Spaces. In this seminal work he recreated a junkyard, in the then Martha Jackson Gallery's backyard, creating an immersive environment with which the audience interacted. This work contained a high element of play, but within the boundaries Kaprow had prefixed. The piece illustrates sculpture's expansion in scale and the increasingly blurred boundaries between a "life like" and an "art like" art. In Kaprow's determination, there was no distinction between the viewer and the artwork; the viewer became part of the piece. *Rubber auto tyres, backyard of a Manhattan townhouse - Photos and archives: AK Archives, the Getty Research Institute Other Works: -Words (1962) -Baby (1957)