American Art Final
Regionalism
-Mid 20th C -wanted subjects to be American! can be communicated, democratic language that everyone understands -abundance of land and the strength of those who worked it -hits of Social Realism which address the destructive qualities of America
Semiotics
-why a sign means something -signifier vs. signified - Signifier: written or spoken word - The Signified: the mental image you get in your head - The Referent: the actual object in life - Linguistic sign: all a matter of convention, you have to learn its meaning -Resemblance: iconic signs that look like the thing the stand for -Indexical sign:forensic evidence, physical connection between two things/ relationship between the sign and the reference
Motorvehicle Showdown
George Brecht: 1960 -Neo Avant Garde -performance piece with vehicles
Tornado Over Kansas
John Steuart Curry: 1934 -Regionalism -man v. nature/ struggles with nature but perseveres -The Father is the focal point: he is the hero, everyone looks to him, leading the way -importance of family, the materials in the house do not matter -tanned & muscular from hardwork -white nuclear family; foundations of our country -son is next to the father, will take that position next -the occupational pets do not get saved -landscape is unique to America -pioneer spirit! not afraid to start over
Sun Tunnels
Nancy Holt: 1973-76 -in the salt lakes -4 concrete tubes oriented in relation to the rising and setting of the sun during summer & winter solstice -tying us back to our ancestral roots: our earliest art forms were combined with nature -if you step inside, temperature drops, the sound is funneled through the tunnels -constellation holes: as the sun moves around the constellation moves with -frames your experience with nature
Warmth
Susan Robb: 2008 -industrial size garbage bags filled w/ air -when the sun is out, they rise up in the air and go crazy, drift around -commentary on the natural environment (garbage bags are bad for the environment)
Modernism
-Early 20th C -evoke an idea through lines, shapes, colors -causes you to have an AESTHETIC emotion! you can't find this emotion anywhere else because it is caused by the combination of the forms -ridding the idea that art is supposed to teach us something or an instrument for propaganda -Modern artists unshackle themselves from what society expects of them and just create new art
John Cage
-Neo Avant Garde -believes art is anything that you accept it to be -art should follow or imitate nature in its manner of operation -in nature there are no hierarchies, everything has a certain degree of sameness - humans place value on certain things in the world but nothing is more valuable than another thing intrinsically -by putting these values on things it is detrimental -wouldnt it be nice if you could experience everything in your life @ the same level of enjoyment -wants us to see art in our everyday lives -"get your mind out of the way" -turns the ordinary (nothing) into something -no such thing as silence, made up concept
Greenberg
-most powerful critic of the Abstract Expressionism period -painting strength comes from visual form -push painting towards its starting point -argued that AB EX paintings had more to do with defining painting than any other artists that had come before -believed art is filled with quality -cant have painting imitate other things because it will fall behind; photography is a replication -irreducible to painting: flat, 2D surface w/ pigment, stick to this and thrive with it! -other mediums do 3D better so why compete, you will fail -with painting the background is just as assertive as the foreground -an optical space
Red Race Riot
Andy Warhol: 1964 -Pop Art -March on Birmingham, AL, police dogs attacking MLK's people -tons and tons of the same images of the same attack -causes you to be desensitized to it -what are the consequences of us getting numb to the terrible instances? how do humans respond to trauma? -we can't take it all in at once, so we keep returning to the traumatic event until we can remember it or understand it -everytime we return to the event, adrenaline is released -we get addicted to the imagery, get addicted to the thing that is horrifying -subconsciously when you return to it you are charged up -disconnection between the referent and the image > think the woman who was beaten as a child picks an abusive partner
Mending Socks
Archibald Motley Jr.: 1924 -everyday lives of AA but not charges with stereotyping -household servant for a white family (as seen by the portrait on the wall) -Dignity of black people: mending socks -social commentary on the servant locked in her position -transition from the AA woman to the white woman is through the crucifix: Christianity mediates the two worlds -debate of Christianity because it was forced on the AA community but has now become very important to the community
Miners' Wives
Ben Shahn: 1948 -Social Realism: critical of things happening within America -he was a union worker who wanted to represent the hardships of laborers -was commissioned by Harper's to do series on the 110 fatalities form miners in Illinois -mining: difficult job with high mortality rates, one of the ugliest industries in America -wife in the foreground, meant to represent all mining families -looks ghastly, fades in & out of the background -emotional state of women: lost, untethered -has exaggerated the way things look -red it meant to agitate you! uses colors to express emotion -clasped hand: sign of distress, wives hands were red from washing the ash out of husbands clothes, they'd become bloody -mother in crisis, child grows up with this struggle -company workers in the background just came to deliver bad news; walking away, they have the ability to leave & forget -wanted his works to change ideas!
Automat
Edward Hopper: 1927 -part of the Art Student League -Wanted to focus on isolation, loneliness, and alienation many city dwellers between Urban and rural America experienced -lonely contemplation of the independent woman -voyeurism! with the mirrored surface you can't see who is watching her -"propped" up in front of a window for us to see -frame within a frame -emphasis on our advancements with technology (and how its not totally beneficial), only the lights are reflected in the background -bowl of fruit next to her is "on display" just like herself - she is something to attract people in, can be purchased -she is stark white, very cold, not receptive -non-domestic scene, maybe a negative commentary on the working woman -very modern scene; an automat is a self-service restaurant -very balanced piece - asymmetry of shapes and colors
Abstract Expressionism
General Goals: -profound human contact >Big things that make humans tick, predicaments that humans find themselves in >Jungian Collective Unconscious (human drives, desires, loathings, fears) -universal language of form >Content communicated through form (line, shape, color, combination); extension under modernism, goes beyond conventions -Conform to "logic/essentials" of painting >Greenberg's emphasis >What painting is good at, lets stick to that, something that is purely visible
Music: Pink and Blue
Georgia O'Keeffe: 1919 -Feminine! "Finally! A woman on paper" -being labeled as a feminine artist puts herself in the category of women artists; tried to rail against this -being labeled as a woman artist automatically compares you to the man's work. "Good for a girl..." - -Alfred Stieglitz showed her work, truly put her in the modernist realm -soft form, harmonies, everything is uplifting -edges are ambiguous, undulating forms dissolving into unknown spaces -explores the relationship between figurative and abstract
Black Iris
Georgia O'Keeffe: 1926 -"The flower pictures" -these were the works that really made her famous but also marginalized her -abstract forms started to be eroticized; flowers represent fertility & are sexualized (similarities between flowers and vulvas) -these were the psychological readings of her work; she was just to express how she feels when in front of nature -Making the unknown known! her feelings into form - can't be expressed in words
Banjo Lesson
Henry Ossawa Tanner: 1893 -genre paintings focusing on the life of African Americans -desire to represent the serious and pathetic side of life among them; in the past it was mainly comic and ludicrous -romanticizing -universal subject: father & son -evokes empathy -openly addresses the stereotype of banjo-playing; but this time represents the passing of cultural knowledge & the pride and self-fulfillment attached to this knowledge -the looser brushstrokes allows for central focus to be on the subjects & their activity -golden light form side highlights the faces and adds a sense of solemnity and religion -banjo is a conduit, a connection from one generation to the next -boy is plucking the instrument (as was done in America) not playing (like in Africa): shows they welcome white culture
Number 1/Lavender Mist
Jackson Pollock: 1948 -Abstract Expressionism -Jungian psychiatrist suggests he draws and they can interpret the meaning (early works) -Pollock right place,right time, producing the right works -Number 1: first major breakthrough -language of visual form -Rolls out parchment & puts himself in a trance -Uses all different type of materials and paints -Psychic autonomism! theory that they can express the ID, their mind, in absence of the control from the body -Pollock's collective unconscious is being expressed on the canvas through paint -"the source of all my art is the unconscious" -acted out his incoherent rage
Harriet Tubman Series
Jacob Lawrence: 1960 -determined to draw attention to the past realities of slavery -31 painting series of Harriet Tubman -Federal Arts Project (FAP): government funded projects to speak to American spirit -wanted to create painted narratives of the lives of famous AA -they were about struggle, pride, determination, and education -rough application of the paint gives each image a rawness and immediacy -dramatic diagonal of the scene shows viewer from above and creates tension and unease -simple shapes and lack of detail gives the characters importance; keeps the emotions restrained and the goals clear -art "simple and complex" "strength without being brutal" "sentiment without being sentimental"
Spread
James Turrell: 2004 -room filled with mono frequency blue light -creates the Gainesville effect: wears out the core of your cornea and you begin to go blind -optical experience -looks like nothing, but once you get in, you can't see well enough that you can't fully function -made the floor turn slightly upward, wandering around, can't tell distance or the walls, completely disoriented
Fountain
Marcel Duchamp: 1917 -Neo avant Garde -wanted us to question what we take for granted -known for ready made -tries to display a urinal in a gallery but they do not display it; begs the question- why isn't this art? -signs with a comic book characters name -stieglitz photographs it in front a well-known piece and publishes it -he chose it! he created a new thought for that object; thus making it art -nothing intrinsic to the object that makes it art, but the way we FRAME something makes it art -differs from Greenberg (must be intrinsic)
L.H.O.O.Q
Marcel Duchamp: 1919 -assisted ready made: something already created and gets refounded -postcard from the Louvre -takes an iconic piece of art & defaces it -makes us rethink the traditional view of art -wanted art to stimulate the gray matter (the intellectual ability that takes place that takes place in front of the visual) -The Mona Lisa becomes famous because of the story behind it (janitor, media phenomenon) -Turns Mona Lisa into a man because of Freud: says its Leonardo in drag -the mustache and goatee complete the image, truly becomes a man -LHOOQ: elle a chaud au cul - she has a hot ass -reference to homosexuality? guys being turned on by guys...
The Rothko Chapel
Mark Rothko: 1966-68 -color field abstract expressionism stained paint onto canvas -the color is coextensive w/ the surface, no differentiation -paintings were meant to communicate deep human relations: joy, ecstasy, gloom -Chapel: functioning chapel, non-denominational -transcendence! going beyond your earthly limitations -dynamic longing for transcendence (one side) and death (other side)- fundamental human condition -existential crisis: collective unconscious, why am i here? -trying to put us in this mindset: the paintings start to virtually breathe and you become weightless (transcendence side) -dont breathe, bleek, dark, people immediately go back to the life side (death side
Untitled L Beams
Robert Morris: 1965 -known constant: we know they are L beams because of their Gestalt shape -experienced variable: but do they still look the same going around? the perception you have is based on your stance, hence why experience is part of the art piece -you know they are the same, but you experience them differently -reducing sculpture to essence
Bed
Robert Rauschenberg: 1955 -Neo Avent Garde -critique of Abstract Expressionism -pillow cover & bedding fixed to the wall, slightly painted -breaking the rule of the medium: how is this different from paint on a canvas? -reference to Greenberg's ideas -because the quilt is a "used" object it can't be art; utilitarian: separates things you use from art they are now deemed as less valuable -also Greenberg uses masculine language/quilts typically a female made object -Rauschenberg believed your involvement in front of the painting is part of the painting/ Greenberg believed you are invaluable to the piece itself
Spiral Jetty
Robert Smithson: 1969 -Entropy: basic belief that energy levels is winding down and getting more and more dispersed during the Big Boom, everything is concentrated now everything is disorganized, winding down -creates a spiral form in the Great Salt lake -Gets all different colors in the spiral as water levels rise and fall (appears and disappears) -shape derived from the molecular shape of salt molecules
The Dove
Romare Bearden: 1964 -Spiral Group: concerned itself with the Civil Rights campaign and discussion of AA identity -abstract photomontages: collages of photographs taken from commercial sources & combined with human anatomy in a haphazardly manner -weren't intended to be protest images, just engaging in the lives of AA -Dove is on a busy street in Harlem -eye is constantly moving; taking in the whole scene -Crowded/dense -Cigaretts: dapper, suave black man -Fist closed: black power -Solute - black panther group, black military
Eye/Body
Schneemann: 1963 -made for a camera as the primary audience -temptation -women are the gatekeepers to sex, men shouldn't be expected to control their desires -Eve is always represented as the temptress, he couldn't just say no -cast as the femme fatale, exerting a power that men can't resist -link to snakes goes back to societies that predate christianity: snake is symbol of life and death >fallic looking, venom is both curative & poisonous, rolls itself into a spiral (symbol of birth & rebirth in the universe), snakes shed their skin -her being nude is to confront you with active female sexuality that is not there for you -this is compared to Ariadne who is there for your desires -essential feminism: there is something essential to both sexes
Swing Landscape
Stuart Davis: 1938 -focused on a different form of abstraction, more geometric and 2D to promote causes of freedom and democracy -acknowledges that art is limited ! can never be a perfect representation of nature -attempted to capture the rhythm of music in the painting, movement -overlapping of space in relation -flat, colorful, playful shapes, similar to paper cutouts
Arts of The West
Thomas Hart Benton: 1932 -Regionalism -one of four mural paintings -crammed to ensure you get the whole scene -stereotypical scene: guns, poker, square dancing, saloons, taverns, rodeo, wrangling horses -unique to America! "our" form of art -very masculine; no people of color and small representation of women
Lightening Field
Walter De Maria: 1977 -New Mexico, very susceptible to lightening and storms -400 stainless steel poles, 1 mile by 1 km; perfectly gridded, all the exact same height -every fluctuation in the environment is captured by the poles because of their reflective nature -SUBLIME -when lightening hits it creates a light show
Cut Piece
Yoko Ono: 1964 -performance piece; breaking down the 4th wall between audience and performer, interactive -the experience is part of your own reflection of the event, what you think about is just as important as part of the work -ex: if you wait for someone to go before you what does that say about you? -the performance experience is constantly changing -Makes people aware of authorized forms of violence against women, the way society condones it -people just keep cutting; one eventually cutoff her bra straps -clear masculine move, he is in control, takes advantage of the situation also steals the opportunity from the other -the crowd weighs in, he went too far (causes us to ask- what is the cut off?)
