ART & POLITICS

The Dada Wall in Room 3

"Degenerate Art" Exposition in Berlin, 1937 -contained works deemed insulting to the women, soldiers and farmers of Germany. - designed to promote the idea that modernism was a conspiracy by people who hated German decency, identified as Jewish-Bolshevist (not all actually jewish) - nude expressionist portraits and sculptures of women, with the slogan "An insult to German womanhood" and "The ideal - cretin and *****" painted above them. - Quotes by artists, taken entirely out of context, were used to demonstrate their "criminal" nature, such as Georg Grosz's "How does the artist rise in the bourgeoisie? By cheating."

Lange Migrant Mother

*iconic picture of Great Depression -February or March of 1936 in Nipomo, California. -Lange was concluding a month's trip photographing migratory farm labor around the state for what was then the Resettlement Administration. -Graflex camera -Seven hungry children. Father is native Californian. Destitute in pea pickers' camp ... because of failure of the early pea crop. These people had just sold their tires to buy food.

Guerilla Girls The Advantages...

-1988 poster their all-time favorite. -reflects discrimination experienced by all kinds of women, both within and outside of the art world. - the Girls attack not only the difficulties of being recognized as a female artist, but also the difficulties of balancing a professional life with a personal one in a society which undervalues women's contributions. - translated into several languages and shown throughout the world.

Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still

-In December 1995, The Museum of Modern Art acquired all sixty-nine black-and-white photographs -1st six were an experiment: fan-magazine glimpses into the life (or roles) of an imaginary blonde actress, played by Sherman herself. (look like movie stills—or perhaps like publicity pix—purporting to catch the blond bombshell in unguarded moments at home) - The protagonist is shown preening in the kitchen (#3) and lounging in the bedroom (#6). -the chic starlet at her seaside hideaway (#7) -luscious librarian (#13, at left) -domesticated sex kitten (#14) -hot-blooded woman of the people (#35) -ice-cold sophisticate (#50) -completed the series in 1980. She stopped, she has explained, when she ran out of clichés. - a whole artistic vocabulary, ready-made. -no Cleopatras, no ladies on trains, no women of a certain age. -69 solitary heroines map a particular constellation of fictional femininity that took hold in postwar America—the period of Sherman's youth -ground-zero of our contemporary mythology. -Sherman touched a sensitive nerve in the culture at large.

A Bar at the Folio-Bergere

Manet 1861 France *Revolutionary painting *impressionism, realism?? scene in new middle-class bar -shows everything about Paris @ time Social: wine imported from Eastern Europe (Industrial Revolution) -women low pay, no compensations "Gilded Age" Dress: chocker, hairstyle, waist coat *POPULAR **new lighting- 1st city in the world to have light "Paris, City of Lights" Her face: tired, wants to go home, "women were products, guy just propositioned her -self absorbed, distant Hands: roughed up, had to scrape skin off w/ rough towel -reflection in vase pf tangerines -HE IS MESSING WITH US, VISUAL PUZZLE REFLECTION ARE OFF ON PURPOSE

Battle of San Romano

Uccello: absolutely revolutionary, measured with ratio, everything precisely mathematical (obsessed) (michelangelo, leonardo, Bruneschili) -Horses don't look real b/c of this mathematical art -Horse right side: oblique view, foreshortened (hard) , 3-quarter perspective -no chaos, lines for grid=spears on ground -very idealized! -early Renaissance: just learning linear perspective, grid work, vanishing point -Midici family commissioned -actual battle San Romano & Florence

Trajan's Columns

-monument to war expliots and victories -lay out spiral: every event, specific people in sculptures -BRIGHT colors, red -built market behind, basicilica (was), now a church 100s of episodes bottom-getting ready for war as you go up= war top= serender of enemy -gives idea of how things are built HOW: columns=same principle as parthanon; except used a cap stand, large wooden spindle, tie ropes to oxen, oxen turn spindle, pulley pulls 20 ton blocks. *interior staircase inside -multiple artist worked on -excellent sculpting -read so far away: had floors on top of columns (library), arcade columns Why spiral? -way scrolls were done, folded like scroll (rotuli) *equivalent to James Cameron's Avatar 3-D view

Ara Pacis

13 BCE museum, modern, Rome -Altar- honor goddesses=honor peace -built in time of Cesear Augustus *pure propaganda-Cesear Augustus: lower taxes, increase education, family life swags-rep. farmers vs. warriors

Lady Liberty Leading the People

1830 HUGE (size usually reserved for history painting NOT contemporary ones!) -commerorates the 4 day revolution in July of 1830 (led to overthrow of the restoration govt. in France) -icon of French nationalism and patriotism -so powerful the French govt. bought it to hide it! front: allegorical figure of a robus woman, Liberty leading the revolution. (reworking of Victory of Samothrace) Liberty: -breast exposed: disheveleved on purpose as she does not care. -wears the Phyrgiian cap that says Revolution -student to her right -top hot guy=intellectual or merchant -revolution more important that modesty -seen as invisible -royal guards and the peasants fallen on both sides -city in the background is on fire, Notre Dame Cathedral -contemporary event as she carries not some ancient weapon but a REAL MUSKET

Marcel Duchamp

1917, modern art Armory Show, art modern show -Sculpture; Urinal "ready-made art" R. Mutt- signed on urinal *saying "What is art?" Mona Lisa- letter "She hot for Him" or "She has a very hot ass"

Yard

Allan Kaprow= a pivotal figure in the shifting art world of the 1960s - his "happenings," a form of spontaneous, non-linear action -revolutionized the practice of performance art. * interest to the theoretical, based primarily on the shifting concepts of space as subjectively experienced by the viewer. - group of artists known as the Rutgers Group, based out of Rutgers University where Kaprow taught art history and studio art. - was among the many artists and critics who focused on an intellectual and theorized view of art -rejecting the monumental nature of Abstract Expressionist works and instead focusing on the act of their production. - created Yard for Hauser & Wirth's opening New York show, Environment - Situations - Spaces. - recreated a junkyard, in the then Martha Jackson Gallery's backyard, creating an immersive environment with which the audience interacted. - 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. -there was no distinction between the viewer and the artwork; the viewer became part of the piece.

La Citadelle: Freedom

Augusta Savage she died around 1962 -sculpture deals with the African American and their difficulties in being accepted in both society and the arts -turned downed for studying in Europe b/c of race! Eventually studied in Paris- -did sculptures of famous civil rights leaders, established all kinds of schools in Harlem and elsewhere (help Africans gain voice) *this sculpture all about the slave revolt in Haiti around the 1970s -Citadelle was a place owned by own of the leaders of the revolt Pose: like flight, ballet balance, dance of freedom *ideal of freedom and victory and inspiration

Da Da

Cabaret Voltaire 1907 -nothing, madness -Switzerland artist meet, WWI -name "Yes-Yes" randomly choosen from dictionary, means life is absurd, madness -absurd performances -Huga Vall: cardboard painted costume, lobster hands, witch hat, read poem-jibberish, child-like **return to innocence, primal mind; reaction to the brutal war (mustard gas, machine guns)

Lipstick on Catepillar Tracks

Claes Oldenburg 1969 Morse College Courtyard, Yale University. -weathering steel sculpture -atop what appear to be tank treads -This was the era of free love -But at the bottom of the sculpture, we are reminded of the other major crisis back then in the tank treads: the embodiment of the Vietnam War. -Because of the stark contrast between these two core pieces of the sculpture, each one lends part of itself to the other: the cylindrical lipstick atop the tank treads becomes more menacing. -resembles the smokestack of a ship. - when paired with the lipstick, the treads themselves become more light-hearted, more "fun." -simple but powerful representation of the societal conflicts of the time—and as such, it often was the site of anti-war protests. -But the piece also serves as a harbinger of change to come at Yale just months after its creation. - In the fall of 1969, women were admitted to the university for the first time, and in that regard, the piece stands like an obelisk to that progress.

The Stone breakers

Courbet 1849 -1 of founding fathers of modern art -huge and not allowed by the acceptable parameters of Fr academic art, it was rejected, no gods -shocked people!! (what Courbet worked with!) Famous Paris Exhibition 1849: he set up hos own tent and exhibition and put up a plywood sign that said Realism - he pusblished a REalists Manifesto here is what he baically says: no more images of gods and goddesses they do ot exist anyway, no imaginary subjects--angels fairies

Death of Marat

David 1783 -became Napoleon's painter -Charolette Corday-recieving voices from god to kill Marat -very quiet, somber -caused a RIOT -revoluntionist hid in sewers (underground) -Marat got rash and had to bath in oatmeal, where he did most of his work -Charolette killed Marat= HUGE assassination *very dark background, like Michelangelo's David (arm), bathtub looks like coffin, crate=tombstone, towel=shroud - " A MARAT" = year 1, becomes martyr of Revolution (like christ) -visual parrallels -in Brussells -Pen straight up "Pen is mightier than sword"

Head Surrounded by Sides of Beef

Francis Bacon English, born Ireland, 1909-1992 -Figure with Meat, 1954 Oil on canvas - belongs to a large series of works that Francis Bacon based on reproductions of Diego Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1650; Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome). - In this version, Bacon depicted the Pope flanked by sides of beef, a motif drawn from his childhood fascination with butcher shops, as well as the haunting images of raw meat made by Rembrandt and Chaim Soutine. -Influenced by postwar Existentialist thought -Bacon intended his paintings to remind viewers that the human condition is fragile—that, as he explained, "we are potential carcasses." -To heighten the sense of isolation he explored in his work= to glaze his paintings with glass(he believed would function as a barrier between the picture and the viewer and further the sense of distance and remoteness in his work)

Departure of the Volunteers

François Rude, 1833-36 The subject of Rude's La Marseillaise (The Departure of the Volunteers of 1792) commemorates the Battle of Valmy when the French defended the Republic against an attack from the Austro-Prussian army. -title for the work, La Marseillaise=the name of the French national anthem - Banned under the Bourbon administration, it was sounded by the crowds on the barricades in the July Revolution of 1830 Sacred love of the Fatherland,

Raft of Medusa

Gericault- died at 33 -in Louvre 16 x 24 ft!!! -1819: Romantic Revolution, nature, humanity, liberty, conflict between nature & man *rebelled against slavery -based on actual event -rev. now= CNN in paint 1819: slave trade, French sent soldier & colonist to Africa -French boa hit in coral, make raft 200 got on, Cut rope to drift ashore, but went out to sea. All died except 15, boat picked up, brought to Paris for investigation -John Charles at the point of raft, black slave (very controversial) had energy and stamina to save people -used live models, oil to get right lightening, all friends, lay for hours, drunk -Diagonals, big X in mast, creates cross tension; triangles in mast and legs, raft *use classical w/ Romantic -dead near bottom, as you rise more alive (organize painting) *Despair to Hope -2nd French Revolution 1870 "All of France of Raft" -ate each other to survive -god's hand gesture (sistene) -political statement: "People will save from tyranny" ***causes riot, herring, king appointed cousin w/ no experience as Captain -was given medal instead of jail (artist)

Cut

Hannah Hoch -woman Da-Daist, feminist -hated men's stereotype on woman -men worthless LET WOMAN RULE!!!

Oath of Horatti

Jean- Jacquez *David* France -commissioned by Louis 16th- favorite artist 1784 Louis wanted to increase public morality, inpsire people to be patriotic IRONIC-calling card for French Revolution in painting 7th century BCE Rome -border dispute, send 3 best warriors, let them fight it out -father and 3 boys oath to fight till the death! -Greek woman: Savena (sister of Coratti, enemy) married Horatti; Camilla-married to Horatti (weaping) *universal statement of war, grieving woman pain of pain. How does he paint? -classical geometry, triangles (male) -swords & legs (triangles) -women slumped= bent pyramid, grid work, dramatically lit *vert dramatic and real Political Fire Ball: displayed=compelling public didnt see art all the time, public forum (upper class) *seed of French Revolution -2 ppl saw: King & Nobility-oath to France; peasants-see as pledge to PEOPLE -art student guarded with guns 1st radicals were women-wanted to feed children 1792-turned support French Rev. become president of radical movement (David) -signed over 100 death warrants, watched nobility beheaded

Dinner Party

Judy Chicago 1979 -she & others created Womanhouse art environment, torn up old Hollywood mansion -mixed media, collaborative piece, too many assistants -huge triangle table made of porcelain & hand stitched needlework -ceramic plates and chalices with golden interior -13 place settings at each side of the triangle= women's number (allusion to Christ and his 12 for a total of 13) -in middle of huge triangle 999 names!! (very famous women in history, myth, politics) -plates have abstract designs resembling the female genitalia, and triangle! -equal sides symbolic of equality!!! -each plate reflects what that famous woman would like or it reflects her interests (like name on plate at dinner party) *height of women's movement, feminist art @ Brooklyn Museum of Art

Street Berlin

Kirchner 1913 oil Die Brucke-artist group "The Bridge" Avant-Garde: very out there, on the edge (military term) -prostitutes, dehumanized, very brutal strokes *social alienation, decadent, drugs & prostitution

Leap Into the Void

Klein: French artist, an important figure in post-war European art. -leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by art critic Pierre Restany. -pioneer in the development of performance art, an inspiration to and as a forerunner of Minimal art, &Pop art. -show nothing whatsoever, he removed everything in the gallery space except a large cabinet, painted every surface white, then staged an elaborate entrance procedure for the opening night -The gallery's window = painted blue, and a blue curtain was hung in the entrance lobby -accompanied by republican guards and blue cocktails. -3000 people were forced to queue up, waiting to be let into an empty room.

Outbreak

Kollwitz 1903 terrifying, dark -print making: mass produce, etching woman standing-Black Anna, passionate, terrifying -peasant revolt 1902-1908, German, rebelling, starving, picked up farming tools and charged the guards

Vietnam War Memorial

Maya Lin -3-acre (12,000 m²) national memorial in Washington, DC. - honors U.S. service members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War, Vietnam/South East Asia, (Missing In Action) - construction and related issues have been the source of controversies, some of which have resulted in additions to the memorial complex. - 3 separate parts: the Three Soldiers statue, the Vietnam Women's Memorial the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall(best known) The main part of the memorial:completed in 1982, in Constitution Gardens adjacent to the National Mall - The memorial is maintained by the U.S. National Park Service - receives around 3 million visitors each year. The Memorial Wall -In 2007, it was ranked tenth on the "List of America's Favorite Architecture" by the American Institute of Architects. - listed 58,191 names

Rebellious Silence

Neshat -artwork reflects the Islamic society, primarily in Iran, where she was born. - focus lies on the Islamic culture and tradition, especially on women in Islamic culture (Carnegie Museum of Art , Par 1). -Due to her explicit attacks on sexual, political, and religious issues in Iran, she cannot work in her birth nation (Collins, Par 1). She questions the position of women in Islamic culture and the fight between the tradition and the revolution. Woman: covered in a veil, holding a gun, face is covered with writing -the writing on her face makes her seem as if she is wearing a niqāb, not a hijab. -Niqāb is one of the more extreme veils women must wear, showing obedience to the male supremacy in Islamic culture. The woman looks as if she's ready to fight. -origin of the musket is unclear, but its presence implies that she is going to war, ready to fight. -Neshat's works depict women in the Iran-Iraq War, responding to the violent war at that time (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Par 1). - her feminist actions also imply that these women are ready to fight for their right in the conservative world of Islam. - women took part in the Iran-Iraq War, they are still mistreated in both countries * raises the question of who the war is fought for.

Guernica

Picasso 1937 Madrid, HUGE - Picasso is Spanish, in excile in Paris. *eternal, greatest anti-war statement -most powerful painting!!! art=opposite of war!!! *German bombers fly over and drop 100,000 pounds of bombs for 3 hrs. -killed 1,600 people in village, 75% town destroyed -1 million people marched on Paris -Picasso: SO ANGRY, couldnt be shown in Spain (he didnt want) until Franco didnt rule, finally put up in 1960. Franco- Picasso HATED -Bombal: bomb/bulb

Moulin de la Gallette

Renoirs 1878 -wanted to paint happy images *impressionism middle class had leisure time for the 1st time!! "Mill of Pancakes" (outdoor dance hall) -actual dancing -relationship between men and women change, more CASUAL (flirting!) -mingling of classes, nicer clothes, social class less obvious Musee d' Orsay (museum) *very surface, nothing symbolic **dappled sunshine -Plein aire- outdoor painting, tubes of paint, actual sunlight, different effect!!!!

Just What Is It?

Richard Hamilton 1956 England after war, consumption VERY important to keep economy running -wanted to both praise and satirize pop culture and its new heroes: movie stars, entertainers *excess and disharmony BUT also FUN -criticizing markets and consumerism but delights in doing that -all advertising Guy:buffed, charles atlas type *over-emphasis on body; body to be consumed like products -huge tootsie pop= sexual -pin up girl w/ impossible breast -tv on, shag rug, tape recorder on floor, fake plants, canned ham (processed) -fake constellation (all tacky on purpose) *satirical and a reflection on what the culture is heading towards *trivia, momentary, shallow and all consumable

Dying Gallic Trumpeteer

Roman -looks sad & heroic -when men dying in battle, soldier stood and watched, giving him honor and dying with dignitiy -Celtic warrior; went into battle naked, mustache, Torc around neck=symbolic ornament Celts wore into battle -trumpet signaled defeat -wound on right ribs -sword, horn lying on ground -hand on knee=die w/ honor -Greeks honored enemy

Armored Train in Action

Severini 1915 Italian -revolt against everything *Futurists; speed, war, anger** -no culture, didnt actual do anything harmful -young, hot-headed italian men -Continuity & Space 4/5 Italy was illerate (was were renaissance begun!!!), massive unemployment -huge earthquake, killed 50,000 *Cubism

Maids of Honor (Las Menias)

Velasquez 1544-1600 Spain HUGE 10 ft x 9 ft -Phillip IV: created a lot of court scenes for him -sucked up to King but also controversial 1656: political statements -scene about MAIDS not King and Queen -little girl= Princess Margarita, *actual incedent: King and Queen come into studio (never happened during this time) he dropped his paint brush and the king picked it up and gave it back to him!!!! -enitre composition is unified -Velasquez had gold cross (high nobility, unusually for artist to have, given by king) -maid on each side of princess, midget "special" served in court, dog -Back wall= painting of Ruben's (had to do w/ overthrowing of kingdoms), Favorite artist, complex painting of a painting -chamberlan turned around to look at King and Queen -see reflection of King and Queen in dusty mirror, (past) -we become Queen and King. Who is he painting? -maids of honor, emphasizing maids, dog, midget -when he looks out, he's looking at you= You're just as great as the King and & Queen!!!!!!!!

Rebellion

Walker Darkytown made up of over a dozen characters=plays out a nightmarish scene on a single plane - one figure stands upright over his severed limb, despite his bleeding leg stump, with bones protruding from his hip -another figure, also exhibiting a severed limb, rolls on his back - a woman with a bonnet and voluminous hoop skirt may be attacking a smaller figure on its back -perhaps a crying baby, with a long, plunger-like instrument. * most remarkable about these scenes is how much each silhouettes conceals. -Without interior detail, the viewer can lose the information needed to determine gender, gauge whether a left or right leg was severed, or discern what exactly is in the black puddle beneath the woman's murderous tool. -The color projections heighten the surreality of the scene. - well-rounded multimedia artist - layering she achieves with the color projections and silhouettes

How to Blow Up Two Heads

Yinka Shonibare MBE United Kingdom, 1962 -Ladies 2006, Two life-size fiberglass mannequins -two guns, Dutch wax printed cotton, shoes, leather riding boots, plinth -advances in English textile technology early in the 19th Century=prints which were affordable to the middle and lower classes -bright, colourful dress, each with an identical pistol. -Each with pride and attitude in their posture. -depiction of an English noblewoman and a commoner? - One perhaps finding her position threatened and her sensibilities assaulted, the other suddenly on even ground with what was once unapproachable. -representation of the fierce tension between the various classes of English society in that time? -'lost their heads' before encountering one another, caught up in the fervor of their causes -Or perhaps the intent was to demonstrate how destructive each of their respective attitudes were.

Altar of Zeus Pergamon

altar of PEACE, thanking gods for aid in war 160 BCE, Turkey -now in Berlin, Germany -ionic columns -Plinth images of war all over, incredible detail in statues, all facing and moving up towards top of altar *broken sculpural frame, now in our FACE (1st time)

Winged Victory of Samothrace

circa 220-185 BC Samothrace Parian marble: statue gray Rhodian marble: boat and base *the messenger goddess Victory - and a base in the shape of the prow of a ship, standing on a low pedestal. -The Victory is wearing a long chiton, or tunic, of fine cloth, that falls in folds to her feet. -The garment's flowing lines are portrayed with great virtuosity -held a trumpet, a wreath, or a fillet in her right hand

Battle of Issu

found in Pompeii (Rome) -Greek origin, Roman made into mosaic 310 BCE -battle of Alexander & Derius Alexander: died at 32, conquered, spread Helenistic culture, India honor him as god! He went into battle with his men, side by side 1st time, didn't make people speak Greek, NOT afraid of god-king (Derius), no one is immortal, die for what tou believe in, buried his enemy when he found him! (honor enemy) -Artist use sharp. edgey lines to depict battle/war -reflection of falling soldier in sheild

Roman Vierism ( Ara Pacis)

heads faded and distant (back) -not entire body -actually faces of people -Cesear Augustus, Tiberius, Libia -Children: needed more marriage and baby making! -gave land to anyone who had children **repopulate Rome **stability of family Libia (Cesear wife) - opened hospitals, encourage education

Goya's The Third of May 1808

historical Spanish painter who made tapestries for the royal family -Napolean invades in 1808 and killed 1000s of ppl, Nap falls in 1814 (corrupt Bourbon king again) -gets throne revokes all constitutional rights of ppl *broad strokes in rapid excution *very powerful use of chairoscuro (light/dark changes) -spotlight on man at gun point (lantern) shirt only pure white in the painting, eye drawn to it 1st soldiers stance: stiff triangles, highly symbolic, opposed to the chaotic slump of men who are about to be shot -innocent villagers & fransciscan priest slaughtered by soldiers (napoleon ordered) -dont see faces of soldiers (anonymous faces of the State) Background: church did not do anything to stop this massacre...

Eiffel Eiffel Tower

named after Alexandre Eiffel (bridge designer) whose team of engineers designed it. -many people hated it at first, taller than church (bad) -originally a temporary structure -steele -1st elevator in world -1st radio tower in WW1, Americans saved it -built in stage, 1 piece on top on the other until top (cup0la)

Terra (Ara Pacis)

peace in all areas, holding babies 3 woman, swan, peace in water, earth, air -men have come home from battle *"Make Love Not War"