Art Survery 2 Chapter 30

Femmages

Sewn collages of American artist Miriam Shapiro, assembled from fabrics, quilts, buttons, sequins, lace trim, and rickrack collected at antique shows and fairs

Donald Judd, Untitled, 1969

Some Minimalist sculptures are about the objects themselves These objects are mass produced so that they can all be identical It draws attention to the fact that these are things - objects that exist in the world. These are not meant to be metaphorical or symbolic The artist does not create these hands-on. The ways we think about art making have been changing since Modern art began!

Audrey Flack, Marilyn, 1977

Still lives made of familiar objects to represent a person Painted in exact detail Extremely realistic!

Abstract Expressionism

The first major American avant-garde movement emerging in New York City; Artists produced abstract paintings that expressed their state of mind and that they hoped would strike emotional chords in viewers

Roy Lichtenstein, Hopeless, 1963

This artist explores the comic book as a mainstay of American culture How do we experience culture? Through the images we look at the most. Comics are one of those popular images at this time period This is painted to mimic commercial dot printing (this is an old fashioned way of printing and not how your printers work today)

Miriam Schapiro, Anatomy of a Kimono, 1976

This is a Femmages (a feminist collage). This term (on the next slide) is coined by this artist. Based on Japanese kimonos, fans, and robes This is meant to represent the idea of women by referencing both sewing (often considered "woman's work") as well as garnments worn by women (this piece is specifically speaking to Japanese women"

Chuck Close, Big Self-Portrait, 1967-68

This is a painting, not a photograph! Idea to translate photographic information into painted information Blown up to huge scale (much larger than the average photograph, this painting is almost 9 feet tall!)

Robert Rauschenberg, Canyon, 1959

This is an Assemblage Recognizable objects put together to defy unified reading This work is left intentionally open. He does not explain the story of why he put these objects together. This is for you as a viewer to figure out for yourself Questions our relationship to objects that we understand and how the meanings of objects change when they are placed in groups

Bruce Nauman, Self-Portrait as a Fountain, 1966-67

This piece is questioning what is a fountain. He makes himself the fountain and makes a photograph of his performance in action

Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965

This piece questions "what is a chair? How do we understand what a chair is?" More about the concept or the idea than it is about the actual chair, the picture of the chair, or the definition of the chair

Joseph Beuys, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, 1965

This was a Fluxus performance where the artist was in a closed gallery (people could see him through the windows) and he took a dead hare around and explained all the pictures hung in the gallery to the hare. We talk about this in more detail in Contemporary

Jean Tinguely, Homage to New York, 1960

This was a self-destructing painting machine made from trash found around the city. We talk more about this in Contemporary

Louise Bourgeois, Cumul I, 1969

This work explores the human body's relationship to landscape It is meant to look like a combination or compromise between female (breasts) and male (penis) anatomies

Ellsworth Kelly, Red Blue Green, 1963

Very impersonal Very tight "pictorial control" - that means that this has clear, flat colors and clean lines This is a reaction to those Abstract Expressionists who were talking about very spiritual or personal ideas. This tells us very little about how the artist thinks or feels. Remember that many art movements are a reaction to what came before them.

Impasto

paint applied in thick layers

Fluxus

A groups of American, European, and Japanese artists of the 1960s who created Performance art;Their events often focused on single actions, such as turning a light on and off, and were more theatrical than happenings

Superrealism

A painting and sculpture movement of the 1960s and 1970s that emphasized producing artworks based on scrupulous fidelity optical fact; Superrealist painters were also called photorealists because many used photographs as sources for their imagery

Existentialism

A philosophy asserting the absurdity of human existence and the improbability of achieving absolute certainty

Minimalism

A predominately sculptural American trend of the 1960s characterized by works featuring severe reduction of form, often to single, homogenous units

Pop Art

A term coined by British art critic Lawrence Alloway to refer to art, first appearing in the 1950s, that incorporated elements from consumer culture, the mass media, and popular culture, such as images from motion pictures and advertising

Barnett Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimis, (Sublime Heroic Man), 1950-51

All about color These paintings are large so the color has a major impact as you stand in front of them

Color Field painting

Also called chromatic abstraction; A kind of Abstract Expressionism that focuses on the emotional resonance of color

Action painting

Also called gestural abstraction; The kind of Abstract Expressionism in which emphasis was on the creation process, the artist's gesture in making art

Joern Utzon, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia, 1959-72

Also questioning why do we make buildings look the way we have always made them? Lots of famous and iconic buildings are made from the questioning artists are doing following Modern art

Andy Warhol, Green Coca-Cola Bottles, 1962

America's most famous Pop Artist He is looking at everyday objects and questions how we experience culture through very recognizable things. Especially products we see in stores Warhol believes that a Coke is a Coke - no amount of money can buy you a better coke. A bum on the street who has one will taste the same as one bought by a millionaire

Environmental Art

An American art form that emerged in the 1960s; Often using land itself as their material, artists constructed monuments of great scale and minimal form; sometimes referred to as earthworks

Post-Painterly Abstraction

An American art movement that emerged in the 1960s and was characterized by a cool, detached rationality emphasizing tighter pictorial control

Performance Art

An American avant-garde art trend of the 1960s that made time an integral element of art; Artists produced works in which movements, gestures, and sounds of persons communicating with the audience replace physical objects

Conceptual Art

An American avant-garde movement of the 1960s whose premise was that the "artfulness" of art law in raw artist's idea rather than its final expression

Feminist Art

An art movement that emerged in the 1960s closely associated with Feminism; Artists used the body to challenge and assert sexual identity and often used materials commonly associated with women

Op Art

An artistic movement of the 1960s in which painters sought to produce optical illusions of motion and depth using only geometric forms on two-dimensional surfaces

David Em, Nora, Computer generated graphic, 1979

Another new art-making material: computer generated graphics This seems common today, but remember we are talking about the FIRST time in 1979! This is a revolutionary new idea to make something that is not drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, etc

Le Corbusier, Notre-Dame,du-Haut, Ronchamp, France, 1950-55

Architects are questioning how and why architecture is made the way that is it and why it looks the way that it looks Architecture is no longer restricted by maintaining structure Advances in building materials allow architecture to break rules that it could not break before This building has no flat walls, no right angles, and no 90 degree corners

Arshile Gorky, Garden in Sochi, 1943

Arshile Gorky's birth name is Vostanik Manoog He survives Turkish genocide, changes his name in America to mean "Bitter Achilles" This painting is based on childhood memories of a story of the Garden of Wish Fulfillment - It was believed that wishes would be granted to those who rubbed their bare breasts against a rock Remember it is abstract- it is based on real life but we cannot necessarily see or recognize clearly the women or the rocks

Assemblages

Artworks constructed of already existing objects

Jasper Johns, Three Flags, 1958

Calls attention to "seen but not looked at art" He is using pre-made imagery to talk about how we respond to popular images that we see all the time.

Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1979

Celebrating female figures throughout history, religion, and mythology 39 honored women (13 on each side of the table) with a ceramic plate and embroidered table runner for each Also names of 999 other important women on tiles that make the floor This artist is attempting to bring forgotten women to art history by literally setting a place for them at the table. We talk about this more in Contemporary as well! One of Megan's favorites

Richard Hamilton, Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?, 1956

Collage of magazine pages and ads Talking about consumerism Questioning how to define culture The artist is questioning what popular culture says about the world and who we are?

Mark Rothko, No. 14, 1960

Color as a spiritual experience These large paintings take your entire field of view and take you in Subtle variation in color allow your eyes to move through them and connect on a spiritual level Does not do them justice to look at a picture, these are much more powerful in person One of Megan's favorite painters of all time- See one in person someday if you can!

Joan Mitchell, Untitled, 1955

Female Artist! Abstract Expressionism is known for being violent, heroic, elitist, and distantly masculine There were few female artists Female artists were not accepted as part of the group

Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1950, 1950

Flung, poured, dripped paint onto canvas Emphasis on process - he thinks every movement through, these are not made at random Intention is everything to Pollock

Louise Nevelson, Tropical Garden II, 1957-59

Found wood objects and forms assembled and painted one color These are made minimal by the fact that the one color makes them all blend together. This causes visual simplicity and emphasizes the objects as one minimal whole.

Art Brute

French, "Crude art." The mid-20th century art movement that rejected the conventions of traditional art in favor of the untaught. Art of children and the mentally ill

Lucian Freud, Naked Portrait, 1972-73

Grandson of Sigmund Freud He is best known for unflattering close up faces Unnamed woman in uncomfortable position He is showing real people, realistically. These people are not idealized

Duane Hanson, Supermarket Shopper, 1970

Life sized realistic figures - decorated with real objects and wigs These are so realistic that they are VERY creepy when you walk around a corner in a museum and see one! They look like real people (I know this from experience!!!) The content of these focuses on the emptiness and loneliness of lower and middle class Americans

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970

Literal earth (rocks, dirt, water) becomes the material for art Art reacts to a very specific place- here is at the Great Salt Lake Only visible when the lake is at certain levels . This piece actually disappeared for about 30 years after it was made when the lake level rose and covered it up. There is a website where you can check the level daily to see if it is visible today

Happenings

Loosely structured performances, whose creators were trying to suggest the aesthetic and dynamic qualities of everyday life as actions rather than objects; Incorporates the 4th dimension (time)

Jean Dubuffet, Vie Inquiète (Uneasy Life), 1953

Made of plaster, glue, sand, asphalt Painted in an intentionally crude manner

Tony Smith, Die, 1962

Minimalism is about emphasizing the idea that art is thing - it is an object that exists in the world Sculpture is an object so it becomes the easiest way to talk about these ideas We talk about this sculpture in the Contemporary class in more detail Just because it is a simple object does not mean that it has simple ideas behind it

Nam June Paik, Global Groove, Video, 1973

New media is being introduced into art as people are questioning what is art and how do we make it They also question what do we make it out of Video art begins as a new medium in artmaking

Abstract

Nonrepresentational; forms and colors arranged without reference to the depiction of an object

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #35, 1979

One piece of a large series of works She puts herself (literally, this is a self portrait) in the place of many female roles Questioning the roles that women play through how they are represented in movies, TV, Ads, and more She also explores female sexual roles

Bridget Riley, Fission, 1963

Optical illusion- this looks like it is 3D but it is not

Alberto Giacometti, Man Pointing No. 5, 1947

Personification of existentialist humanity Alienated Solitary Lost in the world's immensity (figures swallowed up by space around them)

John Cage, 4:33, 1952

Piano composition where musician would sit at a piano, open the top, and sit in silence for 4:33 The "music" was sounds of the audience: chairs squeaking, people coughing, sniffing, shuffling, etc

Aftermath of WWII

Political, economic, and psychological states for the world change after nuclear bombings End of WWII did not bring peace In America - Threat of communism, Civil rights, woman's liberation, free speech on college campuses, rise of youth culture (punk)

Claes Oldenburg, Lipstick (ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks, 1969

Pop art sculptor Makes everyday objects extremely large

Francis Bacon, Painting, 1946

Reflection of world's butchery and indictment of humanity "Attempt to make violence of reality itself" Showing the viewer "the brutality of the fact"

Frank Lloyd Wright, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1943 - 1959

Remember him from the last lecture? He made the Falling Water House. He also designed this famous museum in NYC

Willem de Kooning, Woman I, 1950-52

Rooted in figuration, but has sweeping energetic application of pigment of gesture The gesture or action of the brush strokes expresses how he feels about the subject

Frank Stella, Mas o Menos (More or Less), 1964

Same ideas as the last example. This is more impersonal- it is not about the "artists' hand" in a gesture like in Abstract Expressionism This is more about shape, form, line, and color (or lack of color because this is all neutral)