Art

Nam June Paik, Zen for TV, 1963

Paik would later become known as the inventor of video art. Paik became involved with the movement known as Fluxus, led by George Maciunas, in 1962. Paik adapted Zen for Head for other works, including Zen for TV, a television manipulated to show only one vertical or horizontal line of light.

Eva Hesse, Repetition Nineteen III, 1968

The tactility and warmth of Hesse's chosen materials reflected a desire to move away from the coldness, hardness, and exactness of Minimalism. Hesse rejected the first versions of Repetition Nineteen III because their shapes were too perfectly identical, whereas she wanted them to have a human, imperfect quality.

Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Painting, 1960-61

Reinhardt firmly believed that art should be created for art's sake and that art was distinct from everyday life. Reinhardt began pursuing monochromatic painting around 1953, settling on dark gray and black canvases in 1956. Reinhardt's emphases on monochrome, repetition, intensity, and perfection influenced the development of Minimalism.

Martha Rosler, Red Stripe Kitchen, from the Series "House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home," c. 1967-72

Rosler's first series of photomontages deconstructed the representation of women in mainstream magazines (feminist movement). The series "House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home" juxtaposes spreads from high design magazines showing domestic interiors with haunting photojournalistic images of the Vietnam War. The montages from "House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home" were originally published in underground magazines opposed to the war, as well as photocopied and handed out by the artist at demonstrations.

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych, 1962

Warhol began making paintings of consumer products in 1961, beginning with paintings of the iconic glass Coca-Cola bottle. Warhol began referring to his studio as "The Factory" in 1962, reflecting the modes of commercial production he was undertaking with the help of assistants. Marilyn Diptych was made shortly after Marilyn Monroe's death, using a recent publicity photo of the actress.

Photomontage

a collage constructed from photographs, typically found by the artist; the medium was first popularized by Berlin-based Dadaists who used it as a form of political expression and protest.

Minimalism

a form of abstract art that developed in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s; important artists associated with Minimalism, also called Minimal art, include Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Sol LeWitt, Frank Stella, and Carl Andre. Minimalist artworks are often characterized by pristine surfaces free of any marks of production (such as brushstrokes); repeating, identical components; geometric shapes; and compositions defined by grids. Minimalists rejected the notion of the artwork as a form of subjective self-expression, and the related concept of the artist as a genius creator.

Land art

a genre of art making that began in the late 1960s in which art was made directly in the natural landscape or made out of elements of the natural landscape transported to a gallery or museum setting. Also called Earth art, Environmental art, or Earthworks, Land art was pioneered by Walter de Maria, Robert Smithson, and Richard Long, among others.

Post-minimalism

a loose art movement that formed in response to the cold, hard qualities of Minimalism; Post-Minimalist artists, including Eva Hesse, Robert Morris, Richard Serra, and Robert Smithson—who worked in a range of sub-genres, from Process art to Land art—favored more organic materials and forms than those used contemporaneously by their Minimalist peers. As a result, their work was often seen as invested with greater psychological, subjective, or erotic meaning.

Assemblage

a sculptural work of art made by assembling discrete elements that have been typically found or bought by the artist; Assemblage emerged in the early twentieth century with works by Pablo Picasso and Kurt Schwitters and became popular again in the mid- twentieth century with works by Edward Kienholz, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and others.

Combine

a term Robert Rauschenberg invented to describe his own works of art that combined painting and sculpture into new forms; it is a close cousin of the term "assemblage" (see Section IV) and is used art-historically only to describe Rauschenberg's work.

Tableaux

a term used to describe large-scale installations made by Edward Kienholz; it draws on a more historical term used to describe paintings (and later photographs) in which figures are arranged in a space to picturesque or dramatic effect, in a way that closes off the viewer from the composition. Kienholz's tableaux, by contrast, are often made to be directly engaged by the viewer, allowing the viewer to interact with various elements and/or to walk through the space of the installation.

Screenprinting

a type of stencil-printing popularized in fine art contexts by artists such as Andy Warhol, who used the technique to create paintings as well as editioned prints; to produce a screenprint, also called silkscreen, fabric mesh (made from silk or other materials) is stretched tightly over a frame, the artist blocks out areas that will become negative space in the resulting print, and paint is pushed through the open areas of the mesh onto a substrate. Prior to Warhol, screenprinting was typically only used for commercial purposes.

Happenings

an art form developed by Kaprow in the late 1950s consisting of scored, scripted, durational events, typically involving a number of nonprofessional participants and an unspecified number of spectators, who are often required to perform tasks as well; Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine, and many other artists were key to the success and proliferation of Happenings in the late 1950s and early '60s. Happenings were an important precursor to Fluxus and performance art.

Pop Art

an art movement that began in the 1950s in Britain and subsequently gained popularity in America, based on a shared rejection of dominant approaches to art and an embrace of everyday imagery and objects as the basis for representational painting and sculpture; important artists associated with the movement include Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, and James Rosenquist.

Institutional critique

an art practice that aims primarily to critique institutions of art, whether museums, galleries, practices of art criticism, prominent donors, etc.; Hans Haacke pioneered institutional critique through Conceptual and participatory work that drew attention to the hidden politics and economics of art institutions.

Surrealism

an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement led by poet André Breton, beginning in 1924 and lasting until World War II; important artists associated with the movement include Salvador Dali, René Magritte, Man Ray, and Joan Miró. Surrealists were interested in automatism, experimental language, and found objects. Magritte's interest in language, combined with Duchamp's innovation of the readymade, greatly influenced Johns' philosophical approach to painting.

Monochrome

an artwork comprised of only one color; monochromes can be paintings or sculptures but have a stark aesthetic as a result of having a uniform color. Monochromes were first painted in the early twentieth century and became popular again in the 1960s in the hands of artists such as Robert Ryman, Ad Reinhardt, and Yves Klein.

Fluxus

an international avant-garde network of artists founded in the 1960s by George Maciunas; important artists involved in Fluxus include Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman, Yoko Ono, George Brecht, Benjamin Patterson, and Robert Watts. Often rooted in experimental music, Fluxus performances were based on scores written and executed by the artists, while many Fluxus objects were instruction-based, allowing the purchaser to fulfill the work.

Conceptualism

art defined by the primacy of the idea behind it, which is considered by the artist to be more important than the work's finished physical form; influenced in part by the development of Minimalism, Conceptualism—or Conceptual art—emerged as a movement in the 1960s through the work of artists such as Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt, and John Baldessari. Conceptual artists engaged many different mediums and styles, though their work tends to have an informational, straightforward aesthetic.

Process Art

art in which the process of its making is considered an integral aspect of the completed work and is typically left visible in some way; Jackson Pollock's drip paintings are often considered the source of the post-war artistic interest in process, which informed the work of artists such as Richard Serra, Robert Morris, and Lynda Benglis.

Abstract art

art that does not represent or depict a visual reality, but rather uses shape, color, line, and/or form to achieve a visual effect; in representational works of art, identifiable objects or figures that have been simplified or schematized are often referred to as "abstracted." "Pure abstraction," however, refers only to those works that depict no identifiable real-world objects or figures. Early twentieth-century artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Kasimir Malevich are credited with some of the first works of pure abstraction ever created.

World War II

made artists consider what role art should have in society - whether it should attempt to change it for the better or exist autonomously

Action Painting

term used to describe Jackson Pollock's painting (and Abstract Expressionism painting in general) that was coined by critic Harold Rosenberg; it emphasized Pollock's movement around his floor-bound canvas and the aggressive action required to complete the painting. Kaprow was inspired by the term (and Pollock's painting) to create action-collages, Environments, and eventually Happenings.

Edward Ruscha, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966

Ruscha's book Every Building on the Sunset Strip engages with L.A. car culture in its subject matter, means of production, and means of reception. Ruscha's Conceptualism had a cool, ironic tone— influenced by Duchamp and Warhol—that he shared with a number of other artists working in California in the 1960s and '70s.

Richard Serra, Gutter Corner Splash: Night Shift, formerly titled Splash Piece: Casting, 1969/1995

Serra executed his first "splash piece," created by flinging thousands of pounds of molten lead at the "gutter" where a floor meets a wall, in 1968. The SFMOMA version of Splash Piece was retitled Gutter Corner Splash: Night Shift to reflect the fact that the work had to be created over several nights to protect visitors from toxic fumes.

Center of the Art World

Shifted from Paris to New York after WWII

Michael Heizer, Double Negative, 1969-70

(Earthwork) Double Negative is sited on the Mormon Mesa in Nevada and consists of two ramps that Heizer blasted out of the rock on either side of a small valley. Dwan donated Double Negative to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in the 1980s.

Jasper Johns, Flag, 1954-55

(Neo-Dada movement) Johns wanted to paint flags (along with targets, numerals, and other familiar symbols) because they were "things the mind already knows." René Magritte's 1929 painting The Treachery of Images likely contributed to Johns' philosophical approach, which highlighted the arbitrariness and flexibility of language.

Abstract Expressionism

(New York School) a stylistically diverse movement of painters who all lived and worked in New York

Faith Ringgold, American People Series #20: Die, 1967

(Raised during the Harlem Renaissance) The series "The American People" consisted of twenty paintings done in a cartoonish, Pop style, each one addressing racial violence and tension in America. American People Series #20: Die depicts a race riot or rebellion like those that occurred the summer the painting was executed. American People Series #20: Die invokes a range of art-historical references, including Picasso's monumental painting Guernica and Jacob Lawrence's "Great Migration" series

1960s

A time of political unrest and cultural revolution

1950s

Artists of the 1960s frequently expanded on this period

Robert Rauschenberg, Black Market, 1961

Black Market includes a suitcase placed on the floor that invites museum visitors to take an object and replace it with a personal possession. The title of the work refers to Rauschenberg "smuggling" everyday objects into the museum, and his invitation to visitors to do the same. Participatory works challenge museum conventions and attitudes toward preservation, engendering ongoing conversations to bridge institutional needs and artistic intention.

Readymades

First developed by Marcel Duchamp around 1915, readymades were works of art created from existing manufactured objects, including bottle racks, urinals, and shovels. Artistic intervention was very limited, and these works generated questions about the very meaning of art and the role of the artist in its creation. Jasper Johns invoked the readymade in choosing recognizable, symbolic images for his paintings.

Hans Haacke, News, 1969

Haacke was involved with the formation of the Art Workers Coalition in 1969. News originally featured a teleprinter that spit out lines of news items on spooled paper that was cut down each day and put on display, bringing the political events of the day into the gallery space. As an instruction-based work, News drew on Minimal and Conceptual gestures from the mid to late 1960s but made a more explicitly political statement.

Donald Judd, Untitled (Stack), 1967

Judd's essay "Specific Objects" argued for artworks that were neither painting nor sculpture, that engaged real space and the viewers' relation to the object. Like other artists of his time, Judd disavowed the importance of craft and the artist's hand, allowing his work to be built primarily by professional fabricators

Allan Kaprow, 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, 1959

Kaprow sought to merge the legacy of Jackson Pollock's "action painting" with the score- and time-based principles he learned from Cage. The score for 18 Happenings directed six participants to perform various actions over the course of an hour, and required spectators to move during intermissions

Edward Kienholz, The Portable War Memorial, 1968

Kienholz developed an art form he called tableaux, which were often room-sized installations of found objects. Portable War Memorial dramatizes the impact of the Vietnam War on America and indicts Americans for carrying on as usual while the war raged abroad.

Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing 1, 1968

LeWitt made his first wall drawings himself but later employed draftsmen to execute them instead. The wall drawings drew attention to the architecture that contained them and further linked Minimalism with architecture.

Claes Oldenburg, Floor Cake, 1962

Oldenburg's first three soft sculptures were Floor Burger, Floor Cake, and Floor Cone, so named because they were placed directly on the gallery floor. Across his work, Oldenburg employed humor to challenge the seriousness and rigidity of traditional sculpture.

Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965

One and Three Chairs brings together an actual chair, its dictionary definition, and a photographic representation to question the relationships among the three modes of objecthood, language, and visual representation. Kosuth's work, like Duchamp's readymades, drew attention to the ability of context (the museum or gallery space) to change the status of an ordinary object into an art object.