EXAM 3
The Pictures Generation
A group of artists that emerged in the 1970s and '80s whose works were united by the appropriation of images from mass media. Plucking images from television, film, and advertising, these artists produced work in a wide range of styles, including photography, film, video, and performance. The 1977 exhibition "Pictures" at Artists Space in New York, curated by Douglas Crimp, as well as Crimp's associated essay, were seminal in defining the movement.
Relational Aesthetics
A term coined by Nicholas Bourriaud, relational art takes as its theoretical horizon the sphere of human interactions and a social context rather than the assertion of an autonomous and private symbolic space. Building on the idea that we have to interact with people in public spaces, relational art facilitates genuine social interaction with the artist as a catalyst/conduit and is open ended and done through modest gestures.
Marina Abramovic, Rhythm 0, 1974, Performance
Abramovic was an immigrant from Yugoslavia, a former communist country. She was enthralled with the possibilities of self-expression without limitation in the US, and was coping with her past in Yugoslavia. In Rhythm 0, she had a table with 72 objects on it that could be used on her, the object, and she is fully responsible for all actions. It was 6 hours long, and pushed the boundaries of the human body and energy, as well as explored the limits of what people will do to another. She used her body in violent and masochistic ways to communicate her messages.
Ai Weiwei, @Large, 2014, Installations on Alcatraz Island
Ai Wei Wei was invited to create an installation exhibit on Alcatraz island, which focused on political dissidents who had been jailed for their activism and ideas because they often exposed the wrongdoings of their home country. Ai Wei Wei created lego mosaics that had pictures and names of dissidents like Edward Snowden, and he even set up stools in the prison cells where you could listen to recordings from these same people he was focusing on in his installation.
Performance Art
Art form that combines visual art with dramatic performance.
Video Art
Art form that relies on video and media as the medium
Conceptualism
Art in which the idea presented by the artist is considered more important than the finished product, if there is one.
Body Art
Art made on, or consisting of the human body
Post Modernism
Art that was representative of the thoughts emerging from post-structuralism.
Modernism
Art that was representative of the thoughts emerging from structuralism.
Yoko Ono, Cut Piece, 1965, performance
As a young Japanese woman, Ono's performances and works often shed light on her experience as an Asian woman in America, where Japanese women are often fetishized and simultaneously subject to prejudice for their ethnicity. She dressed in a black suit and sat on a stage in Japanese fashion, and one at a time members from the audience would come up and cut away a piece of her clothing. Like Abramovic, she seemed to be exploring the limits of oneself and how far the public will go and what they will do to another person. It is more difficult to watch Ono's performance because we can see her emotion and discomfort, showing her vulnerability. The work served as a mirror for the audience to see themselves and what they were willing to do, even if they might not have realized it.
Chris Burden, TV Commercials, 1973-77, videos
As well as his fascination with television and the possibilities it held, Burden was also interested in the social component and possibilities television fostered. TV commercials were used to communicate messages, not just products, but you had to have money and power to have that message broadcasted. Burden used what money he had and bought air time for several commercials he ran over 4 years. The commercials were strange, fantastical, and even satirical and cheeky.
Palais de Tokyo, Paris
Building designed and created by Nicholas Bourriaud, used to display modern and contemporary art exhibits and installations. The building has a unique space that can be completely transformed to suit the exhibit.
Robert Colescott, George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook, 1975, acrylic on canvas
Colescott combined classic white-washed historical American images with blackface imagery, portraying blacks in a very stereotypical way. White America tends to portray history in a way that waters down the way people of color suffered, and in a way that looks good on the American government and showcases the achievements of white men, even though people of color are largely responsible for the success of the country. He has omitted George Washington with an image of George Washington Carver, a botanist who was born into slavery before abolition, who is even credited with early environmentalism. Colescott's work highlights the achievements of black America, while shedding light on the true history of America through these recreations of historical artworks.
Liam Gillick, Discussion Bench Platforms, 2010. Installation
Gillick placed colorful benches in a space with canopy-like objects above. People are invited to come in an sit, talk, and interact. The work disappears and doesn't draw attention to itself, facilitating social interaction between the viewers.
Globalization
Globalization is the integration of a global economy marketed by free trade, free flow of capital, and tapping into foreign labor markets cheaper than domestic labor.
Douglas Gordon, 24 Hour Psycho, 1994, video installation
Gordon slowed down the famous movie Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock to span roughly 24 hours. When slowed down, it disrupts the movie and the intended emotional effect. It shows the artificiality of movies and acting, but also emphasizes the artistry of each shot executed by Hitchcock.
Ana Mendieta, Untitled, from Fetish series, 1977, color photograph
In a series of photographs, Mendieta generalized the female form using natural materials created on site, and documented it as a photo. They can remind us of prehistoric fertility figures, like the Venus of Willendorf statuette. She was exploring the rituals and cycles inscribed on the female body through her work. Mendieta lived a tragic life, and died during an argument with her husband at 37. She fell 33 stories to her death, and her husband was tried for her murder but was acquitted for inadequate evidence. There is no real clarity what happened, but the tragedy of the artists life makes her work more poignant. Mendieta's work often explored the connotations associated with the female form related to her own culture in Central America as well as in general.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled-Portrait of Ross, 1991, installation
In an earlier moment of the relational art movement, Torres created a portrait of his late lover, Ross, who died from AIDS in the 80s. It is a candy tribute to his lover, with the candy weighing the same amount as Ross. The viewers are encouraged to take a piece. The portrait becomes more touching when candy is taken, conjuring the notion of the physical loss of the body of a loved one and challenges our notions of death.
Appropriation
In art, using images and work that is not one's own to create new art that may be communicating a new message or critiquing the original work.
Lee Mingwei, The Mending Project, 2017, performance/installation, 57th Venice Biennale
In this performance piece, the artist himself and people he invites set up a space where people can come and have their clothes mended while interacting with the artist or his friends. It isn't just a space to mend clothes, but can mend social relationships as well.
Rirkrit Tiravanija, Untitled (Free), 1992, installation/performance
In this performance piece, the artist sets up a gathering area in a gallery with curry and rice that he made. He invited people to engage with each other and have a shared experience of eating food brought by a foreign artist, freeing people to interact with contemporary art in a more sociable way. You are the art and you create the art in real time through social interactions, creating a temporary utopia in a fine-art setting through relational strategies.
Sherrie Levine, After Walker Evans, 1981, photograph
In this photo, Levine has photographed a famous image by Walker Evans. She did not alter it. Levine often appropriated the work of notable male artists who were her predecessors. Walker was a wealthy man, and a depression era photographer. He photographed women and other people in a social study of poor America, he was acclaimed for his work but his subjects never saw the images or reaped any of the benefits from the success achieved because of their image. Levine took his image, and profited off of it, with none of the profits going to Walker.
Bruce Nauman, Poke in the Eye/Nose/Ear, 1998, video projection
Integrates Nauman's interest of pushing the body as a medium, and integrates it with video art, aligning it with an increasingly technological world. The video is unsettling, and seems a little uncomfortable as the artist jabs his finger into different body parts.
Jeff Wall, A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai), 1993, photograph
Jeff wall recreated a popular image from a popular Japanese artist. He wasn't making a commentary, but pointing out the fictitious nature of photography and shows that photography doesn't have a claim to truth.
Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face), 1981. Photograph
Kruger appropriated art historical and pop images, made them black and white, and added text to them while incorporating a hint of red somewhere. In this image, she chose a classical sculpture of a woman with the text "your gaze hits the side of my face" laid over it. Women were often the subject of the male artist desire, and the desiring gaze of the audience. This female sculpture is almost speaking back to us, and rejecting her objectification.
Louise Lawler, Pollock and Tureen, Arranged by Mr. and Mrs. Burton Tremaine, Connecticut, 1984. Silver dye bleach print
Lawler appropriates the work of Jackson Pollock by photographing it in a private collectors home in front of a Tureen jar, de-contextualizing it outside of its usual fine-art setting in galleries and museums.
David Hammonds, Which Mike do you want to be like?, 2008, installation
Many artists like Hammond were exploring race and the function of race in America. The piece consisted of three tall microphones, representing three men named Mike who were role models for young black men in America in the 80's. Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson, and Mike Tyson. Hammonds is commenting on how young black men aspired to be like these men, but his piece comments on the unrealistic nature of this goal and that you probably wouldn't want to be any of these men in reality. These mics are tall, even too tall for Michael Jordan to reach speaking to the unattainable nature of these aspirations.
Bruce Nauman, Self-Portrait as a Fountain, 1966-70. Color photograph, 19-3⁄4 × 23-3⁄4" (50.2 × 60.3 cm). Edition of eight
Nauman's self portrait was an homage to Duchamp's fountain, showcasing an interest in using the body as a medium. Nauman was interested in pushing the boundaries of what art can be, and that the perception of the viewers encounter with the work can affect their perception of themselves.
Nam June Paik, Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., 1995, 49-channel closed circuit video installation, neon, steel and electronic components
Paik was a pioneer of video art, exploring TV as not only an object, but a formal possibility and commercial structure that can be used as a visual medium in the art world that was more suited to our increasingly electronic lives. There are TV's with a neon map of the US over it. It shows how while highways are our form of transportation that connects us, there is an electronic and internet highway that connects us in the modern world.
Post Structuralism
People found structuralism too rigid and false, and reject structuralists claim to the absolute truth. Absolute truth is contingent on the biases of societies that produce these truths.
Peter Campus, Three Transitions, 1993, video
Peter Campus' work is not necessarily made to be art, but an exploration and experiment with video art and the body. The video cuts through three transitions using the body, in a way that is almost fantastical. It incorporates his dry humor with introspective self-portraits.
Structuralism
Philosophy of knowledge and the way we learn things. Natural sciences were advancing closer to the hard sciences, with strategies and procedures legitimizing the work. Believed that as long as there is a solid method, we can reach the truth to full, complete knowledge. Truth and knowledge are absolute and can be achieved one certain way.
Adrian Piper, My Calling Card, 1986-present
Piper's work often focused on her experiences as a light-skinned black woman in America, and her identity as it embodied racial and gender issues. Her calling card was something that looked at how white Americans view blacks, and how they behave and act on their prejudices when they think there are no black people present.
Richard Prince, Untitled (Cowboy), 1991-92. Ektacolor photograph
Prince appropriated the image of the Marlboro man, but removed the Marlboro branding. Marlboro assoicated smoking with manliness and being a part of the wild, and the freedom associated with cowboys. Taking the brand name away makes us realize the imagery really has nothing to do with smoking, and reveals the fictitious and cinematic nature of advertising.
Yinka Shonibare, The Swing (after Frogonard), 2001, mixed-media installation
Shonibare is a Nigerian man who grew up in the UK, and describes himself as a post-colonial hybrid. This sculpture has recreated the famous Frogonard painting of a French aristocratic woman swinging, with men admiring her which is meant to show the fun and frivolity of aristocratic life. Shonibare's sculptural installation has a mannequin, decapitated, swinging like the woman in the painting with her shoe flying off. The legs and body are different colors, and the mannequin is wearing a french-style dress made from an African-Dutch fabric. This can show that she is a post-colonial hybrid, a blend of cultures, skin tones, etc. like the artist.
Santiago Sierra,The Penetrated, filmed on the Day of the Race, 2008, photography
Sierra paid white men, white women, black men, and black women to participate in a film. They were to have sex with each other, with 8 different combinations possible (white woman, black man, black man, white man, etc) and filmed it on the day of the race, a day that celebrates Columbus finding the new world in Spain. Sierra's film is meant to be a commentary on the effects Colonialism had on the Native American population.
Santiago Sierra, 250 cm Line Tattooed on 6 Paid People, 1999, photography
Sierra seeks out disenfranchised people like addicts, the homeless, and sex workers and pays them to participate in dehumanizing art. In this piece, he paid 6 poor males to have a line tattooed across their backs, connecting these people and also branding them. While he shows the desperation of these individuals who will sell themselves to survive, he is also objectifying them and showing how we, in society, tend to objectify and dehumanize these individuals.
Institutional Critique
Systematic inquiry into the the workings of art institutions, like museums and galleries through artworks.
Tania Bruguera, The Francis Effect, 2014, performance
The Francis effect is a project about immigration, where Cuban artist Tania Bruguera collected thousands of signatures to plead with Pope Francis and Vatican city to grant citizenship to undocumented immigrants. The Catholic Church and the Pope often highlight that they take care of Gods creations, so it would make sense that they should try and help those who can't help themselves necessarily, like undocumented immigrants. This work shows the function of an artist as an activist, much like Ai Wei Wei's work.
Guerrilla Girls. Guerrilla Girls' Pop Quiz. 1990, screenprint on paper
The Guerrilla Girls were a feminist, anonymous collective of artists. At the time, artists were rejecting the centrality of a singular truth and experience established by structuralism. The group maintained their anonymity by wearing gorilla masks. The primary target in their work was the monolithic centrality present in the art world, which was often shown in a eurocentric male perspective. They commented on the bias of the art world and the barriers created for artists who are not white men through cheeky works like pop quizzes and billboards that appropriated popular imagery created by white men.
Ai Weiwei, Remembering, 2009, installation with 9000 backpacks
There was an earthquake in the Sichuan province of China that killed thousands of school children. It was discovered that the buildings were made with shoddy materials, and that the government had done this so they could pocket the rest of the money. Ai Wei Wei was infuriated with the Chinese government for not admitting to their fault, and became very political and an activist after. In this installation in Germany, Ai Wei Wei used 900 backpacks to create a quote that said "She lived happily for seven years in this world," a quote from one of the parents who lost a child in the quake. It upset the Chinese government, and would lead to them placing Ai Wei Wei under house arrest and banning him from travel.
Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, Zidane, a 21st Century Portrait, 2006, video projection
This film focused on French soccer star, Zidane. It serves as a portrait of the artist, and focuses solely on him playing a game. It doesn't show the action of the sport, but just Zidane. The film is serious and has a melancholic feel to it, and also comments of his life and contributions as an Algerian-French soccer player in a country with high racial tension.
Bruce Nauman, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths, 1967, neon sign
This neon sign has the phrase stated in the title, but is a vague phrase that pokes fun at himself and other artists. Artists are always claiming something grand about their art, and in this case Nauman is pitching the role of an artist in a medium that is a popular form for advertisement. He was interested in integrating the commercial landscape with the art world, and was exploring the limits of neon signs as a medium.
Chris Burden, Shoot,November 19, 1971. Performance
This performance piece came in the time after the Vietnam war, a war that heavily impacted political discourse and society, with controversy and trauma that was never fully resolved. Burden was reacting to violence he saw in the media, and exploring his fascination with television and film- indicating that Shoot is more than just a gun being shot. He asked a friend to shoot him in the arm, injuring him just like young men were being injured in the war.
Jeff Wall, A Ventriloquist at a Birthday Party in October, 1990, Silver dye bleach transparency in light box
This photo creates a staged scene of a birthday party, likely from the early 20th century based on the formal dress of the children. The fictitious scene is un-natural and unnerving, and once again points out the nature of photography as a medium.
Carrie Mae Weems, The Kitchen Table Series, 1990,photographs
This photography series depicted an African American family in their everyday interactions, not being extraordinary like photos you see of black athletes and celebrities- but being just like everyone else in their mundane lives. It can be juxtaposed with Norman Rockwell's work, which often depicted ordinary white families, and when he depicted blacks, it was a commentary. Her work rejected stereotypical depictions of black Americans that you see in the news and in movies, resetting a button and giving us something new, ordinary, and recognizable.
Installation
Three-dimensional works that often are site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space.
Marina Abramovic and Ulay. Breathing in, Breathing out, 1977, performance
Ulay was Abramovic's lover and often collaborated with her on performance pieces. In this one, they taped their noses shut and placed their mouths together, exchanging breath and not breathing any new fresh air. The performance lasted eleven minutes. It speaks to the suffocation we experience in relationships, whether it be from toxicity or codependency. It explores the line between love and violence that is often blurred.
Fred Wilson, Mining the Museum, 1992. Installation detail, "Metalwork." Courtesy Contemporary Museum, Baltimore
Wilson took objects from the Maryland Historical Society like silver vessels, and elegant armchairs and juxtaposed them with slave shackles and whipping posts. He disrupted the white, upper-class narrative of the museum and drew attention to the histories of blacks and native Americans in America. The exhibit sparked controversy and caused problems for the MHS, but ultimately brought to light the narrative of marginalized groups in the US in an uncomfortable way that couldn't be ignored.
