Global Contemporary 10.3

Global Contemporary

1980 CE to Present

TOPIC 10.3 Interactions Within and Across Cultures in Global Contemporary Art

In the scholarly realm, as well as in mainstream media, contemporary art is now a major phenomenon experienced and understood in a global context. Art history surveys have traditionally offered less attention to art made from 1980 to the present. Although such surveys often presented contemporary art as largely a European and American phenomenon, today, contemporary art produced by artists of Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the First Nations is receiving the same, if not more attention.

There are several reasons for this. First, the waning of colonialism, inaugurated by independence movements. Then there have been shifts in the balance of power. Think the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the rise of China. Additionally, the development of widespread communication networks such as the internet have all contributed. Contemporary art now represents a world that is global and interconnected rather than Eurocentric.

The art world has expanded and become more inclusive since the 1960s, as artists of all nationalities, ethnicities, genders, and sexual orientations have challenged the traditional privileged place of white, heterosexual men in art history. This activism has been supported by theories (e.g., deconstructionist, feminist, poststructuralist, and queer) that critique perspectives on history and culture that claim universality but are in fact exclusionary.

 

(10) 230. Pink Panther.

Jeff Koons. American. 1988. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (American kitsch)

Themes:

Materials with significance
Appropriation
Satire

Museum: MOMA

Pink Panther by American artist Jeff Koons is a work using glazed porcelain that stands 3 feet by 4 inches.

The work was made in triplicate commercial production. It is highly polished and gleaming. The glossy texture makes it look factory-made, associated with cheap figurines. Kitsch, a word of German origin, refers to mass-produced imagery designed to please everyone.

The colors are garish and bright. Think toothpaste minty colors with yellow hair and bubblegum pink. Deliberately gaudy colors were common in kitsch/knickknacks/souvenirs. These were Inspired by German figurines.

Koons had a German workshop where making these figurines was a long-standing tradition.

Function

Pink Panther From a series called “Banality” created with the condition of being unoriginal, dull, stale, boring. The series consisted of 20 sculptures in porcelain and polychromed wood. There appeared to be nothing serious about any of them.

Koons was doing what Duchamp did.

How far could he take the definition of art?

This gave viewers a number of challenges:

• Challenged taste (high class/fine art) (tacky vs. classy).
• Challenged originality (stole another’s image).
• Challenged uniqueness of the individual art object (made 3 of them).
• Challenged construction (didn’t make it himself).

• Drew from pop culture to create a sculpture that comments on art and beauty as commodities.
• Is a simple (or even tacky) appropriation of other people’s images made by other people art?
  • He is a critic of mass culture, and he reveals this by utilizing mass culture.
• Capitalize on the recognizable to sell art.
• “Marriage of pop culture and art-world elitism”.

Content

Pink Panther is a cartoon character from film/TV series in the 1960s/70s. The woman in the sculpture is

Jayne Mansfield a 1960s B-list Hollywood star (and real-life mother of actress Mariska Hargitay who plays Olivia on Law & Order: SVU!) Mansfield was a buxom platinum blond, known for wardrobe malfunctions.

Pink Panther is in an erotic pose with Mansfield, who is smiling, bare-breasted, and tilting her head back as if to smile at a crowd of onlookers. Her right hand covers her exposed breast. Pink Panther’s tail is tucking into the back of her dress.

Context

 This work was sold in 2014 to MOMA for $16,800,000. Koons was Gauguin-like in his intentional self-promotion. He took out ads in major art magazines and employed a PR/image consultant.

Accused of breaking copyright laws, Koons claimed fair use by parody. He was sued for copyright infringement and settled out of court.

What makes this postmodern?  The expansion of art object/artist that challenges tradition. Appropriation is key.

 

(10) 233. Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People).

 Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. 1992. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (Native American)

Themes:

Race
Interpretation of history
Cross-cultural
Politics
West vs Nonwest
Materials with significance

 Museum: Chrysler Museum of Art in Virginia

Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People) by artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith is an artwork of oil and mixed media on canvas that measures 5 by 14 feet.   It is divided into three panels or a triptych.

Is this a painting? A collage? An installation? Is it all three?

This is what is known as an assemblage. This means bringing together a variety of media to make something 3D. It was inspired by AbEx painters with their energetic application of abstract brushstrokes.

This work uses white, yellow, green, and red paint.

Function  

• Made as a response to the 500^th anniversary of Columbus’s landing in the New World
• Part of a series called the Quincentenary Non-Celebration
• Untold history of Native Americans being poorly compensated for their tribal lands
• Smith offers up these cheap trinkets in exchange for the lands that were lost, reversing the historic sale of land for trinkets.
• Smith said: “If the work could speak, it would say Why won’t you white people consider trading the land we handed over to you for these silly trinkets? Sound like a bad deal? Well, that’s the deal you gave us.”
• Native life has been commoditized, turning Native cultural objects into cheap items or logos or children’s toys without true understanding of what the intention originally was.

Content

• Covered with tribal newspaper articles about native life combined with images of stereotypical Native Americans from product designs and advertisements.
• Newspaper articles about Natives, photos, comics, tobacco and gum wrappers, fruit carton labels, ads, pages from comic books, images of deer, buffalo, and Native men holding pipes in their hands.
• Outline of a canoe has been painted: traditional form of native transportation (suggests possibility of trade) but canoe is stuck, there is no water.
  • Red in particular: referred to Native heritage, blood, warfare, anger, sacrifice.
• Above, a string lined with inexpensive toys that imitate traditional Native culture: toy tomahawks, a child’s headdress with brightly colored feathers, Red Man chewing tobacco, Washington Redskins cap and license plate, Florida State Seminoles bumper sticker, Cleveland Indians pennant and hat, Atlanta Braves license plate, beaded belt, toy quiver with arrows, plastic Indian doll.

Context 

• Artist is Native American and uses her cultural heritage with traditional art to make new media.
• Her first name Jaune is the French word for yellow and a reference to her French-Cree heritage.
• Her middle name Quick-to-see was given by her grandmother, who commented on her perception.
• Received a BA in art education instead of studio because her instructors told her no woman could have a career as an artist, even though they acknowledged she had been better than all the men in the classes.
• Questions contemporary inequities that exist and that are rooted in colonial experiences.
• References the role of trade goods in stories like the acquisition of Manhattan by Dutch colonists in 1626 for $24. Although the story is probably not true, it speaks to the idea that Native Americans were commonly lured off their land by what were in fact inexpensive trade goods.  They did not have the same understanding of private property as Europeans did. Remember Bandolier bag!
• What makes this postmodern? Art in a global context, with an expansion of art object/artist and social critique.

(10) 235. Rebellious Silence, from the Women of Allah series.

Shirin Neshat (artist); photo by Cynthia Preston. Iranian. 1994. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (Iranian)

Themes:

Ideal woman
Exotic
Violence
Duality
Politics
Interpretation of history
Text and image
Religion
Sexuality
Cross-cultural
Male-female relationships
Commemoration
West vs Nonwest
Revival of tradition

Museum: Barbara Glastone Gallery in NYC

Rebellious Silence, from the Women of Allah series by Shirin Neshat (artist) and photo by Cynthia Preston is a work of ink on paper. The work is formally striking with hard edges of black color against a bright white background.

The portrait is bisected along a vertical seam created by the barrel of the rifle. The woman’s eyes stare at us from both sides of the divide.

Function

This work honors female revolutionaries on both sides in the 1979 Iranian Revolution. It examines the complexities of women’s identities in the Middle East. Women of Allah series has allowed for a more complicated image of Middle Eastern women, and challenges the simplistic and stereotypical Islamic woman that the media has shown us.

Duality between:

• Tradition/modernity
• East/West
• Beauty/violence
• Sexuality/propriety
• Freedom/oppression

Content

The artwork portrays female warriors of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 in series called “Women of Allah”. It addresses four symbols that Westerners associate with the Muslim world.

Text covers part of her face that is usually covered by a niqab (traditional Muslim face scarf). The poetry is written by Iranian women about the revolution (Tahereh Saffarzadeh’s poem called Allegiance with Wakefulness).

Persian poetry is a rich tradition in Islam – Westerners do not know this history. Western viewers who do not read it will still understand the importance of Islamic script.

Post-1979 Iranian Revolution, all Muslim women were required to wear a veil in public.  Many Muslims found the practice empowering and affirmative of their religious identities, even though in the West we interpret this as oppressive.

The gun represents control and violence, but also religious martyrdom. We assume gun must mean violence right away. Westerners associate violence with jihad, although this is not the case. The rifle references the deliberate arming of Muslim women during the revolution.

Look at the woman’s gaze. Notice that in this image she STARES BACK.  Westerners assume she would/should be modest  and that she has been conditioned to be this way. Here she is retaking her body and freeing it from objectification

Iran in Context

Iran had been ruled by Shah (king) Pahlavi from 1941 – 1979. He was known for violent repression of Islamic religious freedom. Yet he FAVORED westernization. Iran was ally of both Britain and the US.  Women’s rights were promoted.

The 1979 Iranian Revolution was led by Ayatollah Khomeini. A very strict and conservative religious government dismantled Westernization.

About the Artist

Shirin Neshat was born in Iran in 1957 and raised in Westernization. She attended Catholic school to learn Western and Islamic history. Later, in the mid-1970s, she left Iran, moving to California, as attitudes towards the West grew increasingly hostile. She could not show her work in modern Iran as it was too dangerous.

 What makes this Postmodern?

This is an example of art in a global context, with an expansion of art object/artist, as well as social critique.

 

(10) 236. En la Barberia no se Llora (No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop).

Pepon Osorio. Nuyorican. 1994. Post-Modernism

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (Nuyorican)

Themes:

Ideal man
Installation
Male/female relationships
Sexuality
Materials with significance

Museum : Museum de Arte de Puerto Rico

En la Barberia no se Llora (No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop) by artist Pepon Osorio is a mixed-media installation. This large-scale work is immersive and visually opulent. It has been dubbed Nuyorican Baroque in reference to the opulence of New Spanish Baroque. It is meant to be entered and experienced by the viewer.

This work re-creates the artist’s memory of his first haircut at age 5, where he was told not to cry like a girl. He wanted to capture the limiting gender expectations of being male. There were only two options–being macho or being gay. The work challenge to the strong sense of machismo and homophobia in Latino communities. This is also a celebration of Nuyorican culture while at the same time offering a critique of it.

“Shop” contains images of Latino men, some crying and being bullied, and some men acting strong. There are powders that enhance male sexual performance and products for penile enhancement.

It is packed with masculine symbols:

• barber chairs
• sports paraphernalia
• depictions of sperm and circumcision
• phallic symbols
• tattoos
• male action heroes
• Puerto Rican flags
• Baseballs
• Framed portraits of famous Latino men.

It also included videos playing interviews of Latino elder men from a retirement home nearby being asked about the idea of machismo and pro-traditionally defined masculinity.

Context

Pepon Osorio is a Puerto Rican born artist who was a social worker in the Bronx. He was not trained as an artist. He had a first-hand view of youth culture and the social expectations of his community. He lived in the Nuyorican Community (Puerto Ricans living in New York City) who have a distinct sense of cultural pride. Machoism is a central tenet of gender identity in this community.

The work was created in collaboration with local residents. They even offered haircuts to viewers in the opening art show.

What makes this postmodern? This is art in a global context with an expansion of art object/artist and a social critique.

 

(10) 237. Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000).

Michel Tuffery. New Zealander.  Mixed media. 1994. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (New Zealand)

Themes:

Animals
Found object
Interpretation of history
Cross-cultural
Appropriation
Materials with significance
West vs Nonwest
Commercial
Cross-cultural

Museum: Museum of New Zealand

Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000) by Samoan artist Michel Tuffery, from New Zealand. It is a mixed media work made with found objects assembled and appropriated into sculpture in the round. It is made from flattened corned-beef tins joined by rivets. Notice how the coloration of the tins affects where it is placed, such as hooves, bodies or faces to provide contrast.

Function

The work argues that foreign intervention and imperialism creates dependency. It teaches us about the impact of colonial economies in Pacific Island culture.

Imported commodities became integral parts of Polynesian customs of feasting and gift-giving. This replaced the tradition of tapa cloth. Due to the presence of Europeans harvesting and slaughtering techniques, also changed.

Content

Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000) was named for the local Samoan term for canned goods. The term is derived from the Samoan version of “pea soup” which is pisupo. Pea soup was one of the first canned foods to be introduced by Europeans. Pisupo later meant “canned food” as a broad term.

A life-size bull is made from flattened cans of corned beef symbolizing that animals are just products to be sold. Using the title with 2000 in it makes us think about a modern, mass-produced commodity like a vacuum.

Changes Through Western Influence

The presence of Europeans/Westerners changed two things:

Gift -giving typically included tapa cloth and Fijian mats, like in the Processional for Queen Elizabeth II.  Later Canned foods quickly became prestigious items used as ceremonial gifts in Samoa. Pisupo (canned foods) quickly replaced traditional indigenous foods and caused native practices to die out.

Farming (harvesting/slaughtering) practices changed completely to be replaced by imported canned food.

What makes this postmodern?

This is art in a global context with  and expansion of art object/artist, along with a social critique.

 

(10) 242. Lying with the Wolf. Kiki Smith.

American. 2001. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective:  Post-Modernism (American)

Themes:

Female nude
Animals
Nature
Ideal woman
Revival of tradition

Museum: Centre Pompidou

Lying with the Wolf by Kiki Smith is a work of ink and pencil on paper. The paper on this large-scale work does not have a nice finish and is left wrinkled. This is really just a sketch!

The negative space is great and undefined. There is no horizon line. The reclining nude contains little to no modelling.

Function

This work is a feminist approach and retelling of popular folktales. The associations with Woman and Nature mean that the woman is not the victim.

Why are women in fairy tales always in danger or near death?

• Snow White
• Sleeping Beauty
• Ariel
• Cinderella
• Little Red Riding Hood
• Belle

Women have been associated with nature. Why does this imply women wouldn’t understand it? A deeper connection?

Lying with the Wolf  references the tradition of the reclining female nude but transforms it. The work is  not sexualized. She doesn’t stare out but reclines with animal. The audience doesn’t matter, she pays them no mind.

A Closer Look

A reclining female nude lays intimately with a wolf. This is not about bestiality, however, but it is an act of bonding between humans (especially women) and nature. The wolf nuzzles her affectionately, much like she cuddles with a dog. She strokes his fur.

The woman has tamed the wolf’s wildness. Neither is a victim any longer. This is symbiotic.

Both figures seem to nurture one another. They are not stereotypically predator and prey. It’s hard to pick who would have been the prey anyway. Is it the woman because she is vulnerable? Is it the animal to show man’s power over nature?

References

Little Red Riding Hood is a story that is normally quite violent and is now rendered sweet.

Saint Genevieve the patron saint of Paris is associated with animals and her ability to domesticate wolves.

About the Artist

Kiki Smith was born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1954. She grew up, as part of an artistic family in an old Victorian house in New Jersey. It captured her imagination and inspired her to think of fairy tales and the feminist retellings. Her common subjects include fairy tales, women, animals, and Victorian literature.

What makes this postmodern?

Appropriation is key. There is an expansion of art object/artist and a social critique, as well as a revival of tradition.

 

(10) 244. The Swing (after Fragonard).

Yinka Shonibare. Nigerian-British. 2001. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (British-Nigerian)

Themes:

Sexuality
Cross-cultural
Appropriation
Exotic
Interactive
Race
Installation
Ideal woman
Interpretation of history
Interactive
West vs Non-west
Materials with significance
Stylized bodies

Museum: Tate London

The Swing (after Fragonard) is a mixed-media installation work by artist Yinka Shonibare measuring 10 feet tall. This is a 3D sculpture/ installation of a life-size headless female mannequin, installed in a corner of the gallery with foliage.  It is based on the iconic Rococo 1767 painting by Fragonard, The Swing.

Function

This is a sculpture that is both familiar and strange to us. It draws our attention to the prominence of racism.

It is jarring at first to see a black woman replace one of the most coquettish, erotic, and delicate women in the history of art. Why? We are not used to seeing black women in art as the main subject and especially in a glamorized and eroticized way.

As we participate in the voyeurism, we become like the man in the bush in The Swing.

This shows the multi-cultural, multi-racial world that we live in. The Identity is not singular, rather it is cross-cultural or multi-cultural. In this work we have a European painting and a black woman wearing Dutch wax (African fabric).

Content

Like Fragonard’s, The Swing, this work retains a woman on swing, a shoe mid-flight, and the foliage. What has been excluded are the men, much of the garden, the race of woman, the head and identical clothing.

The woman is dressed in a traditional French Rococo style, but it is made with African fabric (called Dutch wax). This is different from the decorative and frilly opulence in the original.

The woman has no head. This may refer to the fate that awaited many Rococo aristocrats in the French Revolution— the guillotine!  The Swing was seen as the epitome of excess and extravagance in the Rococo.

The woman is black rather than white. There is a juxtaposition of something that is European with what is African.

What Makes this Postmodern?

The Swing (after Fragonard) allows us to understand art in a global context. It has an expansion of art object/artist, as well as a social critique. Appropriations are common to show challenges to tradition.

Not Originally African

Dutch Wax fabrics were made in the Southeast Asian Dutch/English colonies. These quickly became even cheaper to produce in African colonies. Production was moved there. Eventually, the bright patterning became distinctive and integrated into African clothing and used in African nationalist movements.

About the Artist

Yinka Shonibare is a British-bot the Artistrn Nigerian who is sensitive to nationalism, identity, and race. Paralyzed on half of his body, he directs his artwork production to his studio.

The artist referred to himself as a hybrid. As an art student in London, his teacher told him to make work that expressed his African identity. This prompted him to think about stereotypes and the difficulties that exist for those who are multiracial.

 

(10) 245. Old Man’s Cloth.

El Anatsui. Ghanian. 2003. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (Ghana)

Themes:

Appropriation
Textiles
Cross-cultural
Found object
Materials with significance
Revival of tradition

Museum: Harn Museum of Art, Florida

Old Man’s Cloth by artist El Anatsui is an art object made with aluminum and copper wire standing 16 feet tall.

What is it?

A sculpture in 3D?  A painting to hang on the wall?  An installation?  Is it fine art or craft? Fabric? Post-Modernism purposefully disregards the limited categories imposed by Western art history.

This work is made from old liquor metal bottle caps and labels (modular). ALL were found in  the Ghana bush (found object). The artist was careful to create bands of black, silver, gold, and red. These were fastened together with copper wire.

Construction

El Anatsui works in a warehouse. His assistants piece it together under his direction.

The artist never gives museums any hanging instructions.  The piece is always different when it is hung. Old Man’s Cloth catches the light from every angle and creates a reflective surface.

Function

Bottle caps signify a fraught history of trade between Europe and Africa. European liquor was a major element of the transatlantic slave trade/Triangle Trade.

Alcoholism is a significant problem in African communities. Just like Corned Beef 2000, globalization, and an introduction of Western goods into non-western regions has created both an imbalance and a dependency.

Anatsui’s cloths cause us to examine our conceptions of waste – appropriation/recycling of waste.

The title, Old Man’s Cloth refers to the significance of textiles in African societies.

 Content

• Part of a series called Gawu (the Ghanian word for metal cloth)
• Pattern is based on kente cloth – traditional fabric in Ghana
• Gold colors also recall the colonial past of Ghana (previously called the Gold Coast by the British) until its independence in 1957.
• The fluid movement of the work reminds the viewer of the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, which carried slave ships and trade ships from Africa to the New World.

Context

El Anatsui was born in Ghana in 1944. He trained in an academic European-style academy. In 1964, when he was beginning art school, many parts of Africa were pushing for independence and decolonization. He joined the Sankofa movement which worked to unearth and reclaim Africa’s rich artistic tradition.

Men in Ghana weave fabrics. This is highly unusual because globally, this tends to be a women’s tradition.

What makes this postmodern? Expansion of artist/art object, the revival of tradition and social critique.

The Met owns two of Anatsui’s metal wall hangings, but two separate departments purchased them: Arts of Africa and Modern/Contemporary Art. Which one is more appropriate and why?

 

(10) 247. Preying Mantra.

Wangechi Mutu. Kenyan. 2006. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (Kenya)

Themes:

Male-female relationships
Female nude
Sexuality
Exotic
Animals
Stylized bodies
Cross-cultural
Ideal woman

Museum: Brooklyn Museum

Preying Mantra by Kenyan artist Wangechi Mutu is an artwork created by using mixed media on mylar.  Here she used collage incorporating fragments from fashion magazines, specially colored paper and more.  This was applied to mylar, which is a soft reflective piece of plastic. (Balloons are made of mylar.)

The work has drips of white ink on top of colors. This is reminiscent of stars and constellations, with the connection of human form to the universe.

Function

This takes the attitudes of gender, sexuality, and the female nude and complicates them. We are used to docile, sexual, attractive white women. This woman seems powerful, engaged, confident, and not white.

There is a twist on the tradition of female nudes. It takes a woman who is passive and makes her active.  She is now preying on and ensnaring men.

When we view her, we assume she is not white. Why? How can we tell what race she is at all ? If we assume she isn’t white, we subject her to not only sexism but racism as well.

What’s in a Title?

The title Preying Mantra reminds the viewer of a praying mantis, when looking at the female’s bent legs.  Praying mantises camouflage themselves, then snare prey with their enormous legs. During mating, a female praying mantis becomes a sexual cannibal.

Is the subject our prey? We prey on her by gazing on her, but she seems powerful, strong,  and confident. Is this a message about men falling prey to sexual women? She ensnares men, like her insect counterpart.

Juxtapositions

The woman is full of juxtapositions, and a hybrid-like figure.

• Sexualized yet legs tightly crossed
• Human yet not human-like (more of a creature)
• Relaxed yet exposed
• Physical yet flayed

Skinless

The inner flesh is on the outside of her body. Removing her skin removes the idea of race. Then, the viewer can just focus on the woman, regardless of race or identity.

Symbols

The blanket represents kuba cloth, a Kenyan style of cloth.

The tree reminds us of creation myths. It also connects women to nature. Her left hand holds a small green serpent which links this woman with Eve. It joins her to Western tradition.

Artist Backgrounder

 Artist Wangechi Mutu was born in Nairobi, Kenya but educated in Europe and the United States.

She spoke about how one of the effects of colonialism in Africa was to introduce European or white narratives to African history and visual arts. This had the negative effect of Africans viewing their own art through a European lens.

Why is this Postmodern?

In Preying Mantra there is appropriation, change of tradition and an expansion of  the artist.

 

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Global Contemporary

1980 CE to Present

TOPIC 10.4 Theories and Interpretations of Global Contemporary Art