Late 20th Century

Late 20^th Century                                                                  

Theme: “Pluralism”

Multiple styles existed at once, and many artists participated in more than one style.  Most artists do not fit neatly into any given “category” or “style.” Experimentation and social statements are key.

 Historical Context (1940-1990)

WWII and its devastation were powerful catalysts that drove artists to pursue abstraction.

• Later, TV, computer, and digital media changed people’s social interactions, and information about the world around them.

Artistic Innovations

• The center of the art world moved from Paris to New York after WWII. New York was the financial and cultural capital of the world.
• Many artists moved to New York to embark upon their careers.
• Artists pursued abstraction in both painting and sculpture.
• Modern architecture was radically altered by the introduction of the computer and 3D imaging.
• Modern sculpture had abandoned marble as artists used more industrial materials.

Jackson Pollock. Autumn Rhythm (Number 30). 1950. Enamel on canvas

On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting… It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well…When I am painting, I am not aware what is taking place, it is only after that I see what I have done.”  – Jackson Pollock

 

(4) 145. Woman I.

Willem De Kooning. American. 1950–1952. Abstract Expressionism.

Learning Objective: Abstract Expressionism painting

Themes:

Ideal woman
Abstraction
Sexuality
Female nude
Stylized bodies

Museum: MOMA

Woman I by artist Willem De Kooning is an oil on canvas work measuring 6 feet and 4 inches by 6 feet and 4 inches.  

Form 

• Took a year and a half to complete (numerous preliminary studies)
• Large canvas in reference to history paintings. This is clearly not in content, but he argues this is significant.
• He often applied paint to the canvas and scraped it away.
• He even discarded this canvas in the trash for a few weeks, then dug it back out.
• Handling of paint is thick, rough, and opaque.
• Prepared massive quantities of paint in kitchen bowls and constantly tweaked them by adding water or eggs or pigment.
• Action painting: physical, vigorous application of paint, involves the body.
• Body is outlined in thick black lines.
• Abrupt, angular strokes or orange, blue, green, yellow, and pink.
• Rejects idealization of female body
• She is hefty but also flattened
• Highly abstracted figure, aggressive brushwork, and intense color palette
• Wanted huge canvases to speak to universal truth; take the history painting à make it full abstraction

Function

Critics had declared the figure obsolete in painting.  Instead of abandoning the subject, de Kooning readdressed this subject in a series of six paintings. This is the first.

•  “Female painted through the ages” – timelessness

Content

• Repeats tradition in showing us a female nude!
• Aggressive, hulking, menacing, vengeful, wild-eyed figure of a sexualized woman
  • Reverses traditional female representations: gigantic eyes, massive breasts, toothy grin
  • Some accused him of misogyny, but a friend said “I don’t know if he hates women or if he likes them too much…”
• An amalgam of female archetypes, from Paleolithic fertility goddesses to 1950s pinup girls (smile influenced by ad of women selling Camel cigarettes)

About Abstract Expressionism  

Abstract Expressionism started in NYC in late 40s and early 50s. It focused on total abstraction with no reference to representation, but applied paint to the canvas in a rough, physical manner a la Expressionism.

The theory was this nonrepresentational manner of painting would allow the artist to draw out greater truths and inner ideas. The image was not preconceived. It was the result of the creative process and the artist’s impulse.

This was the reaction to WWII and American regionalism. There was a feeling of despair.

Willem De Kooning

Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) was born in the Netherlands. In 1926, he arrived in America, penniless and unable to speak English. He joined AbEx painters but differed in that he applies the Expressionist technique to figures.

The female figure was the subject he was most interested in and has caused much debate.

“I never was interested in how to make a good painting…,” he once said. “I didn’t work on it with the idea of perfection, but to see how far one could go…” Willem de Kooning

 

(4) 149. The Bay.  

Helen Frankenthaler. American. 1963.  Abstract Expressionism (Color Field).

 

The Bay
© Estate of the Artist/2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), Bridgeman Art Library, New YorkLearning Objective: Color Field painting

Themes: Abstraction

Museum: Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Bay a work of acrylic on canvas by Helen Frankenthaler measures six feet eight inches by six feet and nine inches.

Color Field is a classification of painting which is achieved through “fields” of color.  The only subject is the color and it is in a non-representational form.

Acrylic is a fast-drying paint. It is water-soluble, so it can be kept rich and thick, or loosened to have a watercolor look.

To soak stain the artist uses diluted acrylic paint, thinned with turpentine so it will run. Here, Frankenthaler poured paint onto the canvas. Then, the canvass was lifted and tilted at various angles so the paint would flow across the surface.

Action painting is the physical manner of applying paint, then picking up the canvas and letting the paint drip across the surface. It is a combination of the unpredictability of gravity and the artist’s control.

What is our physical response to color?

We respond to colour in this painting in the same way we might respond to a sunset stained-glass window. These examples illustrate that colors do not have to represent something in particular, but they can instead have an ambiguous quality.

The goal is for the viewer to focus purely on the colors and shapes in the work.

Colours Chosen by the Artist

The painting includes different shades of blue, grey, green, and brown.

In Frankenthaler’s Own Words

In a 1965 interview for Artforum Magazine Helen Frankenthaler said, “When you first saw an Impressionist painting, there was a whole way of instructing the eye. Dabs of color were understood to stand in for real things. It was a guitar or a hillside. The opposite is going on now. If you have bands of blue, green, and pink, the mind doesn’t first think sky, grass, and flesh. These are colors and now the question is what are they doing with themselves and with others.”

Historical Notes 

• Frankenthaler was one of the handful of women among the traditional all boys’ club of the Abstract Expressionists
• Clement Greenberg (art critic) believed that if art made after WWII was going to have any real impact on the world, it would have to radically change and truly move towards the abstract.
• Post WWII despair led to an interest in abstraction (remember this same thing happens after WWI).

Pop Art

Pop Art began in Britain in the mid-1950s. The term was coined by British critic, Lawrence Alloway, in referred to popular mass culture and imagery of the contemporary urban environment.

Roy Lichtenstein
“Oh Jeff…I Love You, Too…But.”
Oil on canvas. 1964

• • Photography, movies billboards, commodity packaging
  • All commercial “visuals” so commonplace we hardly notice them but absorb them totally

Pop art reintroduces meaning that purist Modernism banished from its abstract and minimal forms

• • Uses signs, symbols, metaphors, allusions, illusions, and images.

Let’s look at this artwork…

Balloon Dog (Magenta) created between 1994 and 2000 C.E. by Jeff Koons, emphasizes the influence of pop culture.

Pop Art illustrates everyday objects and transforms them into art objects in a disarming way. This raises the question of what defines an “acceptable art object”. Abstract art was accused of losing touch with reality. A dog made of stainless steel and resembling a child’s party toy crafted from balloons has maybe too much “reality” in it.

Balloon Dog (Magenta) by Koons is not just any “reality” it is an American one.  Only in American culture are parties for children celebrated in such an elaborate manner. The work has such a multitude of glamor yet uses cheap mass-produced objects.

(4) 147. Marilyn Diptych.

Andy Warhol. American. 1962. Pop Art.

Learning Objective: Pop Art print

Themes:

Ideal woman
Commemoration
Duality
Death
Portrait

Museum: Tate London

Marilyn Diptych by Andy Warhol is an artwork created with oil, acrylic, and silk-screen enamel on canvas. It measures 6 feet 7 inches by 8 feet 8 inches.

A diptych: two panels meant to be viewed together.

Enamel is an opaque shiny colored glass powder that begins as a liquid and hardens.

Warhol developed the technique of projecting photographic images to silk screen. It enabled him to produce repetitive patterns using a stencil.

To create art like this, mesh cloth is stretched over a heavy wooden frame. The design is printed using a squeegee to force color through the pores of the material. The canvas sits underneath and the ink squeezes through to make the image. Any mistakes are a result of the process, rather than with the artist. Ultimately, the artist becomes a machine, removed from the process of intimate artmaking.

It was inspired by Abstract Expressionists in terms of scale only and announces that the subject is grandiose. The all over composition, allows the viewer’s eye to wander.

Why was this Work Made?

• Commemoration of movie star Marilyn Monroe after her death.
• It takes an image that ALREADY existed and which the artist did not create.

Profitability

Warhol showed he could profit off a celebrity’s image. The silkscreen medium allowed for multiple works and therefore multiple profits. Additionally, he had assistants make the silkscreens for him!

Ruminate on the Notion of Duality

• Satisfaction vs. Desensitization/Boredom
• We want images of celebrities but after we get them, we are indifferent
• Our lives really don’t change in any meaningful way
• He captures our indifference to her image. Does it really matter that there are 50 instead of 1?
• American life is depersonalized and repetitive

Obsession and Religion

• Obsession with celebrity vs. obsession with religion. Warhol struggled with his Catholic faith.
• Our obsession with celebrity borders on the religious. That is why he uses a diptych, commonly reserved for religious imagery.
• Use of gold is deliberately reminiscent of Byzantine icons
• Invites us to worship Marilyn as we would Mary

Celebrity Persona vs Death

• Contrast of vivid color with black and white and the fading in the right panel are suggestive of her mortality (Marilyn had in fact just died of suicide)
• She is right in front of us (celebrities live on in images) but disappearing (her body does not exist anymore)

The Details

• 50 images (25 color, 25 black and white) of Marilyn’s publicity photograph from the 1953 film Niagara.
• Her image: seductive, heavy-lidded eyes, parted plump lips

The Rest of the Story

Pop Art argued that our obsessions and culture are exalted enough that they can be ennobled into art. This way, Pop Art shows us what matters to us.

Marilyn Monroe died in August, 1962 of apparent suicide. Warhol’s artwork was made just a few months later.

About the Artist

Before becoming a leading artist in the Pop Art movement of the 1960s, American-born Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was an illustrator for both print magazines, as well as advertising.

Andy Warhol. Campbell’s Soup Cans. 1962. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas.

Warhol was noted for using everyday objects in his work. Examples includes the pieces like Campbell’s Soup Cans. As noted above, his works often include celebrities such as movie star Elizabeth Taylor, Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones, and rock legend Elvis Presley.

 

(4) 150. Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks.

 Claes Oldenburg. American. 1969-1974.

 

Learning Objective: Pop Art sculpture

Themes:

Politics
Sexuality
Interactive
Violence
War
Site-specific
Public
Duality
Satire

 Museum: Yale University

Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks by Claes Oldenburg is made from Cor-Ten steel, steel, aluminium, and cast resin. It is painted with polyurethane enamel and stands 24 feet tall.

The original version was made of inexpensive materials including plywood tracks. It was not initially intended to be permanent and was damaged buy both deterioration and vandalism.

The new construction began with stronger materials. Cor-Ten steel rusts and eliminates the need for paint as the rust becomes the color.

Why this Art was Made

 Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks was originally commissioned by students from the Yale School of Architecture to disrupt a public space, create a political statement, and to be used as a platform for public speakers, while making anti-war speeches.

It was placed in Beinecke Plaza on the Yale Campus and overlooked the office of Yale’s president and a WWI memorial on campus. The red lipstick was originally meant to be deflated when the platform was not in use and inflated to get students’ attention.

The work was a satirical comment on the Vietnam War with hawkish, hyper-masculine rhetoric of the military verses a feminine tube of lipstick. It was a comment on masculinity and femininity with the traditional masculinity of war (hard, gritty, violent) verses traditional femininity of lipstick (sensual, soft, alluring).

The inclusion of lipstick in this work also took on an additional meaning in commemoration of Yale becoming a coeducational university. It allowed female students into the undergrad programs for the first time in 1969.

 Content 

Lipstick tube on tank

• Meant to look like a gun turret
• Phallic and bullet-like, making the beauty product seem out of place, violent and comical
• Male and female themes unite (feminine lipstick vs traditional masculinity of war)

Historical Backgrounder

Pop Art was a growing trend in American artwork in the 1950s and 1960s. It elevated the everyday and made these subjects appropriate for fine art.

The Vietnam War was escalating at the time the work was created. There were many protests on college campuses against the war. Yale was one of those places.

About the Artist

Swedish-born conceptual/pop artist Claes Oldenburg was born in 1929. He began proposing large-scale sculptures of everyday objects as a tribute to American consumer culture.  He is known for his ingenious, oversized renditions of ordinary objects elevated to a grand size (art historical tradition tells us if the artwork is large, it must be significant).

 

(4) 148 Narcissus Garden.

Yayoi Kusama. Japanese. 1966 (Original installation and performance). Pop Art.

Learning Objective: Pop Art performance art

Themes:

Public
Interactive
Installation
Commercial
Site-specific

Narcissus Garden by artist Yayoi Kusama was made entirely of reflective mirror balls of highly polished stainless steel. Each mirror ball measured eight inches across. There was a total of 1500 balls in the original installation. Later, she would recreate the installation around the globe in a multitude of versions and settings.

This work is considered performance art. This means artwork that is a performance, time sensitive, and only preserved in photographs. In this case, viewers could see themselves and their surroundings in the work. It expressed the idea of illusion and infinity.

Based on Mythology

The title of this work has a reference to the classics. Narcissus the mythological hunter, fell in love with his reflection in a pool. Narcissism is the egotistical admiration of one’s own self.

The Message

The work was a critique of the narcissism of art world and commercialization. Monetary exchange between Kusama and her customers underscored the economic system in art production and exhibition.

It also spoke of the pressure on artists to sell artwork, an experience, their brand, and the need for self-promotion. They must market and promote themselves.

Narcissus Garden became more and more popular. The balls became collector’s items.

The Story

Narcissus Garden was first installed in the Venice Biennale, a major contemporary art show in 1966. Yet, the artists had not officially been invited to exhibit!

This work of performance art was originally on a grass lawn on which Kusama set 1,500 mirror balls on. She was dressed in a gold kimono. Each ball was sold for 1,200 lira ($2). There was a sign that said, “Your narcissism for sale!”

 

Venetian authorities reprimanded her and fined her.

A happening is a term coined in late 1950s to describe performance art that is initially planned but involves spontaneity, improvisation, and audience participation.

About the Artist

Yayoi Kusama was born in 1929. She is a self-taught artist who has now chosen to live in a Tokyo mental facility.

She had difficulty finding acceptance in the art world as both a woman and foreigner. She also lived in a society recovering from WWII prejudice against Japan.

Mirrors and repetition are a theme in her artwork, as she says it helps her to process her insanity. She reminds the viewer that Pop Art didn’t just focus on consumer culture (celebrities, soup cans) but also on our own vanity and ego

 

Site Specific Art

 

• AKA Earth Art or Environmental Art
• Art moves out of galleries, sculpture gardens and city plazas into “true” nature
• Result of ecological and environmental concerns
• Use both natural and artificial materials
• Great scale or minimal
• Permanent or impermanent
• Intended to transform the environment so as to assert its presence

 

(4) 151. Spiral Jetty.

Robert Smithson. American. Earthwork. 1970.  Site-Specific art.

Learning Objective: Earthwork

Themes:

Site-specific
Landscape
Nature
Man v. nature
Passage of time
Materials with significance
Water
Interactive

Spiral Jetty by artist Robert Smithson is an Earthwork made from mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks, and water coil, located in Great Salt Lake, Utah, US. It measures 1,500 feet long.

An Earthwork is a site-specific piece, set outdoors in the West made of natural materials.

Spiral Jetty is:

• Located at Rozel Point peninsula on the Northeast shore of the Great Salt Lake
• All materials are from this site
• Over 6,000 tons of black basalt rock
• Coil is 1,500 feet long and 15 feet wide that winds counterclockwise off the shore into the water
• Dump trucks and tractors took six days
• The artist was insistent about switching rocks around to create the look he wanted
• Water level varies with precipitation in the mountains
  • Jetty is revealed in times of drought and submerged in times of normal precipitation.
• Lake is naturally pink or red due to bacteria and algae that thrive in the saline water

Who was this Work Made For?

This is a question that many people ask. The location is remote (100 miles NW of Salt Lake City) and difficult to get to (a 15-mile dirt road from highway with potholes so big VW beetles get stuck in them).

This work challenges traditional notions about art in a gallery space. It also expands the definition of the art object.

Spiral Jetty requires the viewer’s engagement to walk out along it and experience it.

A Disappearing Medium

Also, this work does not have the power of longevity. Entropy is the decline into disorder, inevitability of time and the disintegration of all objects in nature. It is the power of natural forces over man-made forces. The jetty will naturally disappear over time.

Originally the work was almost all black basalt, but salt encrustation has turned it a pinkish white.

Not only will nature erode its own work, but human experience (viewers walking) will erode it too.

This draws attention to environmental issues. What is our human effect on the environment? How can we preserve it?

 Content

Spiral Jetty is a three-part artwork:

1. sculpture
2. essay by Smithson
3. film documenting the project

The coil shape, Smithson believed, was a shape that was natural and organic. Unlike Modernist squares and circles and more geometric forms, coils suggest growth and decay, a perpetual cycle

Historical Background

Smithson leased the site for a small annual fee and contracted the construction with money given to him by a New York gallery. He was interested in this site because it was where an abandoned industrial site had left machinery on the coast to decay. This made him think about decay and man versus nature. Also, the American Southwest had vast open spaces, seen as quintessential in unspoiled nature.

The sculpture is now owned by the state of Utah.

About the Artist

Artist Robert Smithson started out creating paintings and collages before moving to sculpture, which he assembled using scattered materials. Soon, he moved his works out of galleries and into landscapes.

He was best known for his Earthwork or Land art.

Smithson died in a plane crash in 1973. He was 35.

 

(10) 224. The Gates.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude. American. 1979-2005. Site-Specific art.

Learning Objective: Video installation

Themes:

Water
Religion
Death
Man vs. nature
Installation
Technology
Duality
Passage of time

Museum: San Francisco MOMA

The Gates by Christo and Jeanne-Claude was a mixed-media installation that was placed in New York City, US and spanned 23 miles long as a work of site-specific art.

The installation was comprised of 7,503 gates across footpaths in Central Park. Each 16-foot-tall gate had a piece of saffron colored fabric hanging to 7 feet above ground level. The widths of the gates matched the widths of the walkways. Gates were set down to avoid drilling.  The structures formed an oval path that intersected. There was no start or ending points.

The Gates introduced eye-catching color into the landscape and infused light into a winter scene. Orange contrasted with brown and gave off the “spring is coming” vibe.

The work was temporary with all materials intended for recycling or sale.

Function

The installation was free to the public. The artists wanted to alter the experience of walking in the park to be an original, temporary experience. A golden ceiling creating warm shadows for visitors, as well as a refuge from city life. It encouraged people to go outdoors. It made people look and drew attention to the landscape.

In aerial view. The Gates looked like a golden river that appeared and disappeared among the trees in the park.

How does art respond to and impact our relationship with the built environment? What is natural? What is “constructed”?

This work helped to move visitors from being unaware of their surroundings to aware and engaged.

Content

The Gates was only exhibited from February 12^th – February 27^th, 2005, in Central Park.

The fabric moved organically with the wind. Light moved through it mirroring the visitors’ movement underneath it.

The installation was inspired by Japanese Shinto tradition of torii (gates) that mark the transition at shrines from the secular to the sacred.

Context

The husband-and-wife artist team of  Christo and Jeanne-Claude developed the concept for the art installation in 1979. It was not produced until 2005. For this reason, we can consider it as linked to environmental/site-specific art of the 1970s.

The Gates cost $21 million. The artist financed the project themselves. There were no sponsors, instead they self-fund every project and sold merchandise related to the exhibition. Part of the costs of the work were wages for 600 workers to install it. The team also paid for security guards at night.

The artists had to submit proposals, attend meetings, and make presentations to  both the City of New York and the Central Park Conservancy administration. In 1982, they received a 251-page rejection.

The election of Michael Bloomberg, in 2001, who was a fan of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, was the turning point.

Central Park was constructed in the 19^th century and was meant as a city refuge. It recalled ideas of the Victorian pastoral and picturesque.

People criticized The Gates for interfering with man’s relationship with nature. But the irony is that Central Park itself was constructed in the 19^th century as a city refuge.

What is Neo-Expressionism?

• Interest in the expressive capability of art, seen earlier in German Exp./AbEx
• Characterized by rough figures, intensity, jarring color, jagged forms

German Expressionism

Abstract Expressionism

Neo-Expressionism

(10) 226. Horn Players.

Jean-Michel Basquiat. American. 1983. Neo-Expressionism.

Learning Objective: Neo-Expressionist painting

Themes:

Abstraction
Race
Commemoration
Text and image
Portrait

Museum: The Broad in LA

Horn Players by artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is an acrylic and oil paintstick on three canvas panels measuring 18 feet by 6 feet 3 inches.  Paintstick is a “crayon” with various oils/pigments mixed in. This allows the artist to draw oil paint.

Horn Players is a triptych with a flat, dark background color uniting all three panels. Each canvas has flat patches of color and dense thick lines.

This Neo-Expressionism work retains rough handling, jagged forms and jarring color, but now has a focus on the body. Pride of place has made an exit as the important figures are off to the sides. Large sections of white paint seem to obscure what was underneath.

There is no sense of scale or balance. The artist relies heavily on juxtaposition and contrast to make the painting dynamic and expressive. The traditional approach to 3D space is gone.

What is the Function of Horn Players? 

This work connects graffiti with jazz and fine art. Through this it elevates the practice of graffiti itself to a fine art. It also connects jazz to African American culture thereby honoring African American history and contributions.

Horn Players was inspired by the scatting and improvisational work performed in jazz. Horn Players replicates that technique here.

Up Close

On the left panel Charlie Parker (saxophonist) plays his instrument and emits hot pink notes and sounds. On the central panel an abstracted head floats in space.

On the right panel Dizzy Gillespie (trumpeter) holds his trumpet along his side. The words DOH SHOO DE OBEE floats to the left. This reminds the viewer of Gillespie’s scat as a wordless improvisation.

Wordplay

A number of words appear on the canvases:

• Dizzy
• Ornithology (study of birds, as well as the title of a famous composition by Charlie Parker in reference to his own nickname Bird)
• Pree (Parker’s daughter)
• Teeth
• Alchemy
• Feet
• Soap
• Larynx misspelled

Wordplay is a characteristic of Basquiat’s work, yet not all fully understood.

Common Subject Matter

Musicians were a common subject for Basquiat. He had briefly played in a band. Anatomical terms were also common. His mother bought him a Grey’s Anatomy textbook as a child for fun.

Similarity to Picasso’s Horn Players

• Based on Basquiat being called the black Picasso
• We must draw upon our knowledge of traditional painting to understand this work
• Triptych format echoes the trio of figures
• Parker is in the same position as the standing figure with the clarinet in Picasso’s work
• Central figure in Basquiat’s work is likened to the distorted face of the middle figure in Picasso’s

The Emergence of Urban Graffiti

Urban graffiti was an emerging artform in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Basquiat was one of the leaders.

About Jean-Michel Basquiat

Basquiat was a homeless NYC queer man of color. He was a graffiti artist, sex worker and poet. Discovered in 1981 at age 20, he became dazzlingly successful at a quick speed.

He was known for his tag SAMO (Same Old Shit) written in marker and spray paint on subway trains, sidewalks, and gallery walls. This attracted the attention of gallery owners and the art world.

Based on his success, critics referred to him as the “black Picasso”. While this likened him to Picasso, Basquiat felt conflicted about this term, because the word black was added.

He once said, “If you wanna talk about influence, man, then you’ve got to realize that influence is not influence. It’s simply someone’s idea going through my new mind.”

Some of his paintings have sold for $20 million. The artist died at the age of 27 from a heroin overdose. 

Art News Update!

Andy Warhol’s portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat was up for auction at Christie’s in November 2021.  The pre-estimate was US$20 million.

“From Brooklyn to China, Basquiat symbolizes a new generation, and Warhol recognized this earlier than anyone. His unmatched ability to capture celebrity, fame, glory, and tragedy culminates in this portrait,” Alex Rotter, Christie’s chairman of 20th- and 21st-century art, said in a statement. “Just as much about Basquiat as it is about Warhol, it is one of the most exciting paintings to come to the auction market.”

How much did it sell for? $40,091,500!

 

(10) 228. Androgyne III.

Magdalena Abakanowicz. Polish. 1985. Neo-Expressionism. 

Learning Objective: Neo-Expressionist sculpture

Themes:

Violence
Abstraction
War
Psychological
Stylized bodies
Materials with significance

Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Androgyne III by artist Magdalena Abakanowicz is a work comprised of burlap, resin, wood, nails, and string measuring 4 feet tall.

The burlap is manipulated into a figurative composition. It is meant to appear rough and course. This is  an abstracted, simplified, dramatically reduced figure that is hollow with no head, forearms, or shins. A mold process was used to make the form out of burlap, with resin to stiffen it.

This is a sculpture-in-the-round and should also be viewed from the back.

Why is this Neo-Expressionism?

This work is a return to the body and the expressive capabilities of the bodies. This was believed to have had been lost in Pop Art and Site-Specific Art. It is a rejection of the modernist attitude that the body is dead. Additionally, the style is a revival of Expressionism, with rough, jagged handling, and sharp forms.

 Function

This work examines the relationship between individual and community (isolation and loss). It notes dehumanization and lack of identity are the result of strife, war, anguish, derision.

It depicts isolation and loss in a universal way. We cannot identify this figure specifically. So much of this figure has been lost, destroyed, and hurt. Our own identities become lost and are vulnerable in our modern, violent worlds.

We identify and recognize this figure even though we see SO little of it. Destruction leaves us as shells of who we once were.

Content

This androgynous figure focuses on humanity, rather than gender. Notice the body language. The shoulders are pulled forward, with a slumping back.

The figure in deep despair:

• wrinkled skin
• backbone
• musculature
• veins
• missing limbs and head

It is elevated from the floor by a wood structure as base. Does this fill in for the legs?  Is this a wheelchair? Gurney?

Androgyne III Comparison

Human condition is a constant preoccupation of post-modern art. Once the artists started questioning the constraints the society imposes on humans, they never stopped attacking its pre-constructed judgements.

To the Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz it is important to reflect on dehumanization and the loss of individuality in the modern society. The artwork Androgyne II was created in 1985, during widespread food shortages. Numerous hunger demonstrations were sweeping Poland and people could not even buy even rationed foods. The demonstrations were silent and comprised of men, women, and children.

As a reaction to the Communist propaganda which depicted happy smiling workers, she created a series of neo-expressionist sculptures based on fibers. Androgyne II was molded in burlap, simplified, hollowed and rendered headless and armless. The figure is carried on symbolic stretchers.

We are still able to identify and recognize the destructed body as a human, but we cannot identify the figure specifically. The focus is on the humanity of the figure, on the suffering to which the androgyne is subjected and makes his/her shoulders be pulled forward.

The wrinkled skin and backbone lead us to see the person as the result of a destruction process. We are invited to think of the living process that tore apart our identities to the point of being lost and extremely vulnerable.

Meanwhile, El Anatsui the artist behind the post-modernist artwork Old Man’s Cloth (2003) provokes a discussion on the continued impact of European slave trade, exploitation of the people of Ghana and Africa in general. Old Man’s Cloth is not a fiber work, even though it preserves a lot of the qualities of Kente traditional textiles that inspired it. It is made from bottle caps found in the Ghana bush to emphasize the alcohol consumption problem created by the introduction of European alcohol as part of the slave trade.

It is gold like, just like the gold that the British extracted from Ghana until its post WWII independence. It is not precious. It is only an illusion. This illusory and precarious aspect is also suggested by the fact the “cloth” comes with no hanging indications and thus each exhibit curator can find her/his own patterns. Nevertheless, the carefulness of the assembly suggests that the spirit of the nation is not broken and it can be rekindled.

The revival of the tradition is the artist’s deep hopes. He joined the Sankofa movement that re- claimed Africa’s rich traditional culture.

By trying to find meaning and hope in ugliness or discarded debris the artists expand the materials that can be used to create art and repudiate the categories of beautiful and ugly. By avoiding a clear finished state of their artworks, these artists fit into what is called “brut art”. They try to provoke raw emotions and challenge the definition of acceptable human life in the viewer.

About the Artist

Magdalena Abakanowicz was considered a pioneer of fiber-based sculpture. Her art was affected by her experiences in Poland, under Nazi and Soviet occupation during World War II.

Born in 1930, she lived on a large estate in Poland. Here she often played in the woods. She said this later inspired her to use natural materials in her works.

In WWII, German tanks entered her family’s estate. Later a drunk German soldier burst into the house and shot off her mother’s arm in front of her. In 1944, the family fled, as the Soviet army arrived and moved into Warsaw.

Abakanowicz worked as a nurse in a hospital, caring for the wounded. This would later affect her art.

When the war was over, she attended art school at the Academy of Fine Arts, in Warsaw. Poland was a part of the Soviet Bloc. Social Realism was the style taught in art schools with smiling workers and images of a perfect society. She tried to avoid learning this style by choosing to work with textiles. Yet,  she had to adopt it to obtain a degree and enter the Polish Artist Union.

Digital Technology

 Digital technology provides increased access to imagery and contextual information about diverse artists and artworks throughout history and across the globe.

Digital Technology

Digital technology provided increased access to imagery and contextual information about diverse artists and artworks throughout history and across the globe.

Today the artworld continues to expand using digital technology.

Immersive Van Gogh from Italian director Massimiliano Siccardi created the work at Atelier des Lumières, Paris, which was featured on the Netflix show Emily in Paris.

Then followed Van many other productions such as Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience; Imagine Van Gogh; Van Gogh Alive, and Beyond Van Gogh Immersive Experience.

These travelling exhibits thrilled art fans while introducing art to an entirely new audience.

(10) 238. Electronic Superhighway.

Nam June Paik. Korean/American. Mixed-media installation. 1995 Video Art.

Learning Objective: Video installation (1^st Video artist)

Themes:

Technology
Innovation
Installation
Landscape
Materials with significance

Museum: Smithsonian American Art Museum

Electronic Superhighway by artist Nam June Paik is a mixed-media installation (49-channel closed-circuit video installation, neon, steel, and electric components) measuring 15 by 40 feet.

This huge, towering stack of TVs simultaneously shows multiple clips from a variety of sources. His studio was small, so he had to squish Texas and Florida. In total there are 336 TVs: 3,750 feet of cable and 575 feet of colored tubing.

Function

The artist used video to show the speed of our increasingly electronic modern lives. It also celebrates an America influenced by film and television.

How have these things shaped who we think we are? How are we connected to each other via media? Is the effect of technology always a good thing? Can we have information overload?

This is a contrast between actual road trips, with a trip across the US in the gallery, with virtual travel on the Internet.

Notice the size and energy. All this plays into the American identity Paik was captivated by.

Content

 

An enormous scale suggests the huge size of the nation. There is a map of the US with neon outlining the states. Neon reminded him of the signs for motels and restaurants that dot the highways. Different colors remind us that states have different identities.

Images are flashing and rapidly changing. This is reminiscent of billboards being seen from passing cars.

Within each state, the screen displays video clips that resonate with each state’s own identity:

• Kansas: Wizard of Oz (film)
• Oklahoma: Oklahoma (film)
• Iowa: footage of presidential candidates
• Idaho: potatoes
• Missouri: Meet Me in St. Louis (film)
• Texas: cowgirls, cactus
• New York: Empire State Building
• Maine: clips of a friend
• California: hallucinogens, Golden Gate Bridge, OJ Simpson

The Artist and the Art

Nam June Paik was born in Seoul, in 1932. He was considered the father of video art, with his first video art exhibit in 1963.

When Paik came to the US In 1964, the interstate highway system was only 9 years old. Highways offered everyone the freedom to see the USA. Highways were new and heavily advertised, as a way for Americans to see the country on a limited budget.

 

(10) 239. The Crossing.

Bill Viola. American. 1996. Video art.

Learning Objective: Video installation

Themes:

Water
Religion
Death
Man vs. nature
Installation
Technology
Duality
Passage of time

Museum: San Francisco MOMA

The Crossing by Bill Viola is a video/sound installation that uses a double-sided screen on a freestanding piece of clear acrylic. It was shot using high-speed film that achieved 300 frames per second in great detail. Viola reduced the speed of the playback to extremely slow motion. This enhances the drama. Sound amplifies the experience.

Function

The artist wanted to create an immersive sound and video environment to dwell on transformation and change as well as growth and decay. These are inevitable processes.

Slow-motion is not just a technological choice. It is meant to invite a meditative and contemplative response. One that requires the viewer to concentrate for longer and slows us down. This increases our awareness of movement, detail, and change. This creates a connection between the artistic and spiritual experience. We could interpret it in a religious way, even though the work makes no direct iconographic or religious overtones.

Content

There are two different video sequences that are simultaneously shown.

• Water + fire = duality

In the water video the male figure walks slowly towards the camera. After several minutes, he pauses, staring directly into the lens. A trickle of water overhead appears until he disappears in a deluge. As the water ceases, the figure has vanished.

In the fire video the male figure walks slowly towards the camera. After several minutes, he pauses, staring directly into the lens. A flame starts at his feet and spreads over his legs and torso until he disappears in flames. As the fire dies down, the figure has vanished.

This draws on universal truths about life and death from Eastern/Western traditions. Fire/water is a barrier between this world and the next. Humans struggle to survive both of these in disasters.

Flames

• Shiva Nataraja
• Parliament
• Chartres Cathedral  (destruction, rebirth)

Water

• Biblical flood by Michelangelo
• Great Wave
• Basin
• Slave Ship (destruction, cleansing)

These elements  often symbolize change, redemption, transformation, and renewal.

The act of self-annihilation in the figure’s disappearance serves as a metaphor for destruction of the ego.

The title The Crossing is in references to the crossing of an individual to a different state of being.

Context 

• Describes a childhood experience of almost drowning as “beautiful” and “without fear”.
• Viola is a devoted Zen Buddhist.
• In college, he majored in religious studies, psychology, and electrical engineering– all clearly visible here.
• Inspired by Nam June Paik, an early innovator in the field of video art.
• Even though the art object has greatly changed, the themes of life, death, religion, redemption continue.

Architectural Philosophies in the Late 20^th Century

Less is more…

 

Less is a bore…

Form follows function…

A house is a machine for living in…

(4) 146. Seagram Building.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson. American. 1954-1958. Architecture: Modernism.

Learning Objective: Modern skyscraper

Themes:

Public
Technology
Innovation
Appropriation
Status
Architecture

Seagram Building in New York City was designed by architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, with interior furnishings by Philip Johnson. Constructed from steel with a glass curtain wall and bronze the building measures 515 feet tall with 38 stories. When it was constructed, the cost was astronomical an $36 million dollars.

 Mies believed that “Less is More”

• Evokes the simplicity of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye and International Style
• Symmetrical, sense of balanced proportion
• Clean, simple, geometry
• Vertical mullions rise without interruption (these are only decorative and part of the curtain-wall architecture)
• Elegance of construction
• Bronze mullions were rubbed with oil at least once a year, so they do not oxidize and become patina in color.

Even though we might think this was not classical because of its different color and lack of ornamentation, it invokes the classical precedent. These features include:

• Bronze: common in Greek sculpture
• Pillars in front of building are fluted
• Building is set atop a base similar to a stylobate
• There is a sense of symmetry and proportion

Technological innovations:

• Used glass and metal, not stone and brick
• Curtain-wall architecture: outermost walls are non-structural

 

Structural Layers

Function

• Office building for Seagram Liquor company (this was their headquarters)
• Ushered in a new era of skyscrapers (minimalist geometries without ornament/detail)
• Testament to just how influential the Seagram Building was that it now seems commonplace
• Created standard for modern skyscraper

The Story 

This office building with an empty space in front was innovative and radical at the time. The open, urban plaza set the building back from Park Avenue and created a pedestrian space.  Inside, the building is luxurious in its use of bronze, travertine, and marble.

Office spaces were furnished by Philip Johnson who was the director of architecture at MOMA.

Historical Notes 

Seagram, a large Canadian liquor company was the largest at that time. It flourished during prohibition because they were based in Canada, and not the United States.

The initial building pan was rejected by Phyllis Lambert, daughter of a Seagram owner. She was a Harvard architecture student and said the original design was the ugliest thing she had ever seen. She gave her father three choices of architects to employ.

• Frank Lloyd Wright was rejected because at the age of 90 he was considered too old.
• Le Corbusier was discovered to be too difficult to work with.

So, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was given the gig!

In Comparison

Carson, Pirie, Scott and Co. Building is the first skyscraper

Seagram Building is the first modern skyscraper

About the Architect

German-born architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a director of a German architecture school called the Bauhaus. Nazis eventually shut down for being too modernist!

He came to the US in the late 1930s. His love of classical architecture and sculpture were his inspiration

 

(4) 152. House in New Castle County.

Robert Venturi, John Rauch, and Denise Scott Brown (architects). American. 1978-1983. Architecture: Reaction to Modernism.

Learning Objective: Reaction to Modernist architecture

Themes:

Domestic
Private
Innovation
Architecture
Cross-cultural
Appropriation

House in New Castle County by architects Robert Venturi, John Rauch, and Denise Scott Brown is a wood frame and stucco building in Delaware, US.

The “front” façade incorporates a floating arched screen in front of the home. This was done because the owners liked bird watching, and it camouflaged them. The “rear” façade was dominated by a pointed arch porch similar to a pediment and supported by four stubby flat “columns” that evoke the Doric order

The is no internal or external symmetry. It is unique and eclectic. Venturi said “Less is a Bore” in reaction to modernism and its simplicity.

Function

House in New Castle County was built as a private residence for a family of three who loved bird watching and music.

For Venturi, this is his summary of his Less is a Bore mentality. Rather than copy a specific style, he borrowed freely, juxtaposing, and reinterpreting different forms from other periods and styles

Content

• Playfully eclectic
• Mismatched architectural features
• Exterior: Like many traditional American farmhouses and barns, the siding is white and gabled roofs have unstained wooden shingles; Greek temple elements (columns, portico)
• Interior: shows a music room; vaulted ceiling; wood decorations like ribs in a Gothic church; quirky wooden chandelier; you can see windows, with patio and wooden arched screen; colors that are typical for Southwestern styles (peach, turquoise)

 The Architectural Team 

• Robert Venturi (architect), Denise Scott Brown (wife/partner), John Rauch (Venturi’s business partner)
• Venturi studied architecture at Princeton and the American Academy in Rome
  • Developed a preference for Mannerism and Baroque architecture
• 1966: published a book, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (very successful!)
  • Wanted to reject what Le Corbusier (house is a machine for living in) and van der Rohe (less is more) had done
  • Believed structures should have:
    • Contradictions (pieces that don’t traditionally go together)
    • Messy vitality >  obvious unity
    • Embrace elements purely for their decorative elements/aesthetic purposes
    • Inspired by styles of the past (opposite of form follows function)

 

(10) 225. Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Maya Lin. American.  1982. Modernism.

Learning Objective: Modernist monument

Themes:

Commemoration
War
Violence
Passage of time
Death
Text and image
Interpretation of history
Public
Site-specific
Funerary
Landscape
Duality
Materials with significance

Vietnam Veterans Memorial by Maya Lin is comprised of granite and stands in Washington D.C., US. Each arm is 246 feet by 9 inches long.

This work is a highly reflective black granite formed into a V-shaped wall.  It is sunk into the land rather than set on top of it. The two walls point towards either the Lincoln Memorial or the Washington Monument. Where the walls meet, they are 10.1 feet high. Each wall slopes at the ends to less than a foot and is covered with text only. There are no images.

The work was inspired by Minimalism. This art movement that begins in the 1960s in the US, aims to eliminate all non-essentials in an artwork by reducing it to its most simple geometric elements. It goes further than Cubism.

Function

Lin had to create a way to commemorate loss without designing a memorial that would tell people what to think about Vietnam. It needed to be approachable and apolitical, with a focus on work being a place of mourning and healing.

The design does not aim to resolve conflicting emotions about the validity of the war. Instead, it is meant to be a space for catharsis, mourning and contemplation.

The viewer must engage with the work close up to interact with it. The reflection of the loved one’s name is a powerful reminder of their sacrifice for the country.

The sunken placement was meant to evoke a spiritual journey for the viewer. They enter and sink deeper to reflect on the death of the soldiers. The living are carrying on the memory.  It also signifies a deep cut in the earth that will heal over time, but there will always be a scar.

The wall was intentionally made reflective and shiny. The names of the dead literally comprise our bodies’ reflection. The message is we are here because of their sacrifice.  While we see reflections, they are not as clear as a mirror.  It is as if we are gazing into a ghostly realm.

Content

The single memorial device used is text not imagery. Visitors read the names of those lost, engraved in chronological order.

Thus, the war’s beginning and end meet; the war is ‘complete,’ coming full circle yet broken by the earth that bounds the angle’s open side and continued with the earth itself.

The work was intentionally shaped like a book. Visitors read names from left to right. There are 72 panels containing 58,286 names. These names are listed in order of when the men and women died or were declared missing. There have been periodic additions.

The growth of the structure perfectly parallels the number of deaths, almost like a timeline. The lowest number of deaths are shown at the beginning and end, with the greatest number in the middle.

Context

Vietnam Veterans Memorial was designed by a 21-year-old Yale University junior named Maya Lin, in 1981. She was still a student at Yale’s School of Architecture. The work was made for a public design competition. Her professor had assigned this as a project for his students. (Meanwhile, she only received a B+ grade on it from the professor!)

Her design was one of over 2,573 submissions, in response to a call for entries by the US government.

The idea came from the Yale Memorial Rotunda. Alumni who had been killed in war have their names inscribed on the walls. She used to touch the names and feel contemplative.

She did not do any specific research on the war because she felt politics had eclipsed the veterans. She wanted the focus to remain on the deceased.

The Vietnam War was a disaster on all counts. Most Americans believed the war was a moral tragedy. All of America knew it had been lost. Most opposed to the war did not blame the soldiers but the government, although some did attack soldiers or disrespect them upon their return. The vets were angry with the lack of respect and distraught about the great loss.

The average age of names on the wall is 19.

Life expectancy for a US soldier upon putting their boots on the ground in Vietnam was 1 month.

 Vast Criticism

Lin was resoundingly criticized for this work.

The black color was said to not match with the rest of the US Mall. It was called “black gash on Mall”.

People interpreted the color black as a symbol of shame and dishonor over the war. Lin meant it as a sign of mourning. Additionally, black was seen as a color in Asian art, and was not typical in American, Western, or classical art–that color would have been white.

The work was considered nonrepresentational and not traditional.  It lacked ornamentation and did not follow traditional funerary sculpture. Many thought the design was too simple and did not depict honor and sacrifice in a traditional way.

War veterans wanted a traditional and realistic sculpture. One is added off to the side to assuage concerns.

People wondered why a young Asian American woman from an Ivy League college who did not know the realities of war was the artist. Why would she be picked to design a monument about deaths in an Asian war?

Building permits were refused. It took a 4 Star Brigadier General to testify before subcommittee hearings and defend the color before the project moved forward.

Maya Lin said, “It took me 9 months to ask the VVMF, in charge of building the memorial, if my race was an issue. It had never occurred to me that it would be, and I think they had taken all the measures they could to shield me from comments about a “gook” designing the memorial. I remember reading the article that appeared in The Washington Post referring to “An Asian Memorial for an Asian War” and I knew we were in trouble.”

She continued by saying, “The controversy exploded in Washington after that. Ironically, one side attacked the design for being “too Asian,” while others saw its simplicity and understatement, not as an intention to create a more Eastern, meditative space, but as a minimalist statement which they interpreted as being non-referential and disconnected from human experience. This left the opinion in many that the piece emanated from a series of intellectualized aesthetic decisions, which automatically pitted artist against veterans. The fact that I was from an Ivy League college and had hair down to my knees further fueled this distrust of the design and suspicions of a hippie college liberal or aesthetic elitist forcing her art and commentary upon them.”

 

(10) 240. Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

Frank Gehry (architect). American. 1997. Post-Modern architecture.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism architecture (Deconstructivism)

Themes:

Architecture
Materials with significance
Innovation
Technology
Site-specific

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao by American architect Frank Gehry was constructed using titanium, glass, and limestone. This example of Post-Modern architecture stands in Bilbao, Spain.

Post-Modernism used organic, rounded forms with asymmetrical designs rather than Modernist crisp, clean, long, straight lines.

This style is called deconstructivism. There is a bending and twisting of traditional styles to create a new aesthetic. This creates an unstable environment with unusual spatial arrangements. It looks bulging, warped, curling, tumbling. This is surprising to us because the look of the building disrupts our assumption that architecture is inherently stable.

Gehry described this work as “form follows fantasy”. It is a non-traditional building in both design and materials. He used a computer program called Catia, originally invented for aerospace engineering to design buildings.

The shiny titanium tiles that sheathe the building give it strength and shine. The look was inspired by the scales of fish. The fishing industry/shipbuilding industry was once a major part of Bilbao’s economy.

Function

This building was constructed to serve as a museum of modern and contemporary art. The Guggenheim collection in NYC was too large for their space. This housed the overflow.

This building challenged the traditions of museum design and the thinking that it should be classical in form.

Content

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is based on the curvature of the Guggenheim Museum in NYC. It also takes design cues from the Italian Baroque style of drapery and fabric, with bending, rippling, and unfurling.

Notice how the building looks like a ship. It is set by the water. The reflective quality of the building was intended to show the glittering water and sun’s reflection.

The Spider sculpture in front is entitled “Maman” by Louise Bourgeois. It means mother in French and was designed to show vulnerability, lightness, negative space.

The architect wanted to remove historical references. Most museums were done in variants of Neoclassicism – stone structures with pedimented fronts, colonnades, lofty and rational spaces.

The layout was an arrangement to focus on a central atrium with the 165-foot entrance.  This serves as a circulation hub and orientation gallery, providing access to the other 20 galleries on three levels.

The exhibition spaces have surprising shapes and does not follow the white cube method. Instead, it uses angled or curving walls and balconies. It is a complex and somewhat chaotic interior, with twisting glass-and-steel walls. It does not follow traditional Neoclassical design.

 

Context

The building was very well received and the benefit to local economy was immediate and substantial.

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao was part of an ambitious urban renewal program to help the aging port and industrial city that had experienced significant decline in the 1980s.

Geographically, the location provided cheap land for a major museum, as opposed to a thriving European or American city. Deconstructivism’s fragmented forms represented uncertainty of contemporary life, like the downfall of Soviet Union the Berlin Wall and the 1987 stock market.