Later Europe & Colonial Americas 4.4

Later Europe & Colonial Americas 4.4

1750-1980 Century

TOPIC 4.4 Theories and Interpretations of Later European and American Art

Art of this era often proved challenging for audiences and patrons to immediately understand. The study of art history is shaped by different theories and interpretations of art and art making that change over time and may be generated both by visual analysis as well as by scholarship. These theories and interpretations may be used, harnessed, manipulated, and adapted in order to make an art-historical argument about a work or a group of works of art.

(4) 140. The Two Fridas.

Frida Kahlo. Mexican. 1939. Surrealism.

Learning Objective: Surrealist painting (female painter)

Themes:

Portrait
Ideal woman
Male-female relationships
Stylized bodies
Duality
West vs Nonwest
Psychological

Museum: Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City

The Two Fridas by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is an oil on canvas work measuring 5 feet 7 inches by 5 feet 7 inches.

Surrealism is meant to puzzle or challenge the viewer. It often shows dream–like scenes with a psychological focus. This double self-portrait is in a Surrealist, unclear, confusing space. The space is flat, with an even balance, split evenly up and down, with a focus on the foreground.

Function  

• Psychological: examines her inner feelings as a self-portrait study
• Surrealists want to examine inner states, psychological states of mind
• Reveals the deep hurt over losing her husband, her culturally mixed heritage, the harsh reality of her medical conditions, and the repression of women
• Shows the ultimately conflicted personal feelings of Frida

Content

Two seated figures hold hands and share a bench in front of a stormy sky. They are identical twins except for their attire.

 On the left side, rejected Frida wears Victorian/German clothing. She has a clamping vein, and her blouse is ripped open to reveal her weak and exposed heart. There is a sense of vulnerability.

On the right side, Rivera still loves her. Frida’s heart is still whole. She wears the indigenous dress that Rivera preferred her to wear. The vein feeds his portrait. Her heart is strong and secure. Her skin is darker.

She is both women at once. They are linked through blood and gesture.

• Where one is weakened by an exposed heart (L), the other is strong (R).
• Where one still pines for her lost love (R), the other clamps down on that (L)
• Blood is a metaphor of union

Context

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) was a mostly untrained painter who found refuge from pain throughout her life in art. She painted almost 200 self-portraits.

The Two Fridas was completed during her divorce from Diego Rivera.

She married Rivera in 1929. They each had affairs. Kahlo’s affairs were with men and women.

Kahlo’s father was German, and her mother was Mexican. Rivera encouraged her to abandon her Germanic/Western heritage and wear traditional Mexican clothing instead.

In an era when women wore elaborate hairstyles and clothing, Kahlo was a rebellious loner who wore indigenous clothing and did not shave. This was seen as very transgressive. During this time most women were domestic housewives. Kahlo was a businesswoman and artist.

In her paintings she often depicted physical deformities. She had polio as a child, which deformed her right leg. A bus accident when she was 18 caused her to be impaled through her groin which left her unable to walk for many months. Ultimately, she was unable to have children. She had severe scarring and deformity of the uterus. As a result, she underwent 32 operations. All these things challenged the definition of femininity.

 

 (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

  

(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, the artist 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.