Post-Modernism

Post-Modernism

Theme: Rejection of Mainstream

In Post-Modernism, multiple styles existed at once, many artists defy categorization, and many artists are not white or male.  Traditional modes of representation are rejected in favor of (re)discovering and critiquing previous cultural practices. In essence, Post-Modernism is an expansion of the art world, of what it means to be an artist, and of what the definition of art is.

Historical Context (1980-present)

• TV, computer, digital media and the internet changed people’s social interactions, and information about the world around them.
• Globalization has threatened non-Western narratives and practices.
• Regionalism vs. Globalization

Artistic Innovations

No universal agreement on what the term postmodernism means

• Involves:
  • Rejection of the concept of the mainstream
  • Recognition of artistic pluralism (multiple styles)
  • Acceptance of a variety of artistic intentions
  • Expansion of the definition of the artist
  • Expansion of the definition of the art object

 

(10) 227. Summer Trees.

Song Su-nam. Korean. 1983. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (Korean)

Themes:

Landscape
Nature
Cross-cultural
Appropriation
Revival of tradition
West vs Nonwest
Materials with significance
Revival of tradition

Museum: British Museum

Summer Trees by Song Su-nam is an ink on paper artwork that measures 2 feet tall. It uses broad, vertical, and elongated parallel brush strokes of ink. The strokes blend, overlapping and bleeding with one another using a monochromatic palette of velvety blacks and grays.

Blurry, feathery edges reveal pale washes applied to wet paper. The crisper lines are ones that were applied to dry paper. Formal simplicity and abstraction of Abstract Expressionists combined with subtle tonal variation of Asian ink paintings are combined in this work.

Function

Song felt that materials and styles of the West, though popular in Korea, did not express his identity.

So, he blended the two together.

Korean

• medium of ink
• paper
• subject
• symbolism
• blacks

West

• style
• abstraction

This was part of a movement called Sumukwha to recover a national identity through art. This work has allusions to scholars and friendship. It could be Song’s statement of optimism in the rediscovery of traditional values through this group.

It references the tradition of literati (scholar-artist). Song was considered a modern literati. Even though we spoke of literati with Travels Among Mountains and Streams, remember sinification brought Chinese culture to Korea.

Content

The title Summer Trees refers to the natural world and the highly stylized trees with thick foliage and trunks. In Korean and Chinese tradition, a group of pine trees can symbolize a gathering of honorable friends, or friends who are wise and intellectual.

Mountainous landscapes and plants serve as metaphors for the ideal qualities of literati:

• loyalty
• intelligence
• strength
• honor

Literati lived lives connected to nature and away from the chaos of urban life.

Context

Song Su-nam was a leader of the Sumukhwa movement of the 1980s. Sumukhwa was a movement to recover national identity through reviving traditional Korean art as Western modernism/abstraction was becoming increasingly popular across Korea. It is a Korean term for ink wash painting aka literati painting.

Why was Westernization growing? After the Korean War, a growing American presence in South Korea brought with it an increase of Westernization. Many were concerned that traditional Korean culture was disappearing.

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

 

(10) 229. A Book from the Sky.

Xu Bing. Chinese. Mixed-media installation. 1987-1991. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (Chinese)

Themes:

Installation
Text and image
Interpretation of history
Print
Revival of tradition
Materials with significance

Museum: was displayed at the Met in 2014

 A Book from the Sky by artist Xu Bing is a mixed media installation.

Form

• Installation environment with open books across the floor, handscrolls suspended overhead, and panels along the walls.
• Hand-carved wood blocks
• Used traditional woodcut methods to print volumes and scrolls.
• Over 4,000 blocks.
• No image – only text.
• Used a font-style from the 15^th century Ming Dynasty

Function

The audience is united by their illiteracy. We end up searching for what does not exist – an understanding of this text and history.

The work upholds the ancient Daoist belief that the deepest truths can never be captured by words alone. This is a critique of the meaninglessness of contemporary political language and as a commentary on the illegibility of the past.

It draws attention to the erasing of history under Mao’s Communist regime. In this way, people cannot learn about the history of China, as we cannot read these texts. It represents a loss of meaning and culture.

Content

In ancient Chinese art, squares symbolized earth. Look at how the books are arranged on the ground, and long swoops and curves indicate Heaven. Look how the scrolls are arranged overhead.

“Sky book” in Chinese means something that is incomprehensible. It’s an inspiration from the title.

Also, it is an allusion to the texts suspended overhead.

There are 4,000 characters created to appear to be real but are unreadable and meaningless. They are meant to mimic traditional Chinese fonts and lettering. Even the way he arranged the texts looks like they are real. Volume 2 is organized like Chinese medical texts, while Volume 3 is like literary texts.

Context

Xu Bing Grew up surrounded by books in Beijing. His father was a historian, and his mother was a librarian.

During Mao’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), millions of students/professors were sent to rural villages and work camps. Mao also destroyed Chinese text, art, and histories through the Cultural Revolution.

In 1975, Xu Bing is separated from his family and forced into agricultural labor at a commune. In 1977, he was able to enter the Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing for his bachelors in Printmaking. He trained in social realism and propaganda art. He made his name as a “radical” and “avant-garde” artist.

A Word from the Artist

 “Chairman Mao’s radical transformation of Chinese culture was most deeply rooted in his transformation of language. To strike at the written word is to strike at the very essence of its culture. Any doctoring of the written word becomes a transformation of the most inherent portion of a person’s thinking.”

 

 

Chairman Mao is the Reddest sun in our hearts 1966-67

Give a warm send-off to educated youth who go up the mountains and down to the villages to wage revolution, 1975

What makes this postmodern?

• art in a global context
• expansion of art object/artist
• social critique
• revival of tradition

(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.

Some of the other works in the series include:

Koons was doing what Duchamp did. How far could he take the definition of art?

This gave viewers several 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) 231.Untitled (#228) from the History Portraits series.

Cindy Sherman. American. Photography 1990. Feminist art.

Learning Objective: Feminist photography

Themes:

Appropriation
Self-portrait
Male-female relationships
Biblical

Museum: MOMA

Untitled (#228) from the History Portraits series by American artist Cindy Sherman is a work of photography that measures 6 feet eight inches by 4 feet.

The artwork is based on a Botticelli painting. The figure is pushed forward on the picture plane, and it is well-lit. The colors of red, blue, yellowish gold are prominent. The upper body is in a triangular composition. The size, lighting, color, and composition are all supposed to be similar to Old Master paintings. The size is equal to a Grand Manner/history painting.

Sandro Botticelli. Judith Holding the Head of Holofernes.

Function

From the “History Portraits” series – the artist draws inspiration from the history of art. Each work is based on an Old Master masterpiece showing her in it. She portrays a feminist hero. Many of her photographs show stereotypes of women or traditionally strong women.

Judith has traditionally been viewed as strong, but alternatively dangerous and sexual.

She blends aspects of painting with photography. By creating a photograph modeled after a painting, she becomes a prop even though we assume photography is truthful. We are supposed to realize photography is as much a construct as painting was.

When critiquing the photography, we cannot avoid the fact it can be heavily manipulated. But it also argues for the legitimacy of photography as artistic. If photography can replicate a painting, then photography must have some merits and must be like painting.

This work depicts as reality something that was originally a painting. It presents painting via photography.  Photography cannot be inherently trusted even though this is generally our attitude. (Think magazines and social media).

What Cindy Sherman is really doing is what Daguerre tried to do. That is to illustrate that photography can replicate painting.

What We See

This replicates the story of Judith and Holofernes. Judith was a heroine in the bible who slayed the Assyrian general, Holofernes. She got him drunk, seduced him, and then beheaded him.

The artist depicts herself in costume, standing in front of textiles in the background This was typical of Baroque art. Sherman wears Renaissance-era fashion, consisting of a red-satin dress, with an empire waistline, cinched by a dark blue sash. In her hand is the head (mask) of Holofernes, who is old and wrinkled. In the other hand, she holds a bloody knife.

She stares forward with a blank expression, with a heavily made-up face. Her eyebrows are thin, and her lips are painted red.

Her bare feet point outward and are out of proportion. This might be a reference to early Renaissance difficulties with foreshortening.

Feminist Art

Feminist art aims to look back through the canon of art history and draws attention to women through women’s stories, female subjects, and female artists. Popular subjects are the same as during the Renaissance and Baroque period, which were popular stories of strong Biblical women.

The Book of Judith

The book of Judith from the Old Testament recounts the story of Judith. To save her people from the Assyrian king, she seduced her way into the tent of the general Holofernes. She then got him drunk and beheaded him. She triumphantly returned with the head to show her people.

The story symbolized triumph over tyranny (much like David and Goliath), and the dangers of femininity.

 

(10) 232. Dancing at the Louvre, from the series The French Collection, Part I; #1.

Faith Ringgold. American. 1991. Feminist art.

Learning Objective: Feminist fine art/folk art

Themes:

Family
Race
Text and image
Commemoration
Interpretation of history
Materials with significance

Museum: private collection

Dancing at the Louvre, from the series The French Collection, Part I; #1., is a work by artist Faith Ringgold that uses acrylic on canvas, with a tie-dyed, pieced fabric border. The artwork measures 6 feet 3 inches by 6 feet and 9 inches.

Faith Ringgold calls this work a story-quilt. She creates a central image using acrylic paint on canvas, then surrounds it with a patchwork cloth border that includes her handwritten text. In this way, she utilizes text and image together.

Next, she sandwiches a layer of batting underneath the canvas and on top of another piece of cloth. The figures are simple, flat, and stiff with a space that is shallow.

Function

Through her art, she can rewrite the past through weaving together the history of African Americans and women. This is an alternative to the white masculine narratives that are prevalent in art history. This highlights the ways in which African-Americans and their experiences have been left out. Through most of history they have not been the subjects or the intended audiences of Western painting.

Ringgold’s technique challenges the definition of painting and fine art. She HAS used acrylic on canvas but has mixed in the prominent folk art/craft tradition of quilting. Folk art is often defined in part by being produced by untrained artists.

Content

This is the first in Ringgold’s series of twelve “story quilts” called The French Collection. The story tells the fictional narrative of Willa Marie Simone, a young black woman who moves to Paris in the early 20^th century.

Willa Marie’s adventures in Paris in the 1920s lead her to meet celebrities: Picasso, Matisse, Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth, Josephine Baker.

The three paintings that the work shows as a backdrop at the Louvre are all by DaVinci: Madonna and Child and St. Anne; Mona Lisa; Virgin of the Rocks. Note all the paintings are of woman and girls.

The girls dancing in front of the art become the show – instead of the historical white version on the walls!

Text

Text on this image:

Marcia and her three little girls took me dancing at the Louvre. I thought I was taking them to see the Mona Lisa, but you’ve never seen anything like this. Well, the French hadn’t either. Nevermind Leonardo da Vinci and Mona Lisa, Marcia and her three girls were the show.

Art Expansion

This work is an expansion of the art world and the art object. Faith Ringgold is an African American woman, and the Art object is now a folk art/fine art hybrid. This reflects shifts into post-Modernism.

Post-Modernism rejects Modernism’s emphasis on universal meaning and abstraction.

Why the Story Quilts were Made

Ringgold’s story-quilting technique is important. Her mother was a fashion designer and seamstress. When her mother died in 1981, Ringgold started making these quilts.

Quilts have been associated with women’s domestic work and women’s connections with one another.

Quilting is often done collectively. Young girls watch and participate to learn family stories, cultural backgrounds, and technical skills.

Quilts were of particular importance to the history of African Americans. On the Underground Railroad, codes and hidden messages were sewn onto quilts in safe houses that could help slaves find more secret routes and safe houses to the North.

 

(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) 234. Earth’s Creation.

Emily Kame Kngwarreye. Aboriginal. 1994. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (Aborigine)

Themes:

Abstraction
Landscape
Nature
Revival of tradition

Museum: National Museum of Australia

Earth’s Creation by Australian Aboriginal artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye is a work of synthetic polymer paint on canvas that measures 20 by 9 feet.

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

The work is purely abstract and nonrepresentational. There are gestural marks, and each swatch traces the movement of her own hands or brush. She laid the canvas on the ground and sat on it or beside it while she painted.

The work has often been compared to AbEx though she knew nothing about it. It is similar in canvas size, gestural strokes and is an action painting.

Function

This is the study of the landscape with the inspiration of colors, seasons, and sensations. The work depicts stories and elements of her cultural heritage. It captures the ways she was influenced by the environment.

The work promotes sand-painting or dot-painting, which is an indigenous technique.

Content

• Uses the traditional dot-work pattern typical in traditional Aboriginal Australian artwork
• All works are influenced by landscapes
• This one represents the lushness of “green time” after periods of heavy rain by using tropical blues, yellows, greens, vibrant reds.

About the Artist

Kngwarreye (Ung-WAAR-ay) was an aboriginal artist completely untrained who did not paint until she was 80 years old. It is estimated that she produced over 3,000 paintings during her short eight-year painting career.

She was the first Aboriginal artist whose work broke the million-dollar mark at auction when this was sold in 2007.

Born in 1910, she spent 66 years as a forced laborer on European pastoral estates. When she was “freed,” she began to learn about ceremonial paintings and began working in batiks (dyed cloths) first, as well as ceremonial sand paintings.

One of her works was selected for the cover of an exhibition catalog. Critics lauded the piece and virtually overnight, she achieved acclaim.

The Culture

Aboriginal culture is intimately connected to the landscape of Australia such as deserts and grasslands. Landscape is a common subject in Aboriginal art.

 

(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) 241. Pure Land.

Mariko Mori. Japanese. 1998. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (Japanese)

Themes:

Technology
Cross-cultural
Religion
Deities
Revival of tradition

Pure Land by artist Mariko Mori is a color photograph on glass measuring 10 by 20 feet.

Because it is printed on glass, the work has a shiny, reflective quality. The image was created using digital imagery and computer graphics. The huge scale uses the old art historical mentality that the size of the work indicates grandness, and significance.

Function

This piece merges consumerism, entertainment, and traditional Japanese imagery together. It creates a modern space for and approach to Enlightenment. It shows we too can achieve Enlightenment in the modern age. This is a fusion of Japanese pop culture and traditional Japanese Buddhism.

Content

A female figure floats above a golden landscape above a lotus blossom. Six aliens play instruments and whirl. The artist depicted herself as Kichijoten, the Japanese goddess of happiness, fertility, beauty. Originally this was an Indian goddess incorporated into Buddhism. The pink and peach clothing mirrors the orange, yellow, and rose gold of the landscape.

The Dead Sea landscape, in which the image is set, is the lowest point on earth. Its high salinity does not support fish or plant life. In Shinto tradition, salt is used as purification in ceremonies.

The empty landscape is a reference to the Buddhist idea of emptiness that creates a calm state. Lotus blossom is a symbol of purity and rebirth. It is also a reference to Buddhism. Futuristic spacecraft may be a variation on a stupa the sacred Buddhist monument originally used as a reliquary.

Pure Land is the title, as well as the place where Buddhist devotees go after death. This is a common artistic subject in Japan. In these images, Buddha rested on a lotus blossom, surrounded by Bodhisattvas, the enlightened beings who do not pass on to nirvana. Pastel-colored aliens act as the Bodhisattva while Mori acts as Buddha. The figures are a reference to Japanese manga (graphic novels) and anime (films and TV).

Left: Kichijoten from Yukushi-ji Temple in Nara, 8th century.

Context

Mariko Mori was born in Tokyo in 1967. She studied fashion and design and worked as a fashion model. Mori began to stage elaborate photo shoots, where she acted as director, producer, set designer, costume designer, and model.

The major question in post-WWII Japan is– how do we retain tradition and legacy, but modernize?

What makes this postmodern? This is art in a global context with an expansion of art object and artists.  Appropriation is key. There is a social critique as well as a revival of tradition.

 

(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) 243. Darkytown Rebellion.

Kara Walker. American. 2001. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (African American)

Themes:

Race
Installation
Interactive
Interpretation of history
Violence
Revival of tradition
Materials with significance

Darkytown Rebellion by artist Kara Walker is a cut paper and projection on wall measuring 37 feet wide. It occupies a 37-foot-wide corner of a gallery. Colors are projected on a wall full of black silhouettes made of paper. These were deliberately made to be reminiscent of the Victorian era, which was the era of slavery.

Silhouettes were an inexpensive alternative to painted photographic portraits. Traditionally, they were a bust profile, cut out, affixed to a non-black background, and framed.

Function

The viewer is forced to become a part of the scene. As we walk in front of it, we cast our own shadows.

It is impossible for us to ignore the history of slavery and we must choose what kind of player we will be

The use of black paper is not just a reference to old Victorian silhouettes. These stories of slaves have been forgotten with no identifying information. The figures have become types. We will never know all of their stories.

Notice how quickly we recognize our stereotypes. We cannot see what race these figures actually are, and yet based upon their stereotypical features, we project information upon them. This work uses stereotypes to challenge how comfortable and recognizable they are.

Content

This work depicts a scene from the pre-Civil War South. It shows slaves engaged in various acts of rebellion. At first glance, the colors and active figures make us think it is a parade or circus. Upon closer inspection, we realize this is not the case.

There are 13 characters:

• Flag bearers
• Master taunting starving slave children
• Nursing mother
• Woman in hoop skirt attacking smaller slave
• Various mutilated body parts

The subject is a mix of fact and fantasy meant to evoke an emotional response. This is based on historical accounts of slave rebellions. Except for the outline of the bodies, all the subjects’ facial details are lost. The sitters are reduced to a few characteristics.

Context

Kara Walker is a famous multi-media artist who works with paper and black stereotypes. She is highly controversial for her role in drawing attention and perpetuating stereotypes. She argues that

we are so familiar with African American stereotypes such as Uncle Tom, Mammie, and Aunt Jemima.

Inspired by an anonymous 19^th century landscape painting with African American caricatures painted into it entitled Darkytown, she began to read about slave rebellions and accounts. Responding to continued contemporary racial violence in the US, our role in racism is important and still relevant.

What makes this postmodern?

• Art in a global context
• Expansion of art object/artist
• Social critique
• 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-born 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) 246. Stadia II.

Julie Mehretu. Ethiopian American. 2004. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (Ethiopian)

Themes:

Abstraction
Public
Politics

Museum: Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Stadia II a work by artist Julie Mehretu was created using ink and acrylic on canvas and measures 9 by 12 feet.

Form

• Total abstraction
• Black lines create centrifugal structure
• Various shards of color float over the work’s black skeleton
• Notice gray painterly marks that rise from the lower registers to the upper registers

Visually, the work looks like Kandinsky! How does Mehretu do this?

• Overlaps architectural plans, urban plans, diagrams, photos, graffiti, maps, abstract shapes, etc. on top of one another to create an illusion of depth and movement
• Built up in layers and layers of drawing, and then many applications of paint
• Mixture of drawing and painting

Function

This work portrays chaos in the modern world. It invokes our experiences of being in busy, in collective spaces. It captures the speed, energy, and chaos of a globalized, hectic world.

What are the results of our interconnectedness, our globalization?

• Consumerism (corporate logos)
• National identities and propaganda
• Religious symbols

The reference to Kandinsky is important. Remember, Kandinsky and Mondrian believed pure abstraction could bring us together. Mehretu’s work is abstraction speaking about universalism and collectivity!

Title of the work, Stadia II refers to arenas and stadiums

Content

• Places where national identities, power, commerce, entertainment, sport, and conflict merge.
• Should remind us of the circular spaces of a sports arena or amphitheater.
• Imagine the energy of spectators, the matching colors, signs, and banners held overhead.
• Visualization of the energy, sound, enthusiasm of a group of people
• Colors allude to the French, Russian, American, Chinese, and Japanese flags, as well as there being crosses and corporate logos

Context

Julie Mehretu is Ethiopian born and works in NYC with her partner who is also an artist.

Stadiums in the late 20^th and early 21^st century are increasingly important spaces.  They are places for Olympics, nationalist fervor, other sports, religious gatherings, political rallies, and concerts.

In today’s world they are also places for terrorist attacks that focus on large numbers of people.

 

(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.

 

(10) 248. Shibboleth.

Doris Salcedo. Colombian. 2007-2008. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (Colombian)

Themes:

Status
Politics
Installation
Interactive
Site-specific

Museum: was in the Tate Modern

Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo is an installation work of art measuring 548 feet.

Form

This temporary 548-foot-long series of fissures and cracks of varying width was in the floor of the gallery. This made viewers question it. Is it sculpture? Is it installation? Is it architecture?

Can you make art by breaking it? This is so different from the “art is constructed/made” mentality.  Particularly with buildings, we associate cracks with structural cracks and danger. The crack was filled in but is still visible.

 

Function

• Produced for the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall (main hall).
• Salcedo says this represents the immigrant experience and visibly shows separations, cracks, lack of unity.
• Calls attention to divisions in ethnicity, politics, class, and culture.
• Immigration marks people as “broken,” not “wholly a part of the group”.
• Scars are a symbol of damage but also of the possibility of healing. Figurative and literal wounds, but also figurative and literal closure. That scar will always be there, always acting as a reminder.  We can cross over the divide to enact healing.

Content

Shibboleth was the word used to distinguish people who belong from those who do not

Among the US military, the word lollapalooza was used during WWII since its tricky pronunciation could identify Asian speakers very clearly.

Context

Salcedo was a Columbian immigrant living in the US and Europe

This work shows the fear of vulnerability, fear of being seen as different, as other, as an outcast, or as an immigrant. Sometimes there is a real danger to being seen as a foreigner and to being exposed. This speaks to the immigrant/refugee crises in the early 21^st century, but really since WWII.

Why is this post-modernism?  There is an enlarge definition of art object/artist, globalization and social critique.

 

(10) 250. Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds).

Ai Weiwei. Chinese. 2010-2011. Post-Modernism.

Learning Objective: Post-Modernism (Chinese) sculpture

Themes:

Politics
Interactive
Installation
Interpretation of history
Materials with significance
Revival of tradition

Museum: was in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall

Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds) by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is a work that consists of 100 million sunflower seeds made from sculpted and painted porcelain. Each was handcrafted and hand painted. Each one is essentially individual and unique.

The artist worked with 1600 artisans in Jingdzhen, the city known as the “Porcelain Capital” where Chinese artists produced pottery for 2,000 years. Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds) provided employment for people in this city, while Ai Weiwei oversaw the production.

Why is this work Post-Modern? This is a global artist, with a new art object, representing social critique, with a revival of tradition.

Function

The work is a critique on political and economic injustice. There is a sense of the small, tiny parts that make up the whole. Though each is incredibly small, they create a feeling of vastness.

Here there is a comparison between the individual vs. the group. The individual seed is lost among the millions. The critique of conformity and censorship is inherent in modern China. People who are unique must be the ones to cause change.

The artists used traditions of the past (traditional ceramic art) to critique Mao and communist history.

Mao tried to destroy traditional Chinese traditions and art. He failed.

People could touch, lay, walk on, and interact with the work. The viewer became a part of the experience. Initially, this was allowed but about a week into the exhibition, they realized this was crushing the seeds and the ceramic dust was toxic.

Content

• 100 million individual sunflower seeds weighing 150 tons
• Each sunflower seed is porcelain

Why sunflower seeds? Sunflower seeds evoke Mao’s Communist propaganda (Mao was rendered as the sun and the citizens were sunflowers, turning their faces to Mao. Seeds show the promise of something that can grow and become. Seeds make plants self-perpetuating, but these seeds cannot grow anything.

Context

Porcelain is a symbol of imperial culture in China. It was an important way that the West began to be exposed to Chinese art. The use of porcelain also comments on the long history of this prized material while also cleverly still being “Made in China”.

In the Cultural Revolution, Mao tried to destroy these traditions by destroying Chinese art. In 2011, Ai Weiwei was arrested for three months. He was released due to pressure from the art world. On his blog, he investigated the cover-ups and corruption in the government’s handling of a 2008 earthquake in China, as well as the country’s hosting of the Olympics.

The Chinese Cultural Revolution led to Ai Weiwei’s father, an esteemed poet in China, being sent to a communist labor camp. Before he died, Ai Weiwei’s father gave his son permission to speak out about Mao’s injustices and conformity in China. Ai Weiwei is following a Confucian tenet–respect for elders.