In the Nature of Materials

Jackson Pollock

Robert Arneson. Jackson Pollock.  1983.

"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." - John Cage
 

Postmodernism = name for many stylistic reactions to, and developments from, modernism. Postmodern style is often characterized by eclecticism, digression, collage, pastiche, and irony. Postmodern art is seen as a reversal of well-established modernist systems, such as the roles of artist vs. audience, seriousness vs. play, or high culture vs. kitsch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Historic Context
1957
Soviet Union launches Sputnik I starting the "Space Race"

JFK

Elaine De Kooning.  John F. Kennedy.  1963.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3203/2721563078_48543449d8.jpg
1961
John F. Kennedy becomes President
East Germany begins building the Berlin Wall
First contraceptive pill made available to the public
First Soviet manned space flight
1962
First US manned space flight
Cuban missle crisis
Death of Marilyn Monroe
1963
Race riots in Birmingham, Alabama
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
1964 - 1973
Vietnam War
1965
Assassination of Malcolm X
1966
Foundation of the National Organization of Women
1967
Che Guevarar killed in Bolivia
1968
Assassination of Martin Luther King
1969
Neil Armstrong becomes first man to walk on the moon
Richard Nixon becomes President

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Claes Oldenburg in The Store
http://www.uic.edu/depts/ahaa/classes/ah111/oldenbrg.jpg
“What I see is not the thing itself but – myself – in its form.” – Oldenburg
 
1961 - 1963 exhibited and sold
his work at The Store
 
 
"The goods in the stores: clothing, objects of every sort, and the boxes and wrappers, signs and billboards- for all these radiant commercial articles in my immediate surroundings I have developed a great affection which has made me want to imitate them." - Claes Oldenburg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Claes Oldenburg. Pie a la Mode. 1962.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Claes Oldenburg. Dual Hamburgers. 1962.
Preble, Duane, Sarah Preble and Patrick Frank. Artforms. Seventh ed. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The erotic or the sexual is the root of art." - Claes Oldenburg
 

Claes Oldenburg. Floor Cake. 1962. 4' 10" X 9' 6" X 4' 10".
http://academics.smcvt.edu/gblasdel/art/C.%20Oldenburg,%20Floor%20Cake.jpg

Claes Oldenburg. Soft Dormeyer Mixer. 1965.
http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/fa/images/large/kc_femart_oldenbur_52.jpg

Oldenburg notebook page

Claes Oldenburg. Notebook page: Dormeyer Mixer. 1965.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Claes Oldenburg. Soft Dormeyer Mixers- "Ghost" Version. 1965.

 

Oldenburg's large-scale works

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



http://palavrasapenas.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/family-watching-tv.jpg
Pop Art = art movement of the 1960s that dealt with images from mass culture
1947
10,000 televisions in U.S. homes
1957
40 million televisions in U.S. homes
1962
Average American exposed to 1600 advertising images a day
Today "The average American is exposed to about 3000 advertising messages a day, and globally corporations spend over $620 billion each year to make their products seem desirable and to get us to buy them."
- Union of Concerned Scientists http://www.ucsusa.org/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real Gold

Eduardo Paolozzi.  Real Gold.  1950.  14" X 19" collage.

 
 
I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.
- Ogden Nash
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Pop should be: Popular (designed for a mass audience), Transient (short-term solution), Expendable (easily forgotten), Low-cost, Mass-produced, Young (aimed at youth), Witty, Sexy, Gimmicky, Glamorous, Big Business"
- Richard Hamilton

Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different So Appealing

Richard Hamilton. Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? 1956.
http://htca.us.es/blogs/perezdelama/files/2008/10/hamilton.jpg

Hamilton's sources:
Ceiling = teleschopic view of the moon
Window view = movie marquee advertising Al Jolsen in the Jazz Singer
Painting = framed page from a romance comic strip
Lamp shade = Ford emblem
Stairs = Hoover vacuum ad
Rug = blown up image from Weegee photo of people on the beach

 

 

Mark Steven Greenfield

 

The Dance: The History of American Minstrelsy

KCET interview with Aaron White and Jason Christopher White

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

32 Campbell's Soup Cans

Andy Warhol. 32 Campbell's Soup Cans. 1961 - 62. Acrylic on canvas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brillo boxes

Andy Warhol. Brillo Boxes. 1963, reproduced 1969.
Norton Simon Museum. Handbook of the Norton Simon Museum.  Pasadena, California: Norton Simon Museum, 2003.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pop Art was anti-Greenbergian formalism

Andy Warhol.  Kellogg's Corn Flakes. 
Silkscreen on wood, 27 x 24 x 19 in.  1971.
 
Disdained Ab Ex celebration of the individual
Embraced low art and kitsch
Rejected the preciousness of the painting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andy Warhol. Gold Marilyn Monroe. 1962.
http://www.acrstudio.com/projects/word/queeringmoma/Warhol_Gold-Marilyn2.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marilyn Monroe's Lips

Andy Warhol. Marilyn Monroe's Lips. 1962.
http://beforeourheartsexplode.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/marilyns_lips.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

silkscreening

Silkscreen demonstration

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andy Warhol.  200 One Dollar Bills.  1962.
http://www.artinfo.com/media/image/163761/8592-Warhol-200-One-Dollar-.jpg

 

Andy Warhol's 200 One Dollar Bills, 1962 sold in 2009 at auction for an unexpected $43,762,500.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blam

Roy Lichtenstein. Blam. 1962.
In the 1960s, Structuralism took over Existentialism as the dominant philosophy
Structuralism = philosophical approach that analyzes society by looking at cultural phenomena, particularly signs, that have hidden underlying meanings that can be decoded

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Masterpiece
Benday dots = printing process that uses two or more solid colored dots that the eye combines to create another color
Roy Lichtenstein. Masterpiece. 1962. Oil on canvas.
Getlein, Mark. Gilbert's Living With Art. Sixth edition. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002.
Roy Lichtenstein. Drowning Girl. 1963. (detail)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drowning Girl

Roy Lichtenstein. Drowning Girl. 1963.

James Rosenquist.  The Serenade for the Doll after Claude Debussy, Gift Wrapped doll #8.  1992.

 
Despite their popular imagery, Pop artists betray an interest in formal aesthetics
Large scale makes representational images abstract-like
Allover compositions
Slick technique emphasizes the flatness of the picture plane

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"We are attacked by radio and television and visual communications…at such a speed and with such a force that painting…now seems very old- fashioned…why shouldn't it be done with that power and gusto [of advertising], with that impact."
- James Rosenquist

I Love You with My Ford

James Rosenquist. I Love You with My Ford. 1961. 82" X 93".
Lobel, Michael. "Sign Language." Artforum. October 2003: 127.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James Rosenquist. F-111. 1965. 10' X 86'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

F-111 installed at MOMA
http://media2.moma.org/collection_images/resized/626/w500h420/CRI_97626.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

West Coast Pop (a.k.a. California Funk movement)
funk = bad smelling
 
California Funk movement defined by Berkeley's Art Museum Director, Peter Selz as being "hot rather than cool, committed rather than disengaged, bizarre rather than formal, sensuous and frequently quite ugly."

Gold Marilyn

Andy Warhol. Gold Marilyn Monroe. 1962.

The Illegal Operation

Ed Kienholz. The Illegal Operation. 1962.
http://noskoff.lib.ru/pina/KIENHOLZ/illegal_operation_1962.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ed Kienholz
1927 - 1994

 

Roxy's

Ed Kienholz. Roxy's. 1961.
http://kunst.gymszbad.de/zab2006/ts-1/kienholz/kienholz-roxys-1961-xl.jpg

 

Installation art = art that uses sculptural materials and other media to modify a particular space. It is not necessarily confined to a gallery or museum space and often incorporates the viewer into the work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
The State Hospital
Ed and Nancy Kienholz. The State Hospital (exterior). 1966.
http://noskoff.lib.ru/pina/KIENHOLZ/state_hospital_exterior_1964.jpg
Ed and Nancy Kienholz. The State Hospital (interior). 1966.
Upshaw, Reagan. "Scavenger's Parade." Art in America. October 1996: 98 -107.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ed Kienholz. The State Hospital tableau. 1966.
Upshaw, Reagan. "Scavenger's Parade." Art in America. October 1996: 98 -107.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1966 Kienholz's first retrospective held at LACMA

 

Ed Kienholz. Back Seat Dodge '38. 1964.
http://noskoff.lib.ru/pina/KIENHOLZ/back_seat_dodge_1964.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five Card Stud

Ed Kienholz. Five Car Stud. 1969 - 1972.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/09/the-power-of-ed-kienholz-five-card-stud.html

 

Profiled: Race and Whiteness in Sculpture from Frederick the Great to Edward Kienholz
Gallery Talk with Ken Gonzalez Day
Sunday, October 23, 2011 | 2 pm

 

Five Car Stud

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Arneson
1930 - 1992

 

Robert Arneson. John with Art. 1964.

 

"I really thought about the ultimate ceramics in western culture, so I made a toilet." - Robert Arneson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arneson in his studio

Robert Arneson. The artist in his studio. 1978.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Muscone

Robert Arneson. George Muscone. 1981.
Lazzari, Margaret and Dona Schlesier. Exploring Art: A Global, Thematic Approach. Second edition. Australia: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005.

 

Milk