July 7
Consuming America
Jasper Johns. Three Flags. 1958.
"Everyone is of course free to interpret the work in his own way. I think seeing a picture is one thing and interpreting it is another." - Jasper Johns
Assignment Due: Worksheet #6
July 7 |
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Consuming America |
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Jasper Johns. Three Flags. 1958. |
"Everyone is of course free to interpret the work in his own way. I think seeing a picture is one thing and interpreting it is another." - Jasper Johns |
Assignment Due: Worksheet #6 |
|
Jasper Johns
1930 -
Jasper Johns. Flag. 1954
- 55.
Joselit, David. American Art Since 1945. London:
Thames & Hudson, 2003.
encaustic
= a painting medium in which pigment is suspended in hot wax |
Jasper Johns. Flag (detail). 1954 -55. |
Jasper Johns. Flag (detail). 1954 -55. |
Jasper Johns. Flag. 1954
- 55. |
Robert Frank. Fourth of July -
Jay, New York. 1955 - 56. |
Semiotics = the study of signs, symbols and how meaning is constructed |
Signifier (physical form) + signified (concept) = sign (the whole) |
 + "appleness" = apple |
Relationship between the signifier and the signified is conventional – it is dependent on social and cultural conventions |
The relationship between the signifier and the signified (the sign) is always arbitrary |
Jasper
Johns. White Flag. 1955.
http://www.sheepish.org/engine/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/whiteflag.jpg
1998 the Metropolitan Museum of Art bought White Flag for $20 millon, purchased directly from the artist |
Jasper Johns. White Flag (detail). 1955.
http://www.metmuseum.org/special/philippe_de_montebello_years/objectimages/1998.329_av1.jpg
Jasper Johns. Numbers in Colour.
1959.
Lucie-Smith, Edward. Movements in Art Since
1945. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2001.
Jasper Johns. Painted Bronze.
1960.
Fred
S. Kleiner and Christin J. Mamiya, Gardner's Art Through the Ages.
Twelfth ed. Vol. 1. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 2005. 2
vols.
"I
was doing at that time sculptures of small objects - flashlights and
light bulbs. Then I heard a story about Willem de Kooning. He was annoyed
with my dealer, Leo Castelli for some reason, and said something like,
'That son-of-a-bitch; you could give him two beer cans and he could
sell them.' I heard this and thought, 'What a sculpture- two beer cans.'
It seemed to me to fit in perfectly with what I was doing, so I did
them and Leo sold them." - Jasper Johns |
The Marshall Plan 1947 - 1951 |
 |
U.S. Army Chief and Secretary of State General George C. Marshall believed that the precarious condition of America's wartime allies and enemies would wreak further disaster after WWII. Along with humanitarian concerns, he also worried that these vulnerable countries might be prey to Soviet Comunist expansionism. He proposed providing american financial and technical support, with the stipulation that participating countries would need to generate matching funds and eventually repay some o fthe aid. Also mandated were trade agreements favorable to the U.S. The Marshall Plan, as it was dubbed, included an aggressive cultural program, with touring exhibitions of American art and a film production arm charged with making pro-democracy movies. This flood of American consumer goods and culture was both welcomed and scorned. - The History of Modern Art |
1954 Jiro Yoshihara founded the Gutai Art Association in Japan |
Kazuo Shiraga. Challenging Mud. 1955. |
Gutai = concrete |
|
In the Gutai Manifesto, Jirō Yoshihara defined Gutai as truth to the material of which art is made, and lifting that material to spiritual heights. He singled out Jackson Pollock and the French painter Georges Mathieu as artists who "grapple with the material in a way which is completely appropriate to it," and encouraged group members to emulate this approach. |
Saburo Murakami. Breaking Through Many Paper Screens. 1956.
Photo from the second Gutai exhibition.
Shozo Shimamoto performs Hurling Colors at the second Gutai Exhibition. 1956.
http://dl.coastline.edu/classes/internet/art101/images/29-20.jpg
Historic
Context |
||
| 1957 | Soviet Union launches Sputnik I starting the "Space Race" |
Elaine De Kooning. John F. Kennedy. 1963. |
| 1959 | Alaska and Hawaii become states | |
| 1961 | John F. Kennedy becomes President | |
| East Germany begins building the Berlin Wall | ||
| 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 | |
| Oral contraceptives made available to married women ("the pill" will not be made available to unmarried women until 1972) | ||
| 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 | ||
|
Pop Art = art movement of the 1960s
that dealt with images from mass culture |
|
Rise of mass media and consumer culture in the 60s |
||
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 |
|
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 |
Richard Hamilton. Just what
is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? 1956. |
Hamilton's
sources: |
Richard Hamilton. Just what
is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? 1956. |
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 |
|
Andy Warhol
1928 - 1987
Andy Warhol. À la recherche du shoe perdu. 1955.
http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A6246&page_number=4&template_id=1&sort_order=1
Andy Warhol. 32 Campbell's Soup
Cans. 1961 - 2. Acrylic on canvas.
http://gordondouglas.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/campbells_soup_cans_moma.jpg
Andy Warhol's Soup Cans at MOMA
http://bp0.blogger.com/_oo5OnqH-je8/RnO_0XFCxcI/AAAAAAAACLI/LqGvl_Ou3CA/s400/102Andy+Warhol.jpg
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. Heinz 57 Tomato Ketchup and Del Monte Freestone Peach Halves. |
Disdained
the Ab Ex celebration of the individual |
|
Embraced
low art and kitsch |
|
Rejected
the preciousness of the painting |
Andy Warhol. Gold Marilyn Monroe. 1962.
Andy Warhol. Marilyn Monroe's Lips. 1962.
Willem de Kooning. Woman and Bicycle. 1952 - 53.
Andy Warhol. Saturday Disaster. 1964.
vanitas
image = a work that reminds the viewer of their own impending death |
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