December 7
Dematerialization
Historic Context |
1929 - 1941 |
Great Depression |
Attack on Pearl Harbor. December 7, 1941.
http://www.journaltimes.com/nucleus/media/1/20051206-pearl3.jpg
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1933 |
Hitler's Nazi
Party seizes power - end of the German Weimar Republic |
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New Deal begins
- program of government spending to end the Great Depression |
1939 - 1945 |
World War
II |
1941 |
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor |
1945 |
First use
of the Atomic Bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki |
1947 |
U.S. introduces Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, Asia and the Soviet Union |
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Soviet forces refuse Marshall Plan funds when they determine they cannot control the terms of the aid |
1950 - 57 |
"McCarthy Era" - Senator Joseph McCarthy accuses hundreds of Americans of being Communists while the leader of the House Committee on Un-American Activities |
Hiroshima aftermath. 1945.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hiroshima_aftermath.jpg
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Victim of the Hiroshima nuclear bombing. 1945.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gisei32.jpg
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J. Howard Miller. Rosie the Riviter. 1942.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rosie_the_Riveter.jpg
Alfred Eisenstaedt. V.J. Day. 1945.
Marien, Mary Warner. Photography: A Cultural History. Second edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
J. Howard Miller. Rosie the Riviter. 1942.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rosie_the_Riveter.jpg
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50s Ad
source unknown
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Some of
the "Isms" of Modern Art |
Expressionism |
Cubism |
Dadaism |
Surrealism |
Abstract
Expressionism |
Minimalism |
Lee Krasner. Cornucopia. 1958.
Nancy G. Heller. Women Artists: An Ilustrated History. Fourth edition. New York: Abbeville Press, 2003.
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Abstract
Expressionism = term used to describe a wide variety of work produced
in New York between 1940 and 1960 |
As
the name suggests, combines two important strains of modern art: |
Abstraction
= emphasized a non-representational, formalist approach |
Expressionism
= sought emotional responses from both the artist and the viewer |
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Lee Krasner. Prophecy. 1956.
Brach, Paul. "Lee Krasner: Front and Center." Art in America. February 2001: 90 - 99.
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The Abstract Expressionists worked intuitively |
automatism = technique whereby the usual intellectual control of the artist over the brush is foregone. The artist's aim is to allow the subconscious to create the artwork without rational reference. |
Resulting in highly personal marks generated by the subconscious |
As if the artist were delving deeply into their psyche and spilling their inner beings onto the canvas |
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Formalism = the concept that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form - the way it is made, its purely visual aspects and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context and content. |
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Jackson Pollock. Autumn Rhythm (Number 30). 1950.
Stokstad,
Marilyn. Art History. Revised Second ed. Vol. 2. New York: Prentice
Hall Inc., and Harry N. Abrams, 2005.
What's so innovative about Jackson Pollock's drip
paintings?
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Painted horizontally, on the floor |
Jackson
Pollock at work, 1950.
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Used "everyday" paint and sticks |
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Instead of traditional artist's materials |
Considers space in a completely new way |
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Rejects Renaissance perspective |
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All-over composition |
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Painted gestures move across the picture plane
rather than into it |
The painter becomes the paintings subject
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"On the floor I am more at ease...This way I can...literally be in the painting...When I am in the painting I am not aware of what I am doing...There is pure harmony." - Jackson Pollock |
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"At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to act - rather than a space in which to reproduce, redesign, analyze or express an object, actual or imagined. What was to go on to the canvas was not a picture but an event." - Harold Rosenberg |
August 8, 1949 issue of Life Magazine
“The problem with Abstract Expressionism, then and now, is that it had been perceived as a peculiarly male phenomenon. The standard image of the Abstract Expressionist painter – exemplified by Jackson Pollock – is a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, angst-ridden man hanging out with his cronies at the Cedar Bar or savagely flinging paint at an enormous canvas.” - Nancy Heller |
Lee Krasner
1908 - 1984
Lee Krasner. Untitled. 1940.
Brach, Paul. "Lee Krasner: Front and
Center." Art in America. February 2001: 90 - 99.
Highest
praise given to Krasner by fellow New York School artist and instructor Hans Hofmann:
"this painting is so good
you'd never know it was done by a woman." |
Lee Krasner. Noon. 1947.
http://www.spaniermanmodern.com/06_LIAbstraction/krasner06noonf.jpg
Lee Krasner. The Seasons.
1957. 7 3/4' X 17'.
Helen Frankenthaler
1928 -
Helen Frankenthaler was the "Only woman painter of the period who has consistently dismissed gender as an issue." - Whitney Chadwick |
Helen Frankenthaler. Mountains
and Sea. 1952. 7' 2" X 9' 8".
Helen Frankenthaler. The Bay.
1963.
Pollock, Greenberg, unidentified boy, Frankenthaler & Krasner
http://www.aaa.si.edu/images/polljack/reference/AAA_polljack_6311.jpg
Core ideas
of Greenbergian Formalism: |
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Concept of the "mainstream" = art history is strictly linear and progressive. Each new style builds upon its predecessors, making them obsolete |
Only one dominant style exists at any given time |
Any work outside of the dominate style is minor and should not be given consideration |
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The avant-garde enacted a continuous stripping away of subject matter, illusion and pictorial space |
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Concrete distinction between high and low art |
Kitsch = mass produced, low quality, consumer culture |
Alice Neel. Linda Nochlin and
Daisy. 1973.
Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. Revised
Second ed. Vol. 2. New York: Prentice Hall Inc., and Harry N. Abrams, 2005.
Edouard
Manet. A Bar at the Folies-Bergere. 1881-82.
Stokstad,
Marilyn. Art History. Revised Second ed. Vol. 2. New York: Prentice
Hall Inc., and Harry N. Abrams Inc., 2005.
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Alice Neel. Margaret Evans Pregnant.
1978.
Broude, Norma and Mary D. Garrard ed. The
Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970s, History and Impact.
New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1994.
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Alice Neel. Nude Self-Portrait.
1980.
Broude, Norma and Mary D. Garrard ed. The
Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970s, History and Impact.
New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1994.
Niki de Saint Phalle. Nana.
c. 1965.
Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely and Per Olof Utvedt. Hon. 1966.
Butler, Cornelia. WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution. Los Angeles: The Museum of Contemporary Art, 2007.
Louise Nevelson. Sky Cathedral.
1958.
Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. Revised
Second ed. Vol. 2. New York: Prentice Hall Inc., and Harry N. Abrams, 2005.
In response
to 1946 New York exhibition of Nevelson's work, critic said: "
We learned the artist was a woman, in time to check our enthusiasm.
had it been otherwise, we might have hailed these sculptural expresssions
as by surela great figure among the moderns." |
Minimalism |
Tony Smith. Die. 1962. 6
X 6 X 6 ft.
Fineberg,
Jonathan. Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being. Second ed. Prentice
Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. 2000.
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Carl Andre. Steel Magnesium
Plain. 1969. 6 X 6 ft.
Fineberg,
Jonathan. Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being. Second ed. Prentice
Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. 2000.
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Eva Hesse
1936 - 1970
Eva Hesse. Hang Up. 1965-1966.
Grosenick,
Uta ed. Women Artists in the 20th and 21st Century. Taschen, Koln.
2005.
Eva Hesse. Untitled (Rope Piece). 1966.
Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. Revised
Second ed. Vol. 2. New York: Prentice Hall Inc., and Harry N. Abrams, 2005.
Jackson
Pollock. Autumn Rhythm (Number 30). 1950.
Stokstad,
Marilyn. Art History. Revised Second ed. Vol. 2. New York: Prentice
Hall Inc., and Harry N. Abrams, 2005.
|
Eva Hesse. Untitled (Rope Piece). 1966.
Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History.
Revised Second ed. Vol. 2. New York: Prentice Hall Inc., and Harry N.
Abrams, 2005.
|
Eva Hesse. Contingent. 1969.
Sayre, Henry M. A World of Art. Fourth
ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003.
Maya Lin. Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
1980 - 82.
Preble,
Duane, Sarah Preble and Patrick Frank. Artforms. Seventh ed. Prentice
Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2002.
Visitor touching The Wall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TouchWall.JPG
Frederick Hart. The Three Soldiers. 1984.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:The_Three_Soldiers.jpg
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Glenna Goodacre. The Vietnam Women's Memorial. 1993.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Women%27s_Memorial.jpg
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Growing tendency towards the dematerialization of the art object in the 60s and 70s |
structuralism = philosophical approach that analyzes society by looking at cultural phenomena such as signs that have hidden underlying meanings that can be decoded |
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Many artists and movements interested in reducing art to its most essential elements |
"The world is full of objects, more or less interesting: I do not wish to add any more." - Douglas Huebler |
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Conceptualism
= (a.k.a. idea art) art in which the concepts or ideas involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Conceptual art may not even produce an art object, but rather a physical manifestation that is to be viewed as a document of the art. |
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" Conceptual
art is "made to engage the mind of the viewer rather than his eye
or emotions." - Sol Le Witt |
Yoko Ono. Cut Piece. 1965.
Newhall, Edith. "A Long and Winding Road." ARTnews. October 2000: 162 -165.
Mary Kelly's Post-Partum Document 1973 - 1979 |
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Profoundly influenced by Juliet Mitchell’s Psychoanalysis and Feminism 1974 |
Mother and child are united in early infancy |
As the child gains language, the mother begins to lose possession of the child |
The child has become a figure of power for the mother - the phallus |
The child's linguistic initiation gives him a positive relation to the phallus |
While the mother is returned to the position of lack |
Mary Kelly. Introduction to Post-Partum
Document. 1973.
Kelly, Mary. Post-Partum Document. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999.
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Mary Kelly. Documentation I, Analyzed
fecal stain from Post-Partum Document. 1974.
Hopkins,David. After Modern Art 1945 - 2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
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Mary kelly. Documentation II, Analyzed
utterances from Post-Partum Document. 1975.
Kelly, Mary. Post-Partum Document. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999.
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Mary Kelly. Documentation III,
Analyzed markings from Post-Partum Document. 1975.
Butler, Cornelia. WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution. Los Angeles: The Museum of Contemporary Art, 2007.
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Mary Kelly. Documentation IV, Transitional
objects from Post-Partum Document. 1976.
Kelly, Mary. Post-Partum Document. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999.
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Mary Kelly. Documentation V, Mounted
specimen 9 from Post-Partum Document. 1977.
Kelly, Mary. Post-Partum Document. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999.
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Mary Kelly. Documentation V, Diagram
and research 9 from Post-Partum Document. 1977.
Kelly, Mary. Post-Partum Document. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999.
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Mary Kelly. Documentation VI, Prewriting
alphabet from Post-Partum Document. 1978.
Kelly, Mary. Post-Partum Document. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999.
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