Art of the 1950s - presentBreaking through Abstraction

Bring back the

subject!

Rauschenberg, Retroactive I, 1964Silkscreen on canvas, 84”x60”

Jasper Johns, Three Flags, 1958, encaustic on canvas, 30”x45”

Johns and Rauschenberg…Intimate friends, like VanGogh and Gauguin, Monet and Renoir, Picasso and Braque. Which one do you think was more open and outgoing? Which one was more private and cerebral?

“NEW REALISM”

Neo-Dada (or Pop Art)

Robert Rauschenberg, Monogram, 1955-59His combines feature stuffed animals, found objects and newspaper collage…

Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces, 1955Encaustic = liquid wax and pigment; plaster, woodJohns often used alphabet, flag and target images

COM

BIN

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POP ART—1950s-60s

don’t alienate the masses!

•“POP” –popular---coined in 1955 by British art critic•Movement of 1950s and 60s•Reaction against abstraction•Uses materials of the everyday world, mass culture•Glorifies the commonplace•Blows up everyday life … look outward not inward

Andy Warhol, Marilyn, 1964, Silkscreen

Roy Lichtenstein, Hopeless, 1963, oil on canvasComicbook art; showed the pixels=BENDAY DOTS

Warhol1962, SoupObsession with reproduction and repetition

HAPPENINGS, 1950s-70 (later, “Performance Art”)changing social mores create spontaneous art events

•American art form starting in the late 50s, echoing European DaDa events of the 20s•Pop artists Claes Oldenburg and Robert Rauschenberg experimented with this art-theater form, exploring the line between art and life

1961, Oldenberg’sStore…the artist as butcher, baker, candlestick maker, all with plaster, paint and muslin

ART as LIFE

SUPER-REALISM or PHOTOREALISM• Of course, there has to be a strong reaction to

minimalism• Objects perfectly rendered, like Dutch “vanitas” George Segal, The Diner, 1964-66

Plaster, wood, chrome, fluorescent lampPop objects and people involved with them. Also labeled Pop artist.

Duane Hanson, Supermarket Shopper, 1970,Lifesize, fiberglass and polychromePhotorealist sculptor captures modern alienation,Casts from human models, then breaks up into pieces for detailed painting

Segal, Breadline at FDR Memorial in WDC, 1991. Cast a year after his death

PHOTOREALISM--SUPERREALISM

What is the optical fact?

Chuck Close, Big Self-Portrait, 1967, 9’x7’ (always)No brush strokes, no painterly referenceImages dissolve into abstractions; 2 Tbsp. black paint on white canvas

Self-portrait, 2000, detail

“The Event” in 1988…suffered a seizure that left him paralyzed from the neck down. Now in a wheelchair, paints with a brush strapped to his wrist

Art after the 60sPost-MODERNISM---DECONSTRUCTIVISM

• New social order after “hippie” generation…

• POST-MODERNISM 1960s to present **questions nature of art, as

a construct within our society. **Examines consumer

generation.**Values the past.

• There is no uniform meaning or truth. All is relative to the society. Many interpretations are valid.

• DECONSTRUCTIVISM (1960s-70s) uncovers—deconstructs—political or social facts and structures. All social constructs are “texts” for the artist. Term used in architecture to show that form does not always have to follow function

• Destabilize traditional meanings

Susan Rothenberg, Tatoo, 1979, acrylic, 5’7”x9’7”“The horse is a way of not doing people, yet is symbolic of people, a self-portrait, really”

NEO-EXPRESSIONISM

Post-Modernist FEMINIST ARTexamines the dynamics of power and prestige

Miriam Schapiro, Anatomy of a Kimono, fabric and acrylic, 1976Femmages—collages of fabric, buttons, embroidery

Barbara Kruger, Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face, 1981Untitled, 1986Word and photo assembly, myth-buster, mass media layout with text internalizing meaning and stereotypes

Post-Modernist FEMINIST ART

Guerrilla Girls, 1984-present…comments on woman as artist…injustice of a sexist, racist art world

Cindy Sherman, 1980s-presentGender as a socially fabricated concept. Female beauty is constructed for the male gaze; photo self-portraits

Post-Modernist FEMINIST ART

Judy Chicago, Dinner Party, 1979Now at the Brooklyn Museum

39 place settings for women throughout history;China painting, needlework…recover past to build new identityLast Supper a la Feminine Mystique. ..vagina references Installation Art

Post-Modernist SOCIAL PROTEST ARTFaith Ringgold , Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima?, 1983, text in Black dialect, story-telling quilt as iconic medium for women and African-Americans; refers to struggles to overcome oppression and stereotypes

Examining racial identity and prejudice….

Melvin Edwards, Tambo, 1993, welded steel 2 feet high, sculpture with chains, spikes; created after South African uprisings; named after freedom fighter Oliver Tambo, who helped Nelson Mandela abolish apartheid. Spike used both for torture and plowing fields; chain represents both bondage and political freedom and unification

Post-Modernist SOCIAL PROTEST ART

Examining gender identity and prejudice….

Keith Haring, Stop AIDS, 1989Graphic people as scissors, simple red snake…adaptive graffiti; text is art

David Wojnarowicz, A Fire In My Belly, 4-minute video, Hide Seek Show at National Portrait Gallery, 2010 Drew major protest from religious and political conservatives--- video withdrawn from show. Controversy extacted threats from both sides to stop funding for the Portrait Gallery.

Post-Modernist SOCIAL PROTEST ART

Leon Golub, Mercenaries , 1980, mural-sizedAmerican, subjects of violence, terrorism in immense sizeFormalist elements create sense of unrest and terror---red background, rough texture, cut-off composition with feet eliminated, focal point is at knees, ground is at the front plane of the picture. Destroyed nearly all of his paintings in the 1970s out of despair.

MODERN SCULPTURE—1950-70s• Claes Oldenberg• Born in Sweden, raised

in USA• Pop art sculptor, still

producing works• Outdoor public art

meant to evoke whimsy

• Takes everyday objects, transforming them into sculptures of massive scale

• Collaborated with wife, Coosje (married in 1977; now deceased)

• First sculptures were soft form…now uses hard materials such as aluminum, steel and fiberglass

Clothespin, 1976, Philadelphia

Typewriter Eraser, 1999, Washington, DC

Cupid’s Span, 1977, San Franciscotwo stories high

Sculpture after the 60s—POST-MODERNISM meets POP

Jeff Koons---Explores consumer society…”Mannerist” Pop Art, glorifies common icons---art as commodity

Balloon Dog, 2008

Pink Panther, 1988

Sculpture after the 60s—

Ron Mueck, Big Man, 2000,Super-scaled for emotional impactcheck it out at the Hirshhorn

HYPER-REALISM….clay models cast in fiberglass

If you were an installer, where would you place and how would you position Big Man?

SITE ART—1970s-present• Fusion of sculpture and architecture• “Earthworks”, environmental art; created

for a specific outdoor site• Challenges assumption that all art must

be in a museum

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970, Great Salt Lake, Utah1,500 foot-long coil of basalt and limestone;Used abandoned equipment found at the site. He later discovered that the molecular structure of salt is spiral

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Surrounded Islands, 1980, 11 small islands off of Miami coast, wrapped in pink plastic fabric. Took 3 years and $3.2 million to make---2 weeks to dissolve

Christo Wrap

PUBLIC ART

• Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial, WDC, 1981-83

• Challenged and changed constructs of what is a proper “memorial”

• Lin: “Take a knife and cut open the earth, and with time the grass would heal it.” Allegory for her concept of war and death.

• Polished granite and names of 6,000 dead soldiers

• Invites viewers to interact with art

Martin Luther King Memorial, Lei Yixon, WDC, 2011Controversy over the words: “I am a drum major for peace.” What do you think?