Modernism, Part II

8/6/2019 Modernism, Part II

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Modernism, Part II


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Review

We have already seen artworks that have

Focused in on everyday subjects


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Focused in on everyday subjects.

Sought out new ways of seeing and representingthe world through changes in technique.


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Attempted to show a more subjective, vivid world.


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Moved further into subjectivity, representing dark

psychological states.


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Moved further into subjectivity, representing dark

psychological states. Abandoned representation entirely in favor of

geometry and color.


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(contd)

Been used in the contexts of graphic design,architecture, and a variety of other forms.


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(contd)


Praised war.


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(contd)


Praised war.

Illustrated the horrors of war.


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(contd)


Praised war.


Considered the question What is art?


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We have already seen artworks that have(contd)

Been used in the contexts of graphic design,

architecture, and a variety of other forms. Praised war.


Considered the question What is art?

Created new works out of borrowed or appropriatedimagery.

Explored the subconscious, the logic of dreams


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Todays Class

We will look at modern artists and art groups

(-isms) in America.

We will study several new forms including: Conceptual art

Performance art

Land art

Installation art


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American Movements

Before we looked at European artists.

The migration to the US through war and

persecution made NYC the capital of the artworld.


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First wave: Armory Show, 1913


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American Art v. European Art

Armory Show was shocking to American

viewers, but inspired many artists.

Nevertheless, American art continued to beviewed by critics as a copy of European art.

Most of the respected artists in America were from

Europe.

Many home grown American movements and

artists have since been reevaluated.


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What truly put American art on

the map?

Abstract Expressionism


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Abstract Expressionism

Major artists include Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline,Helen Frankenthaller, Morris Louis, Mark Rothko, and BarnettNewman.

Linked to the elements of chance and intuition in Dada art.

the interest in the psychological in German Expressionism.

Considered rebellious and anarchic: major aspects of Americanidentity.

Abstraction allowed for an avant-garde gesture while remainingapolitical (necessary due to McCarthy hearings)

Generally purely abstract. In some instances reflected the identity of the artist the signature

style In others, artists liked the idea of an absence of identity


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Minimalism

Major artists include Dan Flavin, Tony Smith,Robert Morris, Carl Andre, and Sol LeWitt.

The alternative to the romantic nature of

Abstract Expressionism. A complete removal of the self, interested

instead in simple forms that

Are made of industrial materials. Often address architectural space.

Are mathematical rather than emotional.


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Op Art tangent

(Just for fun)


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Conceptual Art

Joseph Kosuth, John Baldessari, Bruce Nauman,Vito Acconci, and Sol LeWitt.

Term came into use in the late 1960s to describe awide range of types of art that no longer took theform of a conventional art object.

Conceptual artists do not set out to make apainting or a sculpture and then fit their ideas tothat existing form.

Instead, they work out their concept or idea inwhatever materials and whatever form is mostappropriate.


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Conceptual Art

Often includes text.

Many of the first conceptual artworks can be

considered meta-art (art about art)


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Meta-Art through the lens of

meta-humorSTANDARD JOKE

Q. How many Irishmen does it take to change a light bulb? A. 21, one to hold the bulb and 20 to drink until the room spins.

Q. How many blondes does it take to make chocolate chip cookies? A. 100. One to make the batter and 99 to crack the shells on the M&Ms.

METAJOKE

Q: How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to

perform a specified task? A: A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a

manner stereotypical of the group in question.


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Meta-Art through the lens of

metahumour

"Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing

dies in the process and the innards are discouraging

to any but the pure scientific mind. E.B. White

Does the same idea apply to art? Think about this

question as we progress


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Born from Conceptual Art

Installation Art

Land Art

Happenings Performance Art/Relational Art


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Installation Art

The artwork is the whole rather than its parts.

Installations

Are often made of everyday or appropriated

materials. Often include video and/or sound.

Aim to alter a viewers perception of a space.

Site-specific art: Art that is made for aparticular space and often can not be removedand sold/reinstalled elsewhere.


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Land/Environmental/Earth Art

Major artists include Robert Smithson, AndyGoldsworthy, and Jeanne-Claude and Christo.

Land artists began working directly in the landscape,sculpting it into earthworks or making structures withrocks or twigs.

Some of them used mechanical earth-moving equipment.

Land art was usually documented in artworks usingphotographs, maps, and preliminary sketches which the

artist could exhibit in a gallery or museum. Ephemeral art: art that only lasts for a short time (in

terms of land art, due to wind, precipitation, etc.)


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Performance Art

Happenings led to performance art.

The medium, generally speaking, is the artistsbody.

Artwork takes the form of actions performed bythe artist.

Relational Art: "a set of artistic practices whichtake as their theoretical and practical point of

departure the whole of human relations and theirsocial context, rather than an independent andprivate space. Nicolas Bourriaud


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Allen Kaprow

Happenings: scripted assemblages of

movement, sound, scent and light, with

instructions given to performers and viewers

alike.

experiences included squeezing oranges,

painting, concerts played on toy instruments


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Documents

Modernism, Part II