What is Art?Controversial shows that changed thinking

about artArmory Show- New York 1913

Sensational Show 1907

George Luks, Hestor Street 1905

Homer 1894

Charles Russel

American Art- Turn of the Century

William Sergeant Kendall An Interlude1907.Smithsonian American Art Museum,

H. Siddons Mowbray Idle Hours1895Smithsonian American Art Museum

Childe Hassam Improvisation 1899Smithsonian American Art Museum,

Albert HerterWoman with Red Hair1894Smithsonian American Art

Armory Show 1913

One of the most influential events in the history of American art

Officially known as The International Exhibition of Modern Art•Artistic goal was to question the boundaries of art as an institution•Lauded as one of the most influential events in the history of American art.•Shock and outrage from the public from such artworks as from Duchamp's Nude Descending the Staircase and Matisse's Luxury

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Museum/Armory/entrance.html

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In the New York Times and Sun, headlines like "It Will Throw a Bomb Into Our Art World and a Good Many Leaders Will be Hit" and "Cubist, Futurists, and Post Impressionists Win First Engagement, Leaving the Enemy Awestruck“

The architect-turned-artist Oscar Bluemner, "The exhibition of the new art from Europe dropped like a bomb. Before the people could gain their breath, some prune-fattened authorities of the old regime at once hurled the pits and stones of their wrath and contempt against the cubists"

Though many directed their insults and praise at a loosely defined cubism, Matisse was most fiercely attacked for distorting the human form to monstrous proportions. The most memorable response was a public demonstration held by students of the Chicago Art Institute. Matisse was put on trial, and copies of three Matisse paintings were, along with "Henry Hairmattress," burned in effigy.

Rebellion in ArtCalled a "Rebellion in Art" by Meyer Schapiro and a "Success by Scandal" by Barbara Rose, the exhibition has consistently been fashioned as a moment of cultural crisis and a radical break with tradition, out of which emerged a new and vital art, literature and drama

"we can say that the spirit of 1913 was an aspiration to transcend what most people accepted as ordinary and so inevitable . . . In the case of the Armory Show, it was old forms of art, appreciation and beauty.“

The status of the Armory Show as a stimulant for modern art in America has also been reaffirmed through the somewhat labored connections of modernist artists and writers to this rite of passage into the American avant-garde.

Francis PicabiaFrench, 1878 or 1879-1953Dances at the Spring (La Danse a la source), 1912

Impressionism and Post Impressionism

By the time of the Armory Show, Impressionism had been accepted within the National Academy of Design, due partly to the work of the Ten, a group of American artists who adopted techniques similar to the French Impressionists

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Henri de Toulouse-LautrecRed-Haired Woman Sitting in Conservatory, 1889

Claude MonetFrench, 1840-1926La Bassin aux nymphéas

Critical acceptance of Impressionism was cited by numerous writers as a reason to more closely consider the newer artists at the Armory Show

Georges SeuratFrench, 1859-1891 Les Poseuses, 1888

Henri Matisse Goldfish and Sculpture•Matisse's work was deemed by many to be much more offensive, immoral, and depraved.•Matisse's work was more representative, yet more monstrous, childlike, and primitive to many eyes. Harriet Monroe, Chicago poet and founder of Poetry, who was praised for her early support of the Imagists, was dismayed by Matisse at first and described his paintings as "the most hideous monstrosities ever perpetrated in the name of long suffering art" (Brown, Story 172).•Matisse reportedly was so troubled by the public's reaction to his work that he implored in an interview, "Oh do tell the American people that I am a normal man; that I am a devoted husband and father, that I have three fine children, that I go to the theatre!" (MacChesney 5). While Matisse maintained aspirations to bourgeois gentility, his work was seen by some as an attack on the progress of Western civilization as a whole.

Marcel Duchamp Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2"Chamber of Horrors," Gallery I, in the far lefthand side of the Armory. One reviewer recommended this approach to the exhibition: "The visitor might just as well go straight to gallery I . . . where the Cubists reign supreme. If he has been a consistent follower of New York exhibitions the shock will be slight, and if he has been to Paris the sight will be familiar. . . He is now prepared really to see the exhibition, and as he goes from room to room he will find that while weird examples are decidedly in evidence they hold a minor position in the exhibition" ("Modern Art" 1)

Pablo PicassoWoman with Mustard Pot(La Femme au pot de moutarde), 1910

Georges BraqueFrench, 1882-1963L'Affiche de Kubelick (Le Violon), (1912)oil, 18 1/8 x 24.

Robert DelaunayFrench, 1885-1941Window on the City, No. 4(Les Fenêtres sur la ville), 1910-11 (1912)oil, 44 3/4 x 51 1/2.

Window on the Park (La Fênetre sur le parc), 1912oil, 51 1/2 x 35 1/4.

Beginnings of Abstract

•Stieglitz (how bought the painting) wrote to the artist after his purchase, explaining that he "was so insenced [sic] at the stupidity of the people who visited the Exhibition, and also more than insen [sic] at the stupidity of most of those in charge of the Exhibition, in not realizing the importance of your picture that I decided to buy it." (Levin, Theme 12)

Wassily KandinskyImprovisation No. 27 (Garden of Love), 1912

The information and images on the Armory Show can be found on http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MUSEUM/Armory/armoryshow.html

S E N S A T I O N :

YOUNG BRITISH ARTISTS FROM THE SAATCHI COLLECTION- 1997

The Sensation shows in London and New York were sources of either intense controversy or blatant hype, depending on your point of view, but they certainly succeeded in sparking some of the most serious debates on the role of art in society in recent years.

In retrospect, it's undoubtedly worth remembering that Charles Saatchi made his fortune in advertising. Sensation was a huge success which brought in millions of dollars in revenue, and generated many more millions worth of free publicity for Saatchi and his group of artists, not to mention the many politicians and pundits who waded into the debate on "decency" vs. free speech.

Sensation ShowThe Sensation shows in London and New York were sources of either intense controversy or blatant hype, depending on your point of view, but they certainly succeeded in sparking some of the most serious debates on the role of art in society in recent years.In London, the lightning rod for controversy was a Marcus Harvey portrait of Myra Hindley, a notorious child murderer, done Chuck Close-style using hundreds of children's handprints. This painting was physically attacked at least twice: once it was pelted with eggs and on another occasion it had ink thrown at it. (Harvey's approach to conservation is worth noting: he cleaned the stains off the painting with a scouring pad.)

“The Holy Virgin Mary", by Chris Ofili

When the show arrived in New York, public fury centered around Chris Ofili's painting of The Holy Virgin Mary - an African Madonna accessorized by a clump of elephant dung.

Ofili was in Zimbabwe when he realized that he wanted a more natural look to his paintings, something to connect them to the earth and nature. How to do that? Throw elephant shit on them."The paintings themselves are very delicate abstractions, and I wanted to bring their beauty and decorativeness together with the ugliness of shit and make them exist in a twilight zone - you know they're there together, but you can't really ever feel comfortable about it."

Damian Hirst

"This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home" by Damien Hirst

Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist and the most prominent member of the group known as "Young British Artists" and is reputed to be the richest living artist to date. Hirst dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s and is internationally renowned. During the 1990s his career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, but increasing frictions came to a head in 2003 and the relationship ended.

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living- 2004 sold for 8 million

Damien Hirst is the artist behind this ‘art’ and he recently had an auction at Sotheby’s in London. this auction raised $198 million breaking a record for an auction of works by a single artist.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/popup?id=3234825&contentIndex=1&start=false&page=1

The work's title was supposedly inspired by Hirst's mother, who once asked, “For the love of God, what are you going to do next?”

•8,601 flawless Diamonds, weighing in total 1,106.18 carats over a platinum cast, cover the entirety of the skull, with the exception of the original teeth of the skull. At the centre of the forehead lies a pear-shaped pink diamond

•On 1 June 2007, the work went on display in an illuminated glass case in a darkened room on the top floor of the White Cube gallery in London . It was reported on 11 June 2007 that the singer George Michael and his partner Kenny Goss were interested in purchasing the piece for around £50 million.

Ron Mueck

Untitled (One Hundred Spaces) (1997) Rachel Whiteread

A series of resin casts of the space underneath chairs.

The critical response included:This piece consists of resin castings of the spaces underneath 100 chairs. As an art whose content is absence, the work can serve as an especially appropriate pun, though an unintentional one, on the lack of an art-focused discussion of Sensation.— -by Sarah Rosenbaum http://www.columbia.edu/cu/museo/3/rachelwhiteread.htm

"Particularly effective when bathed in natural light, it creates beauty from domestic nothingness."— Nick Hackworth (wikipedia)

At 35, Rachel Whiteread is already a darling of the contemporary art world. Her castings of empty spaces, insides and undersides of commonplace objects, have earned her an international reputation.

In 1993, she won the Turner Prize, irthe most prestigious award for contemporary art in Britainlr (Burton, pg. 155). In 1997, she received a commission from the New York City Public Art Fund to erect a sculpture in SoHo, "Water Tower," an 11-foot high transparent resin casting of a water tower. Whiteread also won the

commission to design the Vienna Holocaust Memorial

“Each cast has slightly different personal grooves, curves, and notches. The BMA has done a good job of physically arranging the installation. Overhead track lights point in various directions so as to bathe the casts; light glows warmly through the resin. The high ceiling opens the space, and the paleness of the gray walls and of the wooden floor blend to make a neutral background that does not interrupt the viewer's experience of the glowing casts. Whiteread not only solidifies empty space, but also chooses a spatial type, the space under chairs, that normally passes unnoticed. These spaces are mundane, but they are also spaces of personal interaction. One sits in chairs, and one therefore sits vicariously above these empty spaces. The work's title, "Untitled (100 Spaces)" reveals the artist's Formalist mission of spatial depiction. One might even argue that it presents her conception of a specifically empty space, i.e. a space without a name, an inuntitledly space. But, without reading the BMA's descriptive plaque or hearing the recording on the audio-tour, would the viewer know what s/he was seeing? Without a background in contemporary art history, one would be hard-pressed to identify the resin blocks as being cast from chairs. Unlike the art of many other modern and contemporary artists “http://www.columbia.edu/cu/museo/3/rachelwhiteread.htm

Gillian Wearing The Garden1997

This work originates in a photograph taken at the time of the making of a video, also called ‘The Garden’, in 1993. The artist had invited a transvestite whom she knew well, a prostitute whom she knew vaguely, and an escort, whom she had never met, to choose a slogan shirt and perform in the video. Wearing herself is depicted in the print, second left. The T-shirts, like uniforms, both declare and mask the nature of the character. This work is from a portfolio of prints by eleven different London-based artists, called ‘Screen’.

Other works (not part of the Sensation’ Show)One of her best known pieces and her first major work, Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say (1992-93), initially shown at the artists-run London gallery City Racing. This consists of a series of photographs, each showing a member of the public who Wearing had stopped on the street and gotten to spontaneously write something down on a piece of paper. Wearing then photographed the people holding the paper. Some of the results are a little surprising: a smart young man dressed in a business suit holds a sign which reads "I'm desperate", while a police officer has written the single word "Help!". In Wearing's words, "A great deal of my work is about questioning handed-down truths". This piece was so well known as to be virtually completely copied for a British television advertising campaign by Volkswagen

"Everyone I Have Ever Slept With" by Tracey Emin

Everyone I Have Ever Slept With" is a tent appliqued with all of the bedmates she has ever had, from family members and sexual partners to the baby she aborted.

“Untitled” by Paul FinneganThere's no information on this guy anywhere. He looks like a mysterious drifter though, don't you think? This...thing..(sculpture?) looks sexual and demonic at the same time, yet vulnerable in that it's wearing shoes with no socks. hmm...

"How Does a Girl Like You End Up in a Place Like This?"Yinka Shonibare

"Self"Marc Quinn"Self" deserves a little explanation if you don't know about it already - it's an exact cast of Marc Quinn's head filled with his frozen, congealed blood. Obviously this would have to be in a refrigerated unit while on display.

"Bullet Hole"Mat Collishaw

Artist of the showArtists whose work appeared in Sensation: Darren Almond Richard Billingham Glenn Brown Simon Callery Dinos Chapman Jake Chapman Adam Chodzko Mat Collishaw Keith Coventry Peter Davies Tracey Emin Cerith Wyn Evans Paul Finnegan Mark Francis Alex Hartley Marcus Harvey Mona Hatoum Damien Hirst Gary Hume Michael Landy Abigail Lane Langlands and Bell Sarah Lucas Martin Maloney Jason Martin Alain Miller Ron Mueck Chris Ofili Jonathan Parsons Richard Patterson Simon Patterson Hadrian Pigott Marc Quinn Fiona Rae James Rielly Jenny Saville Yinka Shonibare Jane Simpson Sam Taylor-Wood Gavin Turk Mark Wallinger Gillian Wearing Rachel Whiteread