 The Quest for
Racial Equality
Gender Equality

 The Quest for
Racial Equality

American History (1)
 1861-65 the Civil War, southern states secede from the Union and founded the Confederate
States of America
 1865-77 Reconstruction
 1877 Segregationist Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow Laws –
Segregation – sharing facilities prohibited

The Harlem Renaissance:
1920s-1940s
 During the 1920s, Harlem became the capital of black America, attracting black intellectuals and artists from across the country and the
Caribbean.
 Many of the greatest works sought to recover links with African and folk traditions.
 A fierce racial conscious and a powerful sense of racial pride animated the literature of the
Harlem Renaissance. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=443

Harlem by Langston Hughes


What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore
—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over
— like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

 1924 Exclusionary immigration act barred Asians
 1941 Japan bombed Pearl Harbor
US entered WWII
 1942 President Roosevelt ordered internment of Japanese
Americans in camps

The Civil Rights Movement:
1950s-1960s
 1954 School segregation banned
 1955-1964 Negro Revolt (non-violent protests led by Martin Luther King, Jr .)
 1964 the Civil Rights Act, banning segregation in public places
 1965 the assassination of Malcolm X, dynamic leader of the Black Revolution , who rejected nonviolence and advocated black nationalism

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X met before a press conference. Both men had come to hear the
Senate debate on the
Civil Rights Act of 1964.
This was the only time the two men ever met; their meeting lasted only one minute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/File:MLK_and_Mal colm_X_USNWR_crop ped.jpg



Robert Colescott, Les Demoiselles of Alabama

Yasumasa Morimura, Portrait (Twins), 1988

Manet, Olympia, 1863

 The Quest for
Racial Equality




Untitled Film Stills, 1995



 1. After modernism?
 2. Contra modernism?



 Postmodernism rejects the distinction between ‘high’ and
‘popular’ art which was important in modernism, and believes in excess, in gaudiness, and in ‘bad taste’ mixture of qualities.

Postmodern
Literature
 (1) combines disparate styles in works ( references to other cultures and world views)
 (2) quotes from various works
(intertextality 互文性 )

Postmodern
Literature
 (3) rejects traditional style in favor of parodying writing
 (4) authors are often selfconscious: address the reader, inject commentary worlds of author and reader blur

Postmodern
Literature
 (5) questions the authoritative interpretations of literary works
questions whether a work exists in and of itself, or if the work only exists in its interpretations

Postmodern
Literature
 (6) questions the absolute nature of the meaning of language
 (7) metalanguage: works are often "about" language rather than simply use language to communicate ideas

 Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory .
2 nd ed. Manchester:
Manchester UP, 2002.
 http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jsa3/hu m355/readings/37/chapt37.htm


(19112-1956)

 Process, uncertainty, change

 "When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a sort of
‘get acquainted’ period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through . It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well."

Alchemy, 1947.
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_lg_129_1.html

Eyes in the Heat, 1946. http://www.guggenhei
mcollection.org/site/a rtist_work_lg_129_5.
html



Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup Can

Andy Warhol, Elvis

Andy Warhol, Mint Marilyn Monroe, 1962

Andy Warhol, Mao #91



Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein



Richard Hamilton, Just What Is It That Makes Today's
Home So Different, So Appealing?, Collage, 1956

Robert Rauschenberg, Tracer, 1963

Robert Rauschenberg, Retroactive I, 1964

Jasper Johns, Flag, 1954


“ Using the designs of the
American flag took care of a great deal for me because I didn’t have to design it, so I went on to similar things. . . things the mind already knows.
That gave me room to work on other levels.”
Jasper Johns



Suane Hanson, Tourist, 1970



Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970

