The Contemporary Contour
(Art After World War II and Contemporary Art)
The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of
Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945
Outline Chapter 22:
The Contemporary Contour
Chapter 22: The Contemporary Culture
Toward a Global Culture
Existentialism
Painting since 1945
Abstract Expressionism
The Return to Representation
Contemporary Sculpture
Architecture
Some Trends in Contemporary Literature
A Note on the Postmodern
Music since 1945
Avant-Garde Developments
The New Minimalists
Traditional Approaches to Modern Music
Popular Music
Outline Chapter 22
Timeline Chapter 22:
The Contemporary Contour
1945
World War II ends; Holocaust becomes widely known
1945
Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
c.1925-1972
O'Keeffe, paintings of giant flowers and western
themes
1948
Pollock, Number 1 (abstract expressionism)
1952
Beckett, Waiting for Godot
1953
Hopper, Office in a Small City; Night Hawks(1942)
1955
Warhol, Soupcans
1956
Bergman, Wild Strawberries
1958
Miës Van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, Seagram Building, New
York
1959
Wright, Guggenheim Museum, New York
1959
Calder, Big Red
1964
Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
1977
Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, Pompidou Center, Paris
1978
Pei, East Wing, National Gallery of Art, Washington
1994
Gehry, American Center, Paris; Guggenheim,
Bilbao (1997)
Timeline Chapter 22
The World after WWII, Post-Modernism, and The Contemporary
Landscape
This chapter deals with Western culture after the time of the Second World
War. In the postwar period, with Europe in shambles and the Far East still
asleep, we confidently felt that the twentieth was the American century; many
people, not always admiringly, spoke of the "Coca-Colazation" of the world.
From the vantage point of the beginning of the 21st century we now see that,
however powerful the United States may be, there now exist other
countervailing powers, as the economic power of China readily demonstrates.
The Arts after WWII, Post-Modernism, and The Contemporary Landscape
This period has also seen some dramatic shifts in the arts. The modernist
temper that prevailed both in literature and in the arts has had its inevitable
reaction. The power of the New York School of painting (abstract
expressionism/color field painting/minimalism) has been challenged by new
art forces, mainly from Europe, that emphasize once again the picture plane
and the expressive power of emotion. In literature, the modernist temper
exemplified in writers like Eliot, Woolf, and others has now given way to a
postmodern sensibility represented in writers who are from Latin America,
Japan, and Europe. Increasing attention is being paid to the writers both from
Eastern Europe and from Africa.
Questioning and Revising the Underpinnings of Culture
Out of the human rights movement of the past decades has arisen a
determined effort to affirm the place of women in the world of the arts both by
retrieving their overlooked work from the past and by careful attention to
those who work today. Similarly, peoples of color, both male and female, have
come to the attention of large audiences as the arts democratize.
Contemporary debates over the core humanities requirements in universities
(Should they restrict themselves to the old "classics" or should they represent
many voices and many cultures?) simply reflect the pressures of the culture,
which is no longer sure of its older assumptions.
Existentislism, Humanism, Secularism, Relativism
No consensus exists on a humanistic worldview. The power of existentialism
after the war sprang both from its philosophical ideas and from its adaptability
to the arts, especially the literary arts. While the writings of Albert Camus are
still read and the plays of Beckett and Ionesco are still performed, they now
reflect a settled place in the literary canon with no new single idea providing
the power to energize the arts as a whole.
Pluralism
(and What is Next?)
It may well be that the key word to describe the contemporary situation is
pluralism: a diversity of influences, ideas, and movements spawned by an age
of instant communication and ever-growing technology. The notion of a global
culture argues for a common culture growing out of mutual links. There is
some evidence of commonality, but it must be said that in other areas there
are regional differences and even antagonisms. What we seem to be seeing in
an age when more people buy books, see films, watch television, listen to
tapes and CDs, go to plays and concerts than ever before is a situation the
Greek philosophers wrote about millennia ago-the curious puzzle about the
relationship of unity and diversity in the observable world: We are one, but we
are also many.
Hopper, Edward
•Hotel Room
1931 (150 Kb);
•Oil on canvas,
•60 x 65 inches
•Office at Night
1940; Oil on canvas, 22 1/8 x 25 inches
Georgia O'Keeffe
Bella Donna, 1939
Oil on canvas,
36 1/4 x 30 1/8 in.
Untitled (Two Pears),
1921
Oil on board,
8 7/8 x 10 in.
Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico /
Out Back of Marie’s II, 1930
Oil on canvas,
24 1/4 x 36 1/4 in.
Pollock, Jackson
The She-Wolf
1943 (230 Kb); Oil, gouache,
and plaster on canvas, 41 7/8 x 67 in
Number 8, 1949 (detail)
1949 (280 Kb); Oil,
enamel, and aluminum
paint on canvas
Franz Kline
Lehigh V Span, 1959-1960
60 1/4 in. x 80 in. (153.04 cm x 203.2 cm)oil on canvas
WILLEM DE KOONING
Composition
1955
Oil, enamel, and charcoal on canvas
79 1/8 x 69 1/8 inches
Woman and Bicycle, 1952-53
Oil on canvas, 76 1/2 x 49 in.
Robert Motherwell
Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110, Easter Day,
1971. Acrylic with pencil and charcoal on canvas,
82 x 114 inches. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Gift
HELEN FRANKENTHALER
HELEN FRANKENTHALER b. 1928
Viewpoint II, 1979
Acrylic on canvas, 81 1/4 X 94 1/2"
Jasper Johns
Flag. 1954–55
Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood (three panels)
42 1/4 x 60 5/8" (107.3 x 154 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg.
Bed. 1955.
Combine painting:
oil and pencil on pillow,
quilt, and sheet
on wood supports,
6' 3 1/4"x 31 1/2" x 8"
Robert Rauschenberg
Malaysian Flower Cave
/ROCI MALAYSIA, 1990
Andy Warhol
Marilyn, 1964
Campbell's Soup 1, 1968
Roy Lichtenstein
Picture and Pitcher,
1977; cast 1978
Painted bronze,
95 x 40 x 24 1/2"
Vicki, 1964
enamel on steel
H.42 x W.42 x D.2 in.
Brushstroke, 1965
color screenprint
on paper
58.4 x 73.6 cm
Philip Pearlstein
Two Models on Kilim Rug with Mirror, 1983
acrylic paint on canvas
90 x 72 inches
Frank Stella
Adelante, 1964
97 1/4 in. x 165 1/2 in.
metallic powder in polymer
emulsion on canvas
Frank Stella
Jarama II, 1982
Harran II, 1967.
Polymer and fluorescent polymer
paint on canvas, 120 x 240 inches.
Cornell, Joseph
Untitled (Soap Bubble Set)
1936 (140 Kb); Construction,
15 3/4 x 14 1/4 x 5 7/16 in
Untitled
1942; Construction,
13 1/8 x 10 x 3 1/2 in
Untitled (Medici Boy)
1942-52; Construction,
13 15/16 x 11 3/16 x 3 7/8 in
Alexander Calder
Mobile (Mobile), 1941.
Painted aluminum,
Approx. 84 1/4 inches high.
Red Lily Pads, 1956.
Painted sheet metal,
metal rods, and wire,
42 x 201 x 109 inches.
Edward Kienholz
Night Clerk at the Young Hotel,
1982-1983
118 3/4 in. x 120 1/2 in. x 48 1/2 in.
mixed media
Back Seat Dodge
Date: 1964
Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Giant Soft Fan (Ghost Version)
1967
Canvas, wood, and foam rubber
Bedroom Ensemble 1963
wood, vinyl, metal, artificial fur, cloth and paper
installation space: 3 x 6.5 x 5.25 m
Robert Smithson
SPIRAL JETTY
Rozel Point, Great Salt Lake, Utah
April 1970
mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks, water coil 1500' long and 15' wide
Nam June Paik
Megatron, 1995
Video Screens
142x270x23in
Mars, 1990
Neon and video
Postmodernism and Contemporary Art
See Video: Art Of The Western World; Volume 9
The Internet and the Future