Art of the 1950s - present
Breaking through Abstraction
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”
Rauschenberg,
Retroactive I, 1964
Silkscreen on
canvas, 84”x60”
COMBINES
Neo-Dada (or Pop Art)
Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces, 1955
Encaustic = liquid wax and pigment; plaster, wood
Johns often used alphabet, flag and target images
Robert Rauschenberg,
Monogram, 1955-59
His combines feature stuffed
animals, found objects and
newspaper collage…
POP ART—1950s60s
don’t alienate the masses!
Andy Warhol, Marilyn, 1964, Silkscreen
•“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
Warhol
1962, Soup
Obsession
with
reproduction
and
repetition
Roy Lichtenstein, Hopeless, 1963, oil on canvas
Comicbook art; showed the pixels=BENDAY DOTS
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’s
Store…the artist as
butcher, baker,
candlestick maker, all
with plaster, paint and
muslin
ART as LIFE
SUPER-REALISM or PHOTOREALISM
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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 lamp
Pop objects and people involved with them.
Also labeled Pop artist.
Segal, Breadline at FDR Memorial in
WDC, 1991. Cast a year after his
death
Duane Hanson, Supermarket Shopper, 1970,
Lifesize, fiberglass and polychrome
Photorealist sculptor captures modern alienation,
Casts from human models, then breaks up into pieces for
detailed painting
PHOTOREALISM--SUPERREALISM
What is the
optical fact?
Chuck Close,
Big Self-Portrait,
1967,
9’x7’ (always)
No brush strokes, no
painterly reference
Images 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 60s
Post-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 (1960s70s) 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
•
NEO-EXPRESSIONISM
Susan Rothenberg, Tatoo, 1979, acrylic, 5’7”x9’7”
“The horse is a way of not doing people, yet is symbolic of people, a selfportrait, really”
Post-Modernist FEMINIST ART
examines the dynamics of power and prestige
Miriam Schapiro, Anatomy of a Kimono,
fabric and acrylic, 1976
Femmages—collages of fabric, buttons, embroidery
Barbara Kruger, Your Gaze Hits the Side
of My Face, 1981
Untitled, 1986
Word and photo assembly, myth-buster, mass media layout
with text internalizing meaning and stereotypes
Post-Modernist FEMINIST ART
Cindy Sherman, 1980s-present
Gender as a socially fabricated concept.
Female beauty is constructed for the male
gaze; photo self-portraits
Guerrilla Girls, 1984-present
…comments on woman as
artist…injustice of a sexist,
racist art world
Post-Modernist FEMINIST ART
Judy Chicago, Dinner Party, 1979
Now at the Brooklyn Museum
39 place settings for women throughout history;
China painting, needlework…recover past to build new identity
Last Supper a la Feminine Mystique. ..vagina references
Installation Art
Post-Modernist SOCIAL
PROTEST ART
Faith 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
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
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.
Keith Haring, Stop AIDS, 1989
Graphic people as scissors, simple red
snake…adaptive graffiti; text is art
Post-Modernist SOCIAL
PROTEST ART
Leon Golub, Mercenaries , 1980, mural-sized
American, subjects of violence, terrorism in immense size
Formalist 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
•
•
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Clothespin, 1976, Philadelphia
Cupid’s Span, 1977, San Francisco
two stories high
Typewriter Eraser, 1999,
Washington, DC
Sculpture after the 60s—
POST-MODERNISM meets POP
Pink Panther, 1988
Balloon Dog, 2008
Jeff Koons--Explores consumer
society…”Mannerist” Pop Art,
glorifies common icons---art as
commodity
Sculpture after
the 60s—
Ron Mueck, Big Man, 2000,
Super-scaled for emotional impact
check 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
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•
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Fusion of sculpture and architecture
“Earthworks”, environmental art; created
for a specific outdoor site
Challenges assumption that all art must
be in a museum
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
Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970,
Great Salt Lake, Utah
1,500 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
PUBLIC ART
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Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial, WDC, 198183
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, 2011
Controversy over the words: “I am a drum major for peace.”
What do you think?