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ARH 151 Chapter 21 Guide

The New York School

• Abstract Expressionism emerged in New York in the mid-20th century.

• The art of the New York School emphasized:

– spontaneity.

– gestural brushstrokes.

– nonobjective imagery.

– fields of intense color.

• Some Abstract Expressionists, like Jackson Pollock, focused on gestural painting methods.

• Other Abstract Expressionists, like Mark Rothko, explored subtle interactions of color.

Jackson Pollock

• Gestural painting method

• “Action painting”

1 – Fig. 21.1 Jackson Pollock at work in his Long Island studio (1950).

2 – Fig. 21.2 Jackson Pollock, One (Number 31, 1950) (1950). Oil and enamel paint on canvas, 8’ 10” x 17’ 5 5/8”.

Joan Mitchell

• Second generation Abstract Expressionist

• Female artist whose gestural painting methods earned her recognition

3 – Fig. 21.5 Joan Mitchell, Cercando un Ago (1957). Oil on canvas, 94 1/8” x 87 5/8”.

4 – Joan Mitchell, Bonjour Julie (1971). Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL.

Mark Rothko

• Chromatic painting

• “Floating squares of color”

5 – Fig. 21.6 Mark Rothko, Number 22 (1949). Oil on canvas, 117” x 107 1/8”.

6 – Fig. 21.7 Mark Rothko, Black on Grey (1970). Acrylic on canvas, 80 1/4” x 89”.

Post-Painterly Abstraction

• Color field painting & Amorphous shapes (Fig. 21.8)

• Hard-edge painting & shaped canvases (Fig. 21.14)

7 – Fig. 21.8 Helen Frankenthaler, The Bay (1963). Acrylic on canvas, 80 1/4” x 81 3/4”.

8 – Fig. 21.14 Frank Stella, Mas o Menos (More or Less) (1964). Metallic powder in acrylic emulsion on canvas, 118” x 164 1/2”.

Constructed Sculpture

9 – Fig. 21.9 David Smith, Cubi XVIII (1964). Stainless steel.

• Components of constructed sculpture may include materials such as rods, bars, tubes, planks,

dowels, blocks, fabric, wire, thread, glass, plastic, and machined geometric solids .

• David Smith burnished the surface of this constructed steel sculpture, leaving “gestural” marks

reminiscent of Pollock’s signature painting style.

Pop Art

10 – Fig. 21.17 Richard Hamilton, Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing? (1956). Collage, 10 1/4” x 9 3/4”.

• Pop Art relies on universal images of popular culture, such as movie posters, billboards,

magazine and newspaper photographs, and advertisements.

• Through their selections of commonplace and familiar objects, as seen in Richard Hamilton’s

collage, Pop artists challenged commonplace conceptions about the meaning of art.

Robert Rauschenberg

11 – Fig. 21.18 Robert Rauschenberg, The Bed (1955). Combine painting; oil and pencil on pillow, quilt, and sheet on wood supports. 75 1/4” x 31 1/2” x 6 1/2”.

• Combine paintings blurred the boundaries between painting and sculpture

• Rauschenberg aimed “to bridge the gap between art and life” in his selection of materials and

subject matter

Jasper Johns

12 – Fig. 21.19 Jasper Johns, Three Flags (1958). Encaustic on canvas, 30 7/8” x 45 1/2” x 5”.

• Neo-Dada

• Johns created encaustic paintings of commonplace objects—flags, targets, and maps, placing

the recognizable images in new contexts, giving new meaning to them.

Andy Warhol

13 – Fig. 21.20 Andy Warhol, Green Coca-Cola Bottles (1962). Synthetic polymer, silkscreen ink, and graphite on canvas, 82 3/8” x 57.

• Silkscreen printing

• Repetition and variety

• Consumer culture

Photorealism

Photorealism represented a new endeavor to depict subjects with sharp, photographic precision. It was,

in part, a reaction to the expressionistic and abstract movements of the 20th century.

14 – Fig. 21.23 Audrey Flack, World War II (Vanitas) (1976-1977). Oil over acrylic on canvas, 96” x 96”. Incorporating a portion of Margaret Bourke-White’s photograph The Living Dead of Buchenwald, April 1945.

15 – Fig. 21.25 Chuck Close, Big Self-Portrait (1967-1968). Acrylic on canvas, 107 1/2” x 83 1/2”.

Realist Sculpture

16 – Fig. 21.24 Duane Hanson, Touris ts (1970). Polyester resin/fiberglass, life-sized; man, 5’ high; woman 5’ 4” high.

Realist sculptures, like Duane Hanson’s Tourists, often fool viewers, serving to blur the boundaries

between art and life and to erode divisions between high and low art forms.

Minimalism

17 – Fig. 21.26 Donald Judd, 100 Unti tled Works in Mill Aluminum (1982-1983). Interior detail. Machined aluminum boxes housed in abandoned buildings (renovated by Judd) on the former U.S. Army base Fort D.A. Russell, Marfa, Texas.

• Minimalists sought to reduce their ideas to their simplest forms.

• They created geometric shapes or progressions of shapes or lines using minimal numbers of

formal elements—for example, the minimum amounts of colors and textures.

• They did not attempt to represent objects or figures.

Performance Art

• Performance art privileged action over object, public spaces over museum settings, the

impermanent over the permanent, and, often, audience participation over passive spectatorship.

• Most of the pioneering work in performance art is memorialized in still photographs, if at all.

• Today, a subgenre of performance art is performance video.

18 – Fig. 21.27 Recreation of Allan Kaprow’s Fluids (April 25-27, 2008). One of twenty rectangular enclosures of ice blocks, each measuring approximately 30’ long, 10’ wide, and 8” high

19 – Fig. 21.29 Yoko Ono and John Lennon in a Bagism way in April 1969.

Conceptual Art

20 – Fig. 21.31 Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs (1965). Wooden folding chair, mounted photograph of a chair, and mounted photographic enlargement of the dictionary definition of chair.

• The conceptual art movement, which began in the 1960s, asserts that art lies in the mind of the

artist; the visible or audible or palpable product is merely an expression of the artist ’s idea.

• Conceptual art challenges the traditional definition of art as involving technical mastery of a

craft.

• Some scholars trace the origins of conceptual art back to Duchamp’s ready-mades.

Art and Identity

• The dominant art movements of the 1950s and 1960s were almost exclusively white male. Many

artists in the second half of the 20th century explored gender, sexual, racial, and ethnic identity

through visual representation, using their art to articulate difference and challenge the status

quo.

• This concerted effort to diversify the art world, which launched in the 1970s, continues today.

21 – Fig. 21.32 Barbara Kruger, Untitled (We Don’t Need Another Hero) (1987). Photographic silkscreen, vinyl; 109” x 210”.

22 – Fig. 21.45 Kehinde Wiley, Napoleon Leading the Army Over the Alps (2005). Oil on canvas, 9’ x 9’.

Feminist Art

• Feminist art explores the role of gender in society, including in the arts.

• Artists like Judy Chicago created iconic feminist works, using mediums linked to women to

celebrate women’s achievements (Fig 21.34)

• Artists like Ana Mendieta used their own bodies in their works to challenge the ever-present

male gaze (Fig 31.35)

23 – Fig. 21.34 Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party (1974-1979). Painted porcelain, textile, and needlework; 48’ x 48’ x 48’ x 3’.

24 – Fig. 21.35 Ana Mendieta, Arbol de la Vida, no. 294, from the Arbol de la Vida / Silueta (Tree of Life / Silhouette) series

(1977). Color photograph, 20” x 13 1/4”. Documentation of earth-body sculpture with artist, tree trunk, and mud, at Old Man’s Creek, Iowa City, Iowa.

The Guerrilla Girls

25 – Guerilla Girls appearing on Late Night with Stephen Colbert in 2016.

26 – Fig. 21.36 Guerilla Girls, Poster (c. 1987). www.guerillagirls.com.

Sexual Identity

27 – Fig. 21.39 Robert Mapplethorpe, Ken Moody and Robert Sherman (1984). Platinum print, A.P. 1/1, edition of 10; 19 1/2” x

19 5/8”.

• As women have sought to express their individuality and social concerns through art, so have

members of the LGBT community.

• Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe created many black-and-white images of people struggling

in a world that was hostile to them because of their sexual identify.

Racial Identity

28 – Fig. 21.40 Romare Bearden, The Dove (1964). Cut-and-pasted paper, gouache, pencil, and colored pencil on cardboard. 13

3/8” x 18 3/4”.

29 – Fig. 21.42 Jean-Michel Basquiat, Melting Point of Ice (1984). Acrylic, oil paintstick, and silkscreen on canvas, 86” x 68”.

30 – Fig. 21.43 Kara Walker, Insurrection! (Our Tools Were Rudimentary, Yet We Pressed On) (2000). Installation view (detail). Cut-paper silhouettes and light projections, site-specific dimensions.

Faith Ringgold: Quilting as an Art Form

31 – Fig. 21.41 Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach (1988). Acrylic on canvas, bordered with printed, painted, quilted, and pieced cloth. 74 5/8” x 68 1/2”.

Kerry James Marshall at the BMA

32 – Kerry James Marshall, School of Beauty, School of Culture (2012). Birmingham Museum of Art. Visit:

Ethnic Identity

33 – Fig. 21.46 Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People) (1992). Oil and mixed media on canvas, 5’ x 14’ 2”.

Modern Architecture

• Modern architecture rejected the ideals and principles of the classical tradition in favor of

experimental forms of expression. Streamlined, geometric forms of glass, concrete, and steel

became integral to the modern aesthetic.

• Modern architects felt free to explore new styles inspired by technology and science, psychology,

politics, economics, and social consciousness.

• Steel-cage structure

34 – Fig. 21.51 Ludwig Miës van der Rohe, Farnsworth House, Fox River, Plano, Illinois (1950).

35 – Fig. 21.52 Ludwig Miës van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, Seagram Building, New York (1958).

Post-Modern Architecture

• By the end of the 1970s, architects continued to create steel-cage structures, but drew freely

from past styles of ornamentation, including classical columns, pediments, friezes, and a variety

of elements from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

• This architectural movement, known as Postmodernism, “warmed up” buildings, linking them to

the architectural past.

36 – Fig. 21.53 Burgee Architects with Philip Johnson. SONY Plaza (formerly AT&T Building), New York (1984).

37 – Fig. 21.54 Michael Graves, Humana Building, Louisville, Kentucky (1985).

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