Contemporary Flashcards
1
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Andy Warhol, Campell’s Soup Can Installation at the Bianchini Gallery (American Supermarket), 1964
- Pop artists responding to the world around them; become a parallel
- Breaking down how people look at art and galleries
- Places the real consumer product with the artwork of the product which is actually a consumer product
- making the consumer and the viewer the same person
- the gallery is the store
- Consumerism vs capitalism
2
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- Claes Oldenburg, The Store, 1961
- rented a store on E 2nd street (as opposed to Warhol on the Upper East Side)
- stayed at the store as the shop keeper turned artist
- made consumer objects out of wire, paint, paper mache, they are messy and cheap
- the store itself is supposed to be a sculpture
- for art about life– art that you take off like pants
- deals with consumer popular items
3
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- Allan Kaprow, 18 Happenings in 6 parts, 1959
- A score of instructions of what should be happening in different rooms
- Wrote rules to be happening in different rooms
Development of Happenings
Kaprow thought that art and life are fluid
Allan Kaprow- art historian turned artist
What do we do now? After Pollock?
- To continue making paintings like Pollock
- To give up making paintings all together
- Kaprow chose the second option and made art about the experience instead of having a painting
- Says to look at the stuff of life in order to make art, and not just paint in order to make art
- Kaprow wants to make art and life nondifferent
- Made a rule of happenings which forces the artist to become fully involved in their own work
- Was influenced by Pollack, John Cage, and John Dewey
- Art was becoming an action - Happenings were to poke fun at the audience and to be made uncomfortable
4
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- Henry Flint, No More Art, 1963
- Vladimir Mayakovsky- Russian futurist (wanted to destroy the past of what people thought about art and wanted people to look at art differently
- Pollack and other abstract art is at a high and people arent paying attention to this kind of work
- Fluxus artists wanted to outshine the abstract expressionists
Fluxus
- loose-knit group of artists centered around George Maciunas
- Flux between art and life
- Henry Flynt
- Composer, artist, musician
- Yoko Ono organized a concert series or performances within her own studio space, she did not perform any of her own pieces because she was a woman artist
5
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- Nam June Paik, Zen for Head, 1962
- Mostly known for his video art, but was also a fluxist
- Completed La Monte Youngs piece by dunking his head in tomato juice and drew the line with his head and hair
- Comes from a direction while Pollack is self expressing his own emotions
- Almost a way to poke fun at the abstract expressionists
- Also comparing it to Japanese caligraphy; form of the scroll is looking towards his background
- Buddism was also a rising trend at this time, John Cage became a buddhist in the 1940s, along with other artists at the time
6
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- Tony Smith, Die, 1962
- Not composed- singular, one part
- Minimalism uses no base, takes the piece off the base, which allows it to be apart of natural world, it’s no longer passive
- The viewer becomes the second part of the piece, the conversation is between the viewer and the piece
- The floor acts as a stage for the piece and the viewer
- Michael Fried (student of Greenberg) opposed this work because of how it looks outward to the viewer
- Minimalism- singular forms that refer to the outside–to the space of the room and to the viewer; detached from the artist, removed from the artist having it industrially made
7
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- Robert Morris, Installation Shot from the Green Gallery, 1964
- Installation shots became more popular during minimalism because the viewer and the piece and the installation are all apart of the work
- Michael Fried writes that this is theater (not art) because the piece and the viewer are on the same “stage”
8
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Robert Morris, Untitled, Box for Standing, 1961
- performance side of minimalism
Minimalism
- series of objects
- grid shape
- Industrial materials
- Sculpture in the corner makes one recognize the corner
- Arising from painting and performance
9
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Robert Morris and Carolee Schneemann, Site, 1964
- performance involving Morris dressed like a construction worker, started in a dark room with a jackhammer sound and reveals schneemann laying naked, he constructs a wall to cover Schneemann and the jackhammering sound stops
10
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Robert Morris, Neo-Classic, Exhibition at the Tate, 1971
- Taken down after 4 days because visitors were invited to perform these works, but people were getting into accident, etc.
- All of his pieces relate the viewer with the object, whether the object is a performance or a geometric object
- Michael Fried would say this is theatrical because the viewer becomes the subject and a particular singular experience, we become part of the composition
11
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Robert Morris, Steam, 1967-68
12
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Donald Judd, Untitled (stack), 1967
13
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Walter de Maria, Lightning Field, 1977
- sculpture outside the confines of a gallery
- Sculpture in the expanded field, which is affected by nature and funding
- Stainless steel poles in a grid 1 mile by 1 mile, 400 poles
- field has a long history of heavy lightning
- Minimalist grid- interest in lines and grids
- Artists have a desire to leave the gallery system- galleries and museum would only show pop art and abstract expressionism
14
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Walter de Maria, Cage, 1961-65
- Part of the worlds of fluxus, land art, minimalism, happenings
- Literally a cage, but also a portrait of John Cage
- John Cage was this tall and similarly slender
- John Cage was so important to artists, questions what could be art, performance, and fine art, also created a problem of what do artists do after John Cage, take his principles and then move past them
- Was in band called “The Primitives”
15
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Jean-Claude and Christo, Running Fence, 1972-76
- in order to make this artists had to think about nature, funding, people, etc.
- They fund their own work but selling sketches and drawings of the final work
- Legal battles make the work take long to finish
- Fence went through 59 people’s private land who needed to approve the work in their land
- $2 million project
- Piece was up for 2 weeks to compromise with the landowners
- attempt to leave the gallery space and museums; those institutions are made for the elists
- artist went out to raise funds for this piece; they take on a public person instead of just the artist, publicist, project manager, artist etc.
16
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Jean Claude and Christo, Wrapping of the Reichstag, 1971-1995
- German parliament building
- Berlin
- End of the cold war and the fall of the Berlin wall
- Was destroyed during the war and later rebuilt
- Conceived the concept in the 1970s and once the wall was down (1989) the wrapping more or less began
- Locals loved the piece representing rebirth and unvailing
- Up for about a summer
17
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Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty,1970
- entripy- dissolution of any order into disorder
- Made out of rock and salt
- This piece is entripy
- Sublime- awe and terror- often related to nature
18
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Robert Smithson, Non-Site Palisades- Edgewater, NJ, 1968
- bringing the land into the gallery system
- taking something from its original site
- On the floor
19
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Dan Graham, Homes for America, 1965-67
- Minimalistic about this: serialistic repetition, mass production, grid like,
Post- Minimalism/ Process Art
- After minimalism
- Using the form, using the formal elements of minimalism but they have different conceptual ends than the original minimalists
- A formal designation: works that use the same visual vocab as Minimalism, the same visual tropes but to different conceptual ends
- A chronological designation: Immediately after Minimalism, artists who move away from the final product, focusing on the process; sometimes referred to as “Process Art”
20
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Rachel Whiteread, House, 1993 (destroyed)
Takes casts of space of buildings and objects
- making the invisible, visible
21
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Robert Barry, Inert Gas Series, March 5, 1969
- released different kinds of gasses into the desert air
Promote the idea of their work while demoting the object
Only exists in photo- photo conceptualism
Seth Siegelaub- brought these four conceptual artists together
- was looking for ways to curate the show with the artists
- “Xerox Book” Exhibition, 1968
- Works existed in the book and only in photograph
- How institutions can cater to these new artists through this mode of exhibiting
22
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Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965
- Physical chair
- definition of chair
- photograph of chair
- The idea of chair is the “one”
- Based no platonic forms and semiotics
Semiotics- greek for sign; a sign is something that stands for something else in some way in the mind of someone
- a sign of a deer- its not an actual deer, but its a sign showing that deer are in the area
23
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Lawrence Weiner, BITS & PIECES PUT TOGETHER TO PRESENT A SEMBLANCE OF A WHOLE, 1991
- the piece never ends it’s infinite
- the viewer and the meaning are just as important as the artist
24
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Douglas Huebler, Duration Piece #11, Bradford, Massachusetts, 1969
25
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On Kawara, Today Series or Date Paintings, 1966-2014
- Made a painting on the day that is on the canvas
- Displays the date in the format of his location
- Displays with a box of the newspaper of that day
- Interest in time; time is universal and also person
26
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Carolee Schneemann, Eye Body, 1963
- the room became the painting and she was the female nude
- she became not only the painted object but also the creator- the painter and the painted
- female goddess connected to the earth
Female performance art
- women’s issues; the body, education, equality, feminism
Male performance art
- aggressive, violent, sexually violent, concerned with viewer relationships
The Body and Performance
- Vietnam War- 1967
- Nixon- 1969-1974
- Kent State Massacre, 1970
- Student protests throughout USA
- Boom of capitalism- country begins to heal after WWII, the world would be better through capitalism– eventually led to be false
- Body as a medium– everything personal and private becomes public and political
- Body art is a cheap way to execute ideas
- was popular by women because men didnt typically body art
27
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Laurie Anderson, Object/ Objection/ Objectivity, 1973
- Theory of the gaze- theory of looking
- unaggressive looking is dominating and powerful and control
- the gaze is always gendered male- the female gaze is property of the male gaze
- we look at ourselves based on what we think man looks at us
- encoded “to be looked atness”- the woman is the object of desire
- she becomes the object who makes an objection
28
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Marina Abramovic, Rhythm 0, 1974
- placed 72 objects on a table to use in any way the viewer chose
- People could use the objects on her in any way they wanted
- people first acted with caution and then people began to act aggressively
- at the end she gets up and people were startled by her confrontation
29
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Judy Chicago, Dinner Party, 1979
- how women were written out of history
- spin of the last supper
- included women sitting at the table
- advancing the feminist cause- sitting women at the table,
- Anti-feminist-Including womanized objects on a dish as an object, more than just a vagina, more than a flower, biological essentialism- essentializing what female is by the body
- triangular shape of the table- female biology, last supper, equalizing form; no head to the table
30
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Valie Export, Tap and Touch Cinema, 1968-71
- Had a box covering her bare breasts and invited people to touch her
- replaces the gaze with the act of touch
- breaking the passive role of looking to touching
31
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Vito Acconci, Following Piece, 1969
- In new york
- audience didn’t know they were participants
- done everyday for a month and follow one person until they entered a private space
- public vs private
- performed for documentation?
- the artist as the shadow of the followed
- artists constant idea of power
- is the final artwork the piece?
NYC Performance in the 1970s: City as Stage
- more direct, immediate way to convey ideas to viewer
- Ideas that are solely about the body; racism, feminism
- Democratic medium; everyone has one
- don’t need a gallery in order to show work
- Second wave feminism
- Consumerism
- Vietnam
- “the pill”
- student uprisings
- women’s rights
- testing the audience and viewer relationships
- For women: this was an unguarded territory- new mode of working
- Performers are moving work into the streets
32
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Vito Acconci, Trademarks, 1970
- bit himself, smeared ink on the wound and made a print
- violent printing press, inner conflict becomes public, personal and public
- bite mark is his trademark
- a consumer can buy his work but not recreate his trademark
33
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Vito Acconci, Seedbed, 1972
- making a seamless ramp,under the elevated floor the artist laid masterbating during visitor hours
- the person on the ramp would hear his amplified noises about themselves (the viewer)
- male gaze via a power dynamic
34
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Chris Burden, Shoot, 1971
- a friend stood 13 feet away and would shoot him in the arm
- morals– option of the viewer; loss of moral obligation because of setting
- responsibility of the viewer
- viewers take on a passive role
- Vietnam war fighting in ideological, televised war, public and private relationship
- could be a protest to vietnam; what are you going to do about the violence
35
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Sam Hsieh, One year performance 1980-1981 (Time clock piece)
- every hour of every day for a year
- takes a photograph
- documentation, time clock, photograph, final video
- time - labor time vs natural time
- prisoners of time- lived time, natural time, labor time
- time is a construction by people
- “time sickness”
36
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Laurie Anderson, Duets on Ice, 1974
- wore ice skates with ice frozen around the blades
- playing violin with a video recording of a violin
- the blocks of ice and the melting of that ice, done during summer
- thinks about time, the metronome is the ice, when the ice melted the performance was over
- the audience- the public, confusion
- how do you exhibit performance art- the city is the public sphere
