Contemporary Art Final Flashcards
Nam June Paik, TV Magnet, 1965
made of electromagnetic pulses
when the magnet moves around on the images on the screen become distorted and move around
Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman, TV Cello, 1971
perform with the television and live feedback on the television boxes
on the screens is a live stream of Paik in the onlooking audience, another tv is a pre recording of Moorman playing the cello, and another live television
Peter Campus, Three Transitions, 1973
chromakey, green screen
video synthesizer, can overlay images on top of another
Joan Jonas, Vertical Roll, 1972
when the tv set would “roll” and you’d smack the tv to make it go back to the picture
can’t ever obtain the full object of desire, can’t obtain the whole image it’s always distorted
a loud banging plays while the image changes with the roll
thinking about the format of the square box, she obtains the full space
Vito Acconci, Theme Song, 1973
to be experienced in a small television box
wrapping his body in that space and composing the space of the television
breaking the fourth wall to allow the viewer in
what are the physical limits of that fourth wall?
the viewer is gender neutral in that the viewer could be anyone
Pierre Huyghe, Third Memory, 2000
2 split screens
bank robbery in Brooklyn in 1972 is what he basis
1975 the movie Dog Day Afternoon was inspired by the robbery
Huyghe invites the original robber back for the Third Memory
bank robbery inspired by the media– the godfather
his memory has become completely massaged by the media
the real event, the movie event, both become the third memory
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #6, 1977
- representation of women through objectifying them and sex appeal
- female vulnerability
Jack Goldstein, MGM, 1975
Sherry Levine, After Walker Evans, 1979
began using photography to examine the strategies and codes of representation. In reshooting Marlboro advertisements, B-movie stills, and even classics of Modernist photography, these artists adopted dual roles as director and spectator. In their manipulated appropriations, these artists were not only exposing and dissembling mass-media fictions, but enacting more complicated scenarios of desire, identification, and loss.
Richard Prince, Untitled (three women looking in the same direction), 1980
consist of found advertising images, rephotographed and juxtaposed with one another by the artist. The deliberately artificial look of the photographs linked Prince to contemporaries such as Cindy Sherman and Jack Goldstein, who were also using photography to blur the line between reality and artifice.
Barbara Kruger, We don’t need another Hero, 1987
showing how we dont need anyone person to look up to in history, we dont need another hero, we need someone to help; 1980s crisis in the US; Aids, war in the middle east,
Dara Birnbaum, Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman, 1978-79
an incendiary deconstruction of the ideology embedded in television form and pop cultural iconography. Appropriating imagery from the 1970s TV series Wonder Woman, Birnbaum isolates and repeats the moment of the “real” woman’s symbolic transformation into super-hero.
Dara Birnbaum, Kiss the Girls and Make them Cry, 1979
Hans Haacke, Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real-Time Social System, 1971
supposed to have a retrospective at Guggenheim in 1971
German artist
show canceled at last minute
director of museum asked curator to remove art from the galleries
artist and curator refused to remove the work
investigative journalism
tenement buildings with financial information listed with photo
Many of the buildings are owned by the two same people but disguised by different names
1%- 2 people own all the tenement buildings in manhattan
critiquing the institution by being in the institution
the work of art violates the neutrality of the work of art and neutral works are protected by the museum- director of the Guggenheim
Daniel Buren, Guggenheim Museum, 1971
known for use of stripes to underline or highlight context
approved by curator and put in place
other artists in the show wanted the piece removed– mostly the minimalists
his works becomes part of the view of other artists works
unavoidable work to look at
Marcel Broodthaers, Department of Eagles, 1972
100s of objects unified by them all presenting an eagle
exhibited at his own museum
borrowed from museum collections
power and domination existing in eastern and western cultures
conception of hetero-topia— everything is the same
Fred Wilson, Guarded View, 1991
took four white mannequins painted black
took four guard uniforms from four major museums
some of the only people of color in a museum
made completely invisible
making the guards visible
Fred Wilson, Mining the Museum, 1992-93
museum pose a specific history
a globe with truth written on it encased
next to the globe are three busts of white men with no relevance to Maryland history
On the other side of the globe were three pedestals with missing busts of three black native Maryland peoples
In the next room there are cigar native americans– indians are facing the walls while on the walls are photos of real native americans– the statues are looking at the photos
In another room there are paintings with lighting highlighting the black figures in the paintings
in another room there was a broken painting of a white man with a video of a black man behind the hole of the painting stating that the sitter is actually half black– a black man is inside the white man
Another room compares shiney silver with dull slave shackles
another room places a KKK mask and places it in a baby carriage
whipping post used until 1938 in front of different chairs representing middle, high and low class– taking the physical presence of a body watching someone get whipped
When people entered they were told that they would hear a new history
Julian Schnabel, Exile, 1980
not critically acclaimed
art market liked it because it made people want to buy art pieces again
postmodern– pastiche- collage, mixing of elements
hard to know what is meaningful and not- decentralize of importance everything’s the same level
Jean-Michelle Basquiat, Irony of a Negro Policeman, 1981
suppressive to your own race
rendered as a robot that just takes orders by a higher power
splitting the body in half
outlining the body
mask- wearing a mask to try and fit into white society
Richard Serra, Tilted Arc, 1981
post minimalist
federal plaza, nyc
going against the shape of the plaza
funded by the government
became an eye sore and physically in the way
Serra was interested how the people interacted and viewed this piece based on where they were standing and viewing the work
1985- 122 voted to keep it; 58 voted to remove it, voted by 5 judges to remove it
1989- in the middle of the night cut into 3 pieces and brought to a scrap metal yard
government approved the work before it was built
Andreas Serrano, Piss Christ, 1987
bought a small plastic cross and then submerged in a glass of his urine and took a picture of it
how we read an image based on the process
was payed by the government to make this
Nan Goldin, Nan and Brian in Bed, New York City, 1983 and other images from The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, 1979-1996
documents a new family of hers; people with drug addiction, visualizing identity, post stone-wall gay identity
nuclear families are falling apart; higher divorce rates, rapid drug use, gay community
presents in a slide projection
organized by groups of men together, women together, people having sex, etc.
about what it’s about to live in a community, what it means to be human
fluidity of her art and her life; comes out of relationships not out of documentation
Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991
as the weight of Ross before he was sick of Aids
as you take the pieces you are taking away from his body and his health
ingesting ross, religious reference, taking medication like a person with aids
Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Billboard), 1991
taking an intimate object and making it public
artist’s unmade bed with two imprints of heads
charged space because typically aids is spread in a bed
site of conflict, dead, and love
Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Perfect Lovers), 1991
everyday readymade objects as a metaphor for human life
they are in sync when they start and they eventually fall out of sync- one dies before the other, the other one counts faster
uncontrollable circumstances they fall out of sync; time as the uncontrollable circumstance, mechanics stops working
Robert Gober, Untitled (Legs with candles), 1990
dream like image
phallic candles
the body parts are the same materials as the wax
the light will eventually go out
the people are just material
Paul McCarthy, Painter, 1995
makes him look like creature who limits society
mocks the abstract expressionist who in a confused and troubled painter
Mike Kelley, More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid and The Wages of Sin, 1987
handmade stuffed animals
when you receive a gift you want their love back to you
essentially a giant tapestry
Adrian Piper, Cornered, 1988
PhD from Harvard
identifies as African American
when defining someones race we corner them to find out their indentity
questioning and confronting her own race and race in general
Lorna Simpson, She, 1992
based on the body language you would think it was a man, but female is written above
Illya Kabakov, The Man Who Flew Into Outer Space from his Apartment, 1985
from Russia
makes installations
leading narratives
apart of an installation called “ten characters”
enter through a doorway with ten rooms- each room spoke to a different character
Installation Art
speaks to a room or a perfect space
the viewer physically enters into it
to create an experience, happens in time, and it theatrical
Minimalism, some performance art, happenings; can be considered installation art
boom of installation in the 90s– new art spaces are opening- artists begin to think spacially
what remains in the room is the man’s objects describing the title
Ann Hamilton, The Capacity for Absorption, 1998
walls of beeswax
little jars of water attached the walls that are spinning
large megaphone in the center
second room is covered in algae
man’s fingers are placed in holes through the table
third room there is a buoy with an outline of a brain
subvert the markets in the way that you cannot really buy this work and it takes a lot of money to make it
Ann Hamilton, Tropos, 1993
floor is filled with horse hair
actor at a desk; you enter the room you smell horse hair and a burning smell
the actor sitting at the desk is burning the words of a book; solder- the burning tool
confronting language
Mike Nelson, A Coral Reef, 2000
constructs multiple rooms for the viewer- 15 rooms
refers to a narrative
uses relatively cheap materials
walking through rooms including; a bicycle garage, rooms of evangelical meetings paperwork, islamic mini-cab office, security servailance office with porno magazines
a bank robbery scene
a room with a sleeping bag- a squatter for drug users
no wall labels, up the viewer to piece the rooms together
groups on the periphery of mainstream culture
an identical version of the first room is the last room- the viewer is disoriented in the space
usually in the space with about 3 or 4 other viewers
capitalism is the ocean surface it covers everything- neo-marxists wanted to see what was beneath the surface– the coral reef- the subcultures beneath the surface
signifying groups by their stuff
Thomas Hirschhorn, Bataille Monument, 2002
set up in a german slum where he invited people to just come and talk
typically wealthy white people were to go to this art event
had to bus wealthy art people to come to this slum; by doing so he distinctly divided these two communities
what happens when the work ends
Rirkrit Tiravanija, Pad Thai, 1990-1996
Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991
tiger shark
funded by an art dealer
Jeff Koons, New Hoover Convertibles (The New Series), 1981
worked at moma and studies Duchamp readymades
store bought vacuum- readymade
minimalism- clear box, neon lights
pop art- display of objects lit from beneath; marketing objects in your desires
surrealism- vacuum cleaners, akin to a human body, breathing machines, holes are the body, sees the vacuums as virginal, bought them new in the 1970s- these were the latest models of the 1970s
how many versions of the new have we gone through
capitalism wouldn’t function without us wanting the new
sees the machine as a body
Jeff Koons, Michael Jackson and Bubbles, 1988
press photograph of MJ with his monkey
never makes his own works
completely white washed his skin– at the time when MJ’s skin tones begin to change
seems familiar but strange
