Final

Question 1

What is existentialism

Answer 1

Post world war 2 philosophy which stresses the anxiety of inhabiting a world with absolutes. Rise of individualism and moral responsibility.

Question 2

Who is Clement Greenberg

Answer 2

American art critic and theorist of modern art (“Modernist Painting”)
Prominent supporter of abstract expressionism
supporter of formalism/ art for arts sake.

Question 3

What is formalism

Answer 3

Study of art by analyzing and comparing form and style- purely visual aspects. emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape, texture, etc

Question 4

What is High Modernism

Answer 4

Institutionalization of abstract expressionism. Authority of NY art market.

Question 5

Who is Harold Rosenberg

Answer 5

American critic who coined the term “action painting” (abstract expressionists)
writes “the American action painters” in 1952

Question 6

Who is Carl Jung

Answer 6

Believed in a personal unconscious and a collective unconscious- memories and association all humans share

Question 7

What is abstract expressionism

Answer 7

abstract and non-representational painting emphasizing inner emotion and collective unconsciousness

Question 8

What is gestural/action painting?

Answer 8

Subcategory of abstract expressionism. Focus on pronounced brushwork, line (gesture) and movement

Question 9

What is colour field painting?

Answer 9

Subcategory of abstract expressionism. Focus on large fields of colour. Usually quiet and contemplative.

Question 10

What is post painterly abstraction?

Answer 10

abstraction based on Greenberg’s theories. Avoids emphasis on gestural and evidence of the artists hand, emphasizes medium ;flat.. Purity and openness of design, art more optical and decorative, color for its own sake

Question 11

What is hard-edge abstraction

Answer 11

emphasizing simple geometric forms. Large flat forms avoiding pictorial depth

Question 12

What is minimalism

Answer 12

art of extreme visual reduction. Predominantly sclupture. Stresses primacy of object, context is important, emphasis on idea

Question 13

What is Neo-Dada

Answer 13

Art as concept, (avant-garde)- attempt to bring art into life. Noted for its coolness or emotional distance. Emphasizes the world of signs

Question 14

What is an anxious object

Answer 14

Taking an object that would have another use and using it as art. EX) Marcel Duchamp’s “fountain” that was a urinal

Question 15

What is combine painting?

Answer 15

an artwork that incorporates various objects into a painted canvas surface- highbred between painting and sculpture

Question 16

Who is Marcel Duchamp?

Answer 16

He influenced Neo-Dada and was a sculptor.

Question 17

What is pop art?

Answer 17

begins in London, response to high modernism, art based on popular culture not elitist, embraces representation, irony and humor rather than political

Question 18

Who is Lawrence Alloway?

Answer 18

He wrote arts and the mass media, and he looked at mass media as a way to connect art to current events to represent and not be for academic purposes

Question 19

What is performance art?

Answer 19

art as a continual work-in-progress, loosely structured theatrical pieces, improvisatory and usually chaotic, involves audience

Question 20

What is Fluxus?

Answer 20

minimalist, intellectual art movement most often associated with performance art. Popular in Europe, opposite to the expressionistic style of happenings

Question 21

What is conceptual art?

Answer 21

Renews emphasis on the meaning of art, language as primary medium of art, dematerialization of art,

Question 22

Who is Sol LeWitt?

Answer 22

Wrote paragraphs on conceptual art. He emphasizes conceptual over perceptual art, and states the idea becomes the machine that makes the art.

Question 23

What is earthworks?

Answer 23

Conceptual works sometimes executed with earth as medium or support, resistance to commodification of art, attempts to connect art with real world.

Question 24

Who is Linda Nochlin?

Answer 24

She wrote why have there been no great female artists. many see her work as seminal to feminist art history.

Question 25

Who is Irving Sandler?

Answer 25

Sandler and other post-modernists were sick of the modern arts not being relevant or educational in any way. They wanted art to engage specific social context, and they focussed on topical subjects instead of stressing on the purely visual forms and importance of art.

Question 26

What is postmodernism?

Answer 26

Reaction against modernist trends, reflective of our cultural diverse age ,characterized by irony parody and humor