Key concepts, critics, groups

Question 1

Abstract expressionism

Answer 1

1940s-50s.

A term applied to new forms of abstract art. Gestural brush strokes. Developed by Mike Rothko & Jackson Pollock. Spread modernist traditions.

Impression of spontanity.

Question 2

Clement Greenberg

Answer 2

An American essayist who was mainly known as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century.

Advocated for formalist aesthetics and championed abstract expressionism.

Question 3

Museum of Modern Art

Answer 3

November, 1929; Lille P. Bliss, Mary Quinn Sullivan, and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller set out to create a hotspot of modern art in New York. This reformed art history and created a new capital of the art world.

Question 4

Modernism

Answer 4

A rejection of historically popular art/conservative values. (less realistic)

Innovation and experimentation with form.

Emphasis on materials, techniques, and processes.

Key figures: Jackson Pollock

Question 5

Modernity

Answer 5

Is the product of modernism. This work describes the qualities of art being modern.

And a departure from previous traditions and doctrines.

Question 6

Contemporary Art

Answer 6

No hard constraints to define contemporary art; however, it is art that evolves with artists and their perception of modern/ancient issues.

Art that it intertwined with society, hence creating a global village. Engages action with performance art and abstraction.

Notioned in the 1960s, boomed in the 1970s.

Question 7

Gutai Art Association

Answer 7

Group of avant-garde Japanese artists.
Known for experimental art, combining painting with performance, interactive, conceptual, site-specific, installing, and theatrical artworks.

Key figures: Jirō Yoshihara, Atsuko Tanaka

Question 8

Fluxus

Answer 8

An international, interdisciplinary community of composers, artists, designers, and poets during the 1960s-70s.

Fluxus engaged in conceptualism and performance art.

Key figures: Joseph Beuys, Ben Vautier

Question 9

Documenta

Answer 9

An exhibition that focuses on abstract art from the 1920s-30s. Takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany.

Question 10

Performance art

Answer 10

Artworks created by actions performed by the other or other participants. It can be live, recorded, spontaneous, or scripted.

Question 11

Pop art

Answer 11

Art is based on modern popular culture and mass media. It is a critical and ironic comment on traditional fine art values.

Question 12

Conceptualism

Answer 12

A broad label of contemporary art in which the ideas prioritize the process of creation more so than the finished piece.

1960s-70s.

Key figure: Jackson Pollock

Question 13

Minimalism

Answer 13

Extreme abstraction; prioritizing minimal elements, functionality, and form.

Question 14

Land Art

Answer 14

A branch of minimalism that inserts sculpture/material or removes environmental materials to assert art into nature.

Question 15

Linda Nochlin

Answer 15

An instrumental figure in the effort to decrease the disparity of representation of male and female artists.

She did this by changing the language that surrounds how we speak of artistic development.

Question 16

Video art

Answer 16

Installation works project video/images to an exhibition space, may include props or sculpture.

Key figure: Jeff Wall

Question 17

“Painting is dead”

Answer 17

Paul Delaroche after seeing a photograph declared, “…” This was because he believed technology would exceed any medium without technological involvement.

Shared anxieties around development.

Question 18

Neo-expressionism

Answer 18

Late modernist movement and early post-modern painting. Reaction to minimal and conceptual art.

A major revival of expressionism, a style in which the artist seeks to express emotional experience rather than the impression of the world itself.

Key figure: Anselm Kiefer, George Baselitz, S. Sudjojono

Question 19

Neo-conceptualism

Answer 19

1980s-90s AKA: neo-geo.

A movement that continued conceptual arts questioning of the art object within the art institution. Themes of social landscape, urban environment, isolation, and community.

Influenced by pop art and minimalism.

Derived from the conceptual art movement of the 1960s-70s

Key figures: Peter Halley

Question 20

Street art

Answer 20

Fast-paced graffiti, chalk, or other drawing medium that is a public display of artwork. Typically on buildings, streets, trains, and publically accessible.

Key figures: Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat

Question 21

Pictures Generation

Answer 21

A loose-knit group of artists that set out to make art that makes relationships with popular culture and mass media.

Question 22

Appropriation art

Answer 22

The practice of transforming ready-made material/found objects as art.

Question 23

Social sculpture

Answer 23

a performative/interaction sculpture that engages with the public.