Lectures 20&21 Flashcards
Diego Rivera, The Arsenal, 1928 fresco
murals by department of education
-archway carved by stone (window into world)
song lyrics about peasant revolution
blue-urban industrial workers
factory for production of weapons- passing them to peasants
unity of industrial and agricultural workers
red star- communist party-creating art as weapon for social change
Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936
- public works of art project- to employ needy artists- public property
- hired photographers to document effects of depression across the country- available to anybody copyright free
- plight of migrant farm laborers who fled Dust Bowl and flooded California looking for work
- representative of poverty suffered by thousands of migrant workers in California
- carefully constructed to tug at heartstrings- sympathize with mothers worn expression and resolve
- reminds us of images of the Madonna as she contemplates the loss of her son- poster child off great depression- anti madonna- loss, fear but sense of american perserverance
- baby in arms
David Alfaro Siqueiros, Collective Suicide, 1936 industrial enamel on plywood
-rejected plywood, used canvas
wants to use materal to reflect proletariat
experimental
seeing metaphor for coming cataclysm in europe
capital vs fascists- out of that will emerge new proletariat
Picasso, Guernica, 1937 oil on canvas
- black and white- photography-seriousness no distraction
- nationalist supporting German bombers attacked the town of Guernica killing 1600 citizens- cold blooded and calculating nature of attack was inhuman- fires for days- served no military purpose other than to terrorize civilian populations- “training mission “ for german airforce
- immense history painting detailing the historic and ignoble events of the attack
- scene of brutality chaos terror and suffering
- painted in black, white and dark blue- resonates with anguish
- freezes figures in mid movement in stark black and white as if caught by flashbulb on a reporters camera
- bull in upper left, wounded horse in the center, several human forms along with a giant light bulb like an eye at the top, lam, smoke and fire
- bull and horse as nationalist and republican forces
- guernica is about massacred people and animals- beyond that meaning is fluid- no “specific” meaning behind figures
Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm, 1948
meant to envelop you- fill entire field of vision
- canvas as arena in which he could act rather than space to reproduce, redesign, analyze or express an object, actual or imagine
- moving around and within the canvas- commercial paint rather than artists paint
- seen as chaotic, but he saw them as labyrinths that led the viewer along complex paths and into an organic calligraphic web of natural and biomorphic forms
- lacks hierarchical arrangement- multiple moving focal points and denies perspectival space
- paint never escapes edge of the canvas
- turn image upside down and its wrong- has one place
- jazz influences, native American influences
- control in light frame all the way around- controls drips
exposes depths and feelings that people are reluctant to see in themselves
“American” artist- macho, cowboy
Robert Rauschenberg, Bed, 1955
-transition to pop art- found material of every day mainstream american life
folk art made by women- geometric abstract
placement of sensual, intimate obejcts in public
Andy Warhol, Thirty-Five Jackies, 1964- silkscreen
- images w/ reference to death
- black blue (sadness)
each applicaton is slightly different- controlled grid
disciplined ordering- assembly line
the factory- art made in way objects are made
film strips- repetition reminds us of news repeating
until it made you numb
JFK assassination as turning point- emotional moment into banal
- imitated and critiqued 1960s popular culture- used common advertising mass production techniques to give their art a flat, commercial feel, a stance that was also intended to show opposition to the presence of the hand of the artist in Abstract Expressionism
- emotional tone of pop art was more ironic, camp, and cynically detached
- reproduced using silkscreen- past art demanded thought and understanding, whereas advertising and celebrity culture demanded only immediate attention, very quickly becoming uninteresting and boring
- done multiple times, different every time
- mass mdia brings us closer to the world they also allow us to observe the world as voyeurs rather than participants – we become desensitized by death and disaster by constant repetition of images on televisions and are able to literally switch off at any time
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Mathias Goeritz, Message, 1960
2d sculptural wall pieces
would inspire awes
skeptical of existentialism
nails-crucifiction? violence?
tap ancient spirituality and bring it to modern art
Lygia Clark, Bichos, 1960
hinged together, could be manipulated
made of crisp clean metal and geometric shapes
thought of them as having a life
no inside, outside, interactive object
multisensorial art piece- 1 on 1 experience
rejected regular art for art therapy
