STATE OF THE ART

Question 1

Barr, Alfred, Cubism and Abstract Art 1936

Answer 1

Cubism and Abstract Art

• Museum of Modern Art, New York 1936
• Avant-Garde as a series of -isms in an inevitable process, leading towards abstraction
• Barr’s notion of viewer’s enjoyment of formal elements is an art for art sake position

Question 2

Hank Willis Thomas, Colonialism and Abstract Art 1936

Answer 2

• tracing what he perceived to be the roots of Cubism and abstraction
• Red items pertain to Africa, including the founding of Léopoldville
• Green items denote cultural movements, including the Harlem Renaissance in New York, just below and to the right of World War I.
• Blue arrows denote connections across categories. (the demand for automobiles)
• – Thomas persuasively argues that this diagram (and the art-historical narratives it supports) fails to acknowledge the equally significant socioeconomic, cultural, and political circumstances

Question 3

Mϋnter, Gabriele, Alexej von Jawlensky and Marianne von Werefkin 1908-09

Answer 3

Style: Expressionism
Genre: portrait
- Best-known female Expressionist artists today.
- striking still life compositions, and figure studies, she often depicted friends and colleagues in her work.
- The couple is Alexei Jawlensky and Marianne Werefkin, painters acquainted since their St. Petersburg schooldays.

Question 4

Photo of Gabriele, Mϋnter Kallmϋnz Brϋcke 1903

Answer 4

• carrying a freshly painted canvas
• It was in Kallmünz that the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky and the German expressionist painter Gabriele Münter met during the summer of 1903

Question 5

Ringgold, Faith, American People Series #20, Die 1967

Answer 5

“Super-Realism”
- depict the confrontation of black and white Americans in a cartoonish art style
- Pop style that also invoked modernist appropriations of African art (specifically the volumetric forms of African wood sculpture) by Picasso and Kirchner
-“I became fascinated with the ability of art to document the time, place, and cultural identity of the artist. How could I, as an African American woman artist, document what was happening around me?”
- blood spatters evenly across suggesting that no one is free from this struggle.
- Their clothing—smart dresses and business attire—implies that a well-off professional class is being held accountable in this scene
of violent chaos.

Question 6

Von Werefkin, Marianne, Self Portrait 1910

Answer 6

• Member of the Neue Künstvereinigung Munchen (NKVM), a group which she cofounded with Wassily Kandinsky to forward ideas associated with Expressionism.
• stylised use of color, and its impression of psychological and spiritual intensity.
• Contrasts fiercely with the pastoral image rendered by her friend Gabriele Munter
• While the background hints at an outdoor setting and the pulsating carnation on her hat nods to the standard portrait convention that associates female sitters with nature
• Werefkin presents herself as anything but a decorative complement to the landscape