- shift: modernism being challenged, signaling of end of modernism & start of post-modernism
reasons for shift: trauma of WWII
-marks 20th century as century of global warfare
-creating divisions & interlinking across nations
- artists become skeptical of modernism as unifying project bc it seems to just be bringing war
- abstract expressionism in U.S. gets wrapped up in cold war cultural politics
- post-WWII sectors of germany (germany divided)
- west germany: international contemporary art founded
informel movement emerging from france:
-informal = "unformed"
-sense of disembodied drips
-no sense of sublime
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| volonte de puissance (will to power)- jean dubuffet 1946 humorous response to post-WWII interest in low, base, bodily paint mixed w mud/dirt/sand nude man, pinned down/flattened |
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| olympia- dubuffet commentary on manet's olympia literal flatness |
- outsider/visionary art= art made by people who aren't trained professionally
-dubuffet believed it to be the most original
-anti-modernist gesture on it's attack of self-improvement, actually learning how to art
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| champigny blue- wols 1951 |
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| head of a hostage no. 22- jean fautrier 1944 responding to experiences of WWII flicker btwn abstraction & figuration suggests vision of mutilated flesh anonymous victims & bodies |
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| foyer d'art brut galerie rene drouin, paris, 1947 |
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- U.S. provides promising vision after the war: capitalist democracy, higher standard of living, advanced, powerful nation
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| life magazine, 1952 consumer culture self-betterment through consumption knock-off mondrian & pollock |
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| the connoisseur- norman rockwell 1962 old man enthralled by abstract expressionist painting |
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| pollock = bohemian artist --> tool of consumerism |
the legacy of jackson pollock- allan kapow:
taught abstract expressionism but can't work in the mode
pollock "destroyed" painting
texture of pollock's canvases = not exactly flat
multi-media = not exactly medium specific
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| an apple shrine- allan kaprow 1960 happenings= participatory events static spaces that you can enter multi-sensory experience response to pollock paintings bc he felt sucked in by them (?) |
1960s:
-civil rights movement
-second wave feminism
-student movements
-assassination of JFK & MLK
-man on the moon
-VN war
-first televised presidential debate btwn kennedy & nixon
- artists cannot look away/not respond to these conditions/problems --> re-emergence of avant-garde = neo-avant-garde in the 1960s-70s in aftermath of WWII
- artists trying to engage reality as way to comment on the world around them
-challenging in conventional notions of painting- don't follow medium specificity
-turn to the things that are related to the "every day," familiar materials & objects
-work against art as transcendent & apart from the every day
-more performative & affordable work
- cultural turn: image culture + mass media
- delayed reception of duchamp
-participation + dimension of every day
"the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact w the external world by deciphering & interpreting its inner qualifications & thus adds his contribution to the creative act" -the creative act, duchamp
- the name neo-dada circulates in the 1960s as well
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| black market- robert rauschenberg 1961 piece that needed viewer participation paint & assemblage |
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| marilyn diptych- andy warhol 1962 popart mass culture elevated to fine art modification of the self repeated & deteriorating silkscreen image face looks robotic & loses color throughout repetition |
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| lavender disaster- warhol 1963 |
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| birmingham race riot- warhol 1964 |
emergence of minimalism:
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| untitled (three L-beams)- robert morris 1965 austere, colorless simplicity = easily understandable sit directly on the floor confronted viewer & activated the whole space |
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| untitled (mirror cubes)- morris 1965 austere, colorless simplicity = easily understandable sit directly on the floor confronted viewer & activated the whole space reflect body of viewer forced to walk all around it & notice subtle shifts that happen depending on the angle viewer completes the work of art |
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