20th Century Post WWII‘Less is More’

Chapter 34

Abstract Expressionism

• Movement from 1940’s-1950’s• Artists expressed their inner feelings through

abstract paintings - with few identifiable objects.

• NYC was the center of the movement • AH: 2 varieties – gestural abstraction and

chromatic abstraction

Gestural Abstraction….

• Expressive application of paint leaving visible and often chaotic brushstrokes

• Also called – “action painting” – Jackson Pollock & William de Kooning

Chromatic Abstraction…

• Lacks energetic application of painting but uses blocks and lines of color to express complex feelings about the universe.

• Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman are chromatic abstract expressionists.

AH: have referred to their canvases as color field paintings; and also refer to the movement (A.E.) as the New York School.

Jackson Pollock

• On a raw, unprimed canvas he dribbled, flinged, splashed and poured paint on the floor of his studio.

• He walked around, even stepped on the canvas

• Gave a feeling of actually being in the painting.

“Jack the Dripper”• Time magazine 1951• No hidden meanings or

symbols • Body movements and

gestures. • Non-representation –

Pollock’s paintings resemble (G.E.) Kandinsky – no depth

• Kandinsky expressed spirituality – Pollock subconscious

William de Kooning

• Dutch painter • Action painter • Inner thoughts/emotions • Reworked his canvases –

wiping off layers and repainting

• “Woman I” a piece from his series of large female images.

Mark Rothko • Huge blocks of color • Incorporated light hues

and muted dark shades. • A.E. because he lacks

identifiable imagery and uses color to express vision.

• Saw life as a cycle of tragic and happy times.

• Used abstract blocks of color of express deep feelings about life.

Barnett Newman

• Used color to express feelings about humanity and relationship with the universe .

• Painted the canvas 1 color, with stripes vertically through it- stripes were referred to as ZIPS.

Concord, 1949Barnett Newman (American, 1905–1970)Oil and masking tape on canvas

Helen Frankanthaler• Combined Abstract Expressionism and a style

referred to as POST-PAINTERLY ABSTRACTION• Although lacks subconscious expressiveness of

action painting, Frankenthaler used Pollock’s method of laying canvas on the ground to do her work

• She diluted her paints then poured the paint onto a raw, unprimed canvas, letting the colors soak in the material

• AH: refer to the technique as color stains

Bay Side 1967

New York School Sculpture

• The NY school artists also produced sculpture. • Resembled Abstract Expressionists paintings

because they are primarily NONREPRESENATIONAL and express subjectivity of the artists that created them.

• These artists used industrial materials such as metal and wood

David Smith’s Cubi Series

• Welded pieces of metal together in abstract compositions.

• The spaces between the lines of welded metal bear an interesting resemblance to the paintings of Pollock.

• Smith’s influences included artists such as Picasso.

David Smith’s Cubi Series• As his career progressed,

his style evolved• Most famous is the Cubi

series came out in the early 1960’s

• Basic geometric shapes such as squares, rectangles, and circles

• Welded in a way that the shapes are in a precarious way (as they would fall from the sculpture).

David Smith’s Cubi Series• They are cantilevered in

space, similar to F. L. Wright implemented in his architecture

• Smith uses machines with wire brushes to burnish the metal – gives a textural feel.

• AH: Believe Smith’s Cubi series as having some human characteristics…life is a precarious balance

David Smith’s Cubi Series

• Some critics also note Cubi’’s resemblance to Native American totem poles in their size and the way they are stacked.

• This is plausible to due his interest in spirituality and Existential philosophy.

Louise Nevelson• Assemblage sculpture out

of wood and welded metal• Russian born, raised in

Maine, became acquainted with wood at the lumberyard her father owned

• Became a part of the NYS• Showed UNITY with

repeating shapes and color

Louise Nevelson

• Her sculptures often consisted of stacked, boxlike compartments with a variety of shapes inside them.

• Often painted her sculptures one color, so as to NOT distract the viewer.

Departure from Abstract Expressionism

• Hard Edge OR Post Painterly Abstraction• Sought to extract the qualities of

Expressionism, like action painting, while creating abstract canvases of crisp lines and solid colors.

Frank Stella’s Pinstripe Paintings

• A famous Post Painterly Abstractionist • Developed canvases of solid color separated by

areas of bare canvas• Canvases emphasized flatness with no sense of

recessional space• From a distance it appears that his canvases

actually have pinstripes…• Stella said “What you see is what you see.” • Used canvases of different sizes and shapes

Frank Stella’s Pinstripe Paintings

• Some are shaped like protractors

• Pinstripe motif

Minimalism…. ‘Less Is More’• An American Movement 1960’s and 70’s• Emphasized hard shapes and straight edges (like

the PPA)• Sculptors infused NO surface decoration,

narrative elements, figures, or other imagery• Donald Judd, leading Minimalist, described the

idea as “getting rid of the things that people used to think were essential to art”

• These artists did not seek to create abstractions of figures, but like Stella, created geometric sculptures (so the viewer saw what they saw)

Minimalism…. ‘Less Is More’• Their sculptures were

typically large and made of metal

• Removed visible signs of themselves in the work

• Donald Judd, Untitled 1969

• Several metal boxes, in a vertical composition attached to a wall with steel brackets.

Minimalism…. ‘Less Is More’

• The boxes are evenly spaced and prefabricated

• Did not hide his material• Polished brass; could see

inside the boxes (used colored Plexiglas)

Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial• Maya Ying Lin’s Minimalist Masterpiece• While a college student won a commission to

design the VVM, in DC• Designed as an angled, black wall that slowly

increases to 10’ tall at the corner and gradually recedes back into the ground

• “The Wall” is geometric and simple in appearance; made of black granite that is reflected and incised with the names of 58,000 casualties and missing American soldiers of the VW.

Pop Art • A reaction to the AE movement, Pop Art was

developed• Pop Art strived to attempt to meet people’s

demand for more recognizable art• Popular in the 1960’s – based on recognizable

imagery drawn from POPULAR CULTURE; such as advertising, consumer products, comic books and celebrities

• In the 50’s the U.S. economy became increasingly consumer based

Pop Art• Artists produced artwork that reflected the

consumerism of American Society• Pop Artists developed graphic art techniques;

like photographic transfer to create images, supplying color by using benday dots and silkscreens

• BUT, Pop Art was not a new phenomenon since Dada artists incorporated imagery from the 1910’s culture with photomontages and ready-mades …

Richard Hamilton • British created Just What

Is It That Make’s Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?

• Small collage with pop culture references

• Expressed mass media with the TV, a newspaper, and a theater marquee

• Included advertising with Hoover vacuums, Ford cars…

Richard Hamilton

• Hormel canned ham, and Tootsie pops• To express pop culture, he used images of a

famous bodybuilder (Charles Atlas); and an image from an erotic magazine

• Viewers felt that they were stepping into a display of a department store window

• The expression of the mundane elements of pop culture became the new avant garde

Jasper Johns• Influenced the the

development of Pop Art in the United States

• Created his famous Target with Four Faces, painted plaster casts of 4 faces from the nose down with a target painted below

• Johns presents only parts of the faces, and their juxtaposition with the target encourages the viewer to think about the piece.

Jasper Johns -Flag• Recognizable imagery • Encaustic painting of an

American flag 3’6”x 5’ 5/8”

• Under the flag are newspaper clippings (unusual context); because the wax is translucent one can see the newspaper

Robert Rauschenberg• Used scraps of

newspaper, photographs and discarded materials to make his assemblages

• Collected items from the environment

• “Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made. (I try to act in the gap of the two).”

Robert Rauschenberg

• Combed the streets of NYC for materials to use in his assemblage paintings, which he called combines.

• He “combines” multiple meanings in his works• Recognizable objects and images of objects

may seem odd when juxtaposed, but on closer view his arrangements have connections

• Canyon

Canyon, 1959• A stuffed eagle placed on a

pedestal shares a connection with the pillow suspended by fabric from the pedestal; the eagle is covered with feathers while the pillow is stuffed with them…

• A photograph with a young boy, hand is raised; echoes the pose of a postcard of the Statue of Liberty holding the torch.

Roy Lichenstein • Comic-strip-style paintings• Often used images from romantic comic strips

and war comics• Re-created a melodramatic moment in his

paintings• His paintings have flat areas of color surrounded

by heavy black lines• His trademark – BENDAY DOTS …name derivative

of Benjamin Day printer, who used the method of dots for printing color on cheap paper.

Roy Lichenstein “Hopeless” • Benday dots are solid dots

of color; RED on WHITE give flesh tone; BLUE on WHITE give the impression of light blue

• When looked at from a distance it looks a solid block of color

• Lichenstein used this method for an authentic comic book feel

Andy Warhol • Went to art school where he designed newspaper

advertisements for shoes• Influenced him to develop the art of the

commodities – objects that are bought and sold• Used graphic arts production methods such as

photographic transfer and silkscreen…• These methods allowed him to make multiple

copies of consumer items such as Campbell’s Soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles, and Brillo Pad boxes.

Andy Warhol

• Even named his studio “The Factory”

• Produced images of 1960’s pop icons like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley

Superrealism (Photorealism)

• Still-life’s or portrait paintings with photographic accuracy during the 1960’s and 70’s

• Audrey Flack and Chuck Close

Audrey Flack • Realistic still-life paintings

that resemble 17th century Dutch vanitas paintings in both tromp l’oeil and Symbolism

• MM real name was Norma Jean; symbolism that tells the story of her life from childhood photograph as well as references that her life was cut short at age 36

Audrey Flack • Flack included fruit, symbolizing life, some of

which a partially peeled• Dutch vanitas paintings often had fruit partially

peeled to show how life is slowly being peeled away

• An hourglass and pocket watch = passage of time; calendar page of August month she died; red lipstick perfume and pearls – her trademark

• The glass and small Dutch cup reference the Dutch influence

Audrey Flack

• She commented…. images she saw were almost exclusively photographic quality. She remarked that much of how we see the world is through photographs

• Flack used airbrush to blend away and trace of brushstrokes.

Chuck Close• Painted images of

average people, usually friends and family

• Close revived portraiture “Big Self Portrait”

• Based on a photograph • Very distinct and

recognizable

Duane Hanson• Sculptor of the Superrealist

style, whose work reflects American pop culture

• Created average American people of the 1960’s and 70’s

• Tourists – a man and woman in gaudy attire

• The man is overweight and balding, the woman is slightly taller with thick lipstick and sunglasses

• Perhaps a retired couple?

Duane Hanson

• What is he saying about Americans? His he presenting a stereotype of American tourists?

• He created many Realistic sculptures, a boxer, weightlifter, a supermarket shopper and a sun bather

• Took casts of the bodies of real people and made either a bronze/polyester resin sculpture of their forms

• Used real hair and clothes

Art and Politics• Feminist and Earth Art!!• Exemplify the politically charged climate of

America during the 1960’s and 70’s• The era of the Cold War and the Vietnam War• Peace protests criticizing our military

involvement in Vietnam• “Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll” – Rock music

proliferated; social more became more relaxed as younger generations experimented with sexuality and drugs (Think Forrest Gump movie)

Art and Politics

• America was forced to come to grips with social racial and gender inequality, that caused protests and riots

• Amidst the political turmoil, many Americans artists sought to use an unconventional way to express their reactions

Feminist Art and Judy Chicago• During the 60’s female artists began to use their

work to address issues of sexual discrimination• Raises awareness of the significant accomplishments

of women• Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party is an installation

piece, that is an artwork that creates an environment of its own in a section of a museum or gallery

• The Dinner Party alludes to 39 women that Chicago believed should be recognized by having a seat at “the table”

The Dinner Party- Symbolism

• Originally wanted 13 women (witches coven); the number was inadequate so tripled the number 39 famous women

• The table is a equilateral triangle with each side measuring 48 feet

• Triangle symbolic of Mother Goddess

The Dinner Party- Symbolism

• Incorporated traditional women’s art mediums – ceramics and embroidery

• Each setting had a distinct design with abstract organic imagery resembling female reproductive system

• Achieved UNITY with the same goblets and utensils for each setting

Environmentalism and Earth Art

• Citizens started to preserve nature in the face of growing industrial and the production of cars

• Artists began to create works that incorporated natural materials and were placed in outdoor locations

• The movement of art from the museum to sculpture gardens into new contexts – as the work acts as a dialogue to the site itself

• Earth Art is site specific, most are in remote locations – the desert…

Robert Smithson’s – Spiral Jetty

• Disliked the idea of turning the natural site into photographs and paintings – believed that it could not be properly captured through a 2D surface

• So, he created earthworks outdoors• Drove around for inspiration• Spiral Jetty, Great Salt Lake in Utah…low-level

scanning; that is he drove around until the site conveyed shape or design in his mind

Robert Smithson’s – Spiral Jetty• The Great Salt Lake he

visualized a spiraling shape

• Discovered salt crystals in the lake as having a spiral

• Moved tons of sand and rocks to create the spiral

• 1,500 feet long• Thus the design has a

dialogue with the site

Robert Smithson’s

• Diverse influences: Stonehenge; prehistoric earth mounds in the US; used Minimalist vocabulary to achieve the simplicity and clarity of his design of Spiral Jetty

Conclusion• Variety of movements

after WW II• By 1945 the center of

the art world was moving to NYC

• Abstract Exp (Gestural and Chromatic)

• Color Stains• NY School• David Smith

• Louise Nevelson• Hard Edge • Minimalism• Pop Art • Superrealism

(Photorealism)• Judy Chicago• Earth Art