H.H. Arnason - The Retrospective 80's (Ch. 26)

8/17/2019 H.H. Arnason - The Retrospective 80's (Ch. 26)

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26he trospective igties

n its most effectve forms, moderist art ·om Mnetlto Pollock took te for of a revelaton conibut

g to te wold by showin the way to a more enompssing tut thn revousl l1own s ts messaniqli of modernist t that ade its strues so draati

d its solutons so forcel As the wold witnessed eHoloat the war in Vietam and e sure of cilest in the late sixties, the search for a sin tut byte lone artst seemed resutuous at best and autoritian at worst Wit the develoment of a mriad of new roahes durn the late sxies and seventesluin Conetual art Perfone art Land art ndoess rt-nd the ower soial and oical criiues feists nd iv rhts acvists, it bee increasinlyvios tat tratona stories nd interretaons of��odernism" were simly indeuate.

In te eiies a nber of asts and my moretis and tests delaed a brea wit te modern identn temselves as Postmoderss" Postodrnis imied a ssatscon wit te narrow cones of moderism wi aarently romoted teolismens of white male ats of Euroenescent at te exense of enin ocal and social onens nd nonmajoit and feme rtss Postmodernism, ontast, enoaed overl olemil ractces and anoni distane om onvenions of te ast The deveo

ent of Posoderism was failitated by the tools ofosrutraism and deconstucionteoret rooons tat ad ained nreas romnence sine the lateies amon tsts itis, and art istorians The termosts·ucturalism" inates tat movement aeer te develoment of Stuctraism a scool of touhts on the remise that ndelyin stuctures in laage and society ould be idented and studied as vitalsets of ulte. Postsuurism refers to te work of gro of redomianl Frenh hosohers inclunJqus Derrida Micel oualt, nd Roland Bartes,o osit ed that the sutures of lnuae and olitial8ti ons were siml onventions ather tan natrl

fats Understood as onsucons rater thn essenil riniles stucures of lanae and of instuons couldthen be anazed and deonsucted" Te ratice ofdeconstructon involves 1e nute examinaion of teassumtions underlyn artlr texts wich may be

literary but may aso refer to 1e lrer discoses ndsocia and otcal neworks in whih we live our livesTe insits ofPostsuctaism combined wit the tehniue of deconsuon roded te theoretcal toolsto nayze te underlyn assumons o modernismenabln asts and ters to aat a t brek wih moderism.

Somewhat ronically at the sme me taPostmoderncues of at were bein formulated, te audiene andthe mrket for new art were reater tan ever n tisaOsere my ouner arsts were catalyzed toree te story of art in a wa that resonated itla Postmodern onscousness. The ars of te eiteslooked back to ny nmber of istoria styles, sometimesinlu several styles witn one work; in order to recontextize e acevements of moderism to ive themsinice aPostmodern envirouent elimn te

value of at that had been remised on an authoitave ositon tat was no loner lid was a cult and contenious roect Wile some rtsts restated throuharoriation tle voices of te t in te omany of tle

resent others created contemorary vriations on sylesof Exressioism absaction installaion, d assemblaeThe secons tl1at follow exaine te aesthet and olitalonseuences of attemts te eies to enlist tadiionsof istoical modernism to seak to te resent

des f ex: rrain

Aroriaton te tactial borrowin of sul ultre·om one ontext to anoter w one of the rst identin rateristcs of an art that would be ed

Posmodern Aroriaon w most leary evident inthe work of a number of artists who, reardless of the

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raig, reied on photogrphy for the sorce materi.Brbara Kruger, Sherrie Levine chrd Prce d CndySheran, among other preented photogrphs of photographs; photographs of teeviion; photographs that lookedke paintngs of paintings; and pinngs of photographs These works al faled to asert ny of the rnsfor maive eects expected of art Like te citations made byPop rts y Lichtente d Andy Warhol (see g62138, 2143) Appropriaon appered to lack sign ofcreai A dscussed in chapter 25 the appropriative

rategy of pastiche was apparent in the work ofte con

tempory architects Robert Venuri ichael Grves adPhiip Jolson who seemed to be colagig hitoriclstyle to generate conteporry bildgs For seemedto be stolen and pted togete ith ttle regrd for theorgal context ad soe worred, ttle regrd for theimeate context eiter Ts cut-andpste procedurerned out to have great potenal for visual practice

Depite i ple deon as omethg n tographic te Appopriaon c be stetched to clude

work that copied nd manipulated both images d waysof coucatg In its nitial carnatin crca 1977,

Appropiaton art nctioned by eptng the borrowedimage of is nl signc_aon d ceag new mening by reposiong it in a new context The result antagonized iewer whose iiti aestetc or emotional res

ponses to a pictre were conraicted by the ct thatte art d not acu crea it To stled vewers ofte late sevenes Appropiaon appered to be a menpiited plagis that ndermed he itve experence of loolg at art

Apropriatve artis, uch a Kruger, Levine Pnceand Sheran, did not tend to underne te viewer uthey beeved it was cicl lat viewers d not conse�e

creaviy of the rtists' sorce wit he ntention of thenew work They adopted devices for keeping he veweraware of the mechanics of Appropriaon and stancedo te raitionaly expresive aspects of rt uch asquong asily recogzable souces such as Mond· orte Marlboro Mn; adoptng iscly isrupve featuresu as colage or drac croppng; nd creatg titethat explned he appropriation Like Duchap or Fluxus(ee g 131 240) Appropriaon r nsisted thatthe borrowed ite was meanig because of is posionand thei creave act lay framg it

Appropriaon turned out to be a eective strateg fordeg the power of tle as ea d even steng it der By excng images om te aroiginl contexs nd miing tem wit oter ages frofferent orce, Appropriaion stps iconograph of itoriginl import At the sae e, by putng borrowediages into a new context hat , by "recontextualizingtheit also endows ho mages a new and oenusetng pact at encourages viewers to see e orginal sorces a new ight This string effect mang uee faar mage aesh a if for the rst eis the

8 CAPR ROP S

source of Appropations power a a critique n te cicl langage of e day, this effect ade Appropriaton "deconsrucveseg moon an aalytic proctat tl apart d expoe he age-alers deign us rt of knd gives us a ore sopscated awarenof how ely we cn be mapulated by visul image

Kruger, levine, Prince, and ShermanA notable example of he deconstucon proces at wois fod n te rt of Brr uge (b 195) H

pictrendtext combinaon (g ) revel he m anpulative aspects of modern meda clre Krg who e mdxes had worked as a graphc deignerMademoisee appropiates he look of a glosy agazayout Fashion magazines re especily cer exaof conrived visual meaning since they freely crop agroup heir picture ad pose captons on them, in orto force the ages to he parcar "story that t photo eitor ws to tel By borrog hese tecniqund by bnging hem to he surface where we caot mthem,Kruger mkes it obvou that our reponse not oto ts pictetalen o a e photo nnubut

ay meda age, s lrgely ctated by the editorializingits presenter O dertng of what we see is no

rbr Kruger e e e e y ce 1 91 Poto 0 0 5 6Collt Vk Mdv nd Bernrd NGnrd


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ple, ect response to th optc facs; rather it is eig hat has been "conscted r us

k ike Kruger's suggests that sts c lso t bles f the mea can maplate ages n order to con- ew menngs so cn rtstsby ting such mages nd gving hem yet anoher new spn In so dongsts can open the viewer's eyes to the complex, ambgu-s pcess by wich he meags of vtlly a picese cnstructed In ct one can ucover a good del abouthv clre works nd what t beeves by "deconsuctg e way it uses vsua ages Tis process of deconcn evels how cer ages ncton to enforce myhs rather thn y underlyng truth. The force oftal observation, for insnce that women expeences sbjects of he myc sdrds of beaut is capted ger's mage wh he metaphor of a slap. By con-nng e role of mages nd dent he tecquef ppropaon brought t to the meagoveed,aesatrated eighesd, simultaneously, brought e eighies into ar t.

e qtessenl Postoderst among Aericanrtiss may be Sh (b 947), for her work most

ley represents i mages om he cnon ofesten t hstory evne �t stred the rt world n8 wi1 n exhbiion of her ow unmpated phooaps of weknown, textbook exples of ages tlen sch master potogrphrs as dwrd Weston, WerEvs, and neas Feng. evne's repicaon of heseic images pointely udermned he des of mod-esmorigli auhencit nd he meiated lkbeee the mage nd g. The presentaon of mages nteror f a poor Souther home byEvs for nstnceauhor by Levne forced the vewe cnemplate not the sblme geomery of he home

e corresponng morl rectude of its ihabitant,s Evns ntended, but th nework of poltical r, coerci forces ha sent vns to the South ands work to he muse evine's copy confrons us

wt mpu, ambg, nd pocs n place of vns's ipeccable cari

er compleng is sees of photographs, Levneelzed that her subversion of these tradtonl standrds rsc vlue could be ccompshed not only hrough ptogaphic reprodco but lso ough the nseronf er o touch. A a woman rst deconsucngst erpeces of mle arss by redog them in watercolor

ced its own fest sttement Lvne begn hand ptng watrcolors d uaches "aer tbook reproons of pngs by Lger, Monin, Lissitz and ut Davscoplete w pntig aws Her United er PietMondrian (. 262) substutes the measedtesion and colorsc balnce of Mondrin's pnng wthe slgh green iperfcons of e textbook reproduc hat s evnes orgil Lke Poles Bunnie, (see g.265) evines copy o a massproduced reproduconws attenon to he tsformaon of everyhng from

Serre Lee A P ndan 983 Weoor, 1 35. 7 Pre colecon

sex to t nto commoes traded n he culurl or politcl economy.

Levne pursued slr gols n a subsequent seies conssg of what were less pe appropaons h · "generic

pngs, as the rst cs them One seres consists ofsall casein and wax pnels offerng ocolor vaons a sngle theme of one narrow nd three wde sipes

re the mode was a composte of ll he great moderstsipe pters, again a pnheon of male riss ncungBrne Newmn, llsworh ey, Brice Mrden, FrnStella, nd Dael Buren Whle the new works presentthe overl loo of Mm pntng hey copy no onemasterpece or specc sle. Instead he st tles onhe maledoated aeshec of high modernism n a"generc fason Despte vine's eviden iconocasmshe is not tout modes perhaps most sgcnyMarcel Duchp, th whose readymades (see gs 3.6,137) the st has acowledged n

Le Duchp's readymades or Pop icons such as

Whol's soup cns or Lchtensten's cocs, Appropriaon was cricied because it failed to vsibly rnsform ts moffrom rel to rt tists countered s response in sev-erl ways. First they nssted ke Juhp, that art is notlimited to those obecs hat render he apperce of real- n rnave forms or materls Seconly, it was argued hat transformaon ws n he d of the rst not theee of the beholder. Kruger nd Levnes wor lone amplyshowed the efcacy of Appropriaon as a rnsformavetool, as eac racaly recast our understang of famlar

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obects. Fnlly, Appopriaton was sown to be generatven rater old-fashoned tes as a form of rawng

had rce (b 1949) developed a body of worktat draws attenton to te ce delyng myts ofmericn ndidut and to Appropriaon as a tool todeconsrct tem In a seres of works nlung UniedCowboy (g 263 Pnce represented te protagonistof televised cigarette ads Avoiding e posture of "oginal taken on by Levines work tese photograps oftelevson screens e self-conscous about e atcii

Tey adverse te act of e tat s at te root ofAppropriaton and ke te my of merc manoodand tobacco consmpon tat tey resent re e abouteir misleaing quaites

Prince s unique for te clrit wt wc e conceivedAppropriation a forml tool Erly is creer, e enumrated fferet metods of appropatng tat ke SolLeWtt's insuctons (see g. 2253) or Jasper onssreertoe of mks (see g 2118), deterne te appeaance of te n works of t Wit a ist of eigt different variatons nclung te orinl copy te repotograpedcopy e angled copy, and t outocus copy rince

sowed ppropriation to be a form of mkmlngrelated to t of te previous decades

Beginng n 1978, Cdy Sher (b 195) iedte ts of erformnce and potogapy; se cast ersef

as te st of an nexaustbly nvenve series of st ptograps cled Unid Fim Si sometmes cract ized as "onefrme movemg (g 264) Compl wit props, ligtng makeup, wgs costme and scrmost of te pictres explot wit te eventl goal of su

verng stereopicl roles played by women n te viso sows and commers of te es and sxes Hcaracters rnged om a bored subbn oewfe tlayboy centerfold

1980-82 Serman begn workng in color and

nefesze mensions e pictres grew lager suatons became more concentraed focUng on speemoon moments raer t mplying te ller scos seen eier Settng background (supplied by

projector sstem) cotes wg makeup and gng cobined wt te performce tself to ceate a ed moanxie, e1u taousness or condence Serman pays exqsite contol over te tableaus om e color scemes to isturbng detais suc as te black sc were a door as been kked in (see g 26) or a pof to newspaper cluted by a plaid-skrted teenasprawled on a noleum kitcen oor. ke a Htcc

erone te subect seems nerable to someing outste potograpic ame

Sermans proect ke Krugers s based on examite noon tat oman does not exist aprt from soi

3 Rhrd rce Uttld wb 99 -9 Etolor hotogrh 7"

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4 Cn y Sr, t m 979 oogr " 5 0

onstructed images of fnit d explorng the sefonscous assumption of that ro by th womn herslf

oweve nea o st th quoted souce, Shermn and hr felow magescavegers" cause us to quson o rlance on ags and o· aonsip to th author ey wield ntega to he oe of mags n the formation of feminne identiy s h role of what has been heorzed as the gaze": th act of observaton s t s plcated nowe relaons betwen hose who observe d those who r observed Tradonaly in both soci ad art history, women re most oen objectie by the gaze; they ae paced n e poson of someting to be possessed,joy ed, d uderstood though vson The centalit of fml e sex symbos n Westen culre test s to the con

ntionl undestnng that lookng s eent nen · than for womn nd t s no condenc that hose whOo m ore of he ooking have moe power an los who ar looked at Shrmans imagery undernes the expectednm c of the wom/modelsujct being revled though epresentaton by the man/ rtst/ observer Not o l s Sherman the arst and the modethe watcher nd he watchedbut, as a subject, her den s neve scree question of who s Cndy Shermn?" s made snasweab as it is ievitab Th Uniled Film Sill

- - oduce an tist i possesson o eg; ev- w w

.

s he obect of t.

Hozer, the Gueria Girs, MCou, and Tanseyile most Appropraton atsts coped xstng ages, a second group appoprated he means by wh socet ansmts knowledg nd execses contro an updatedrome !oei rsts suh as Baba Kruge Jeny Hozer,n McCoum, and poltca acvist group the GuraGrs epoduced the modes of commcation seen in the sets museums, o on televson, ad then itated the

expected cotent of the message Imags that ooked ie advesig or literae conveyed contnt egg the pocs of race gende hethca d sexalty as we, of cose as issues of_at mlng and collectg Lk he rad cal thnkng of e prvous wo decades Appropraon n he eghts appeaed to ismant e mhs of orgngnus, d powe that had been reateing to coapse since he sxtes. Moeove s consequences lay withn the wors of pactce as w as eoy Hee was n rt form wth a gh proportion of women practones

n Uniled Your Gae Hi he Side ofMy Face seeg. 1 ), Kuge as wll as usig a fod image coped h gp h cait of magaze layout hus using a mens of commcaion created by h mass mea to expos the aggresson of repesentaon Wth n even tghtr focus on mes of publc addess, Jy Hor (b 950) reates laguag" works that appoprate he nonymous, oen aggressive, mnner wch messages of wg or nsruction are tansmtted fom instituons such as poce forces, th mitry, shools, o chrches Reated to hConceptua art of the sventies Holze's ntervenions

e based on h pithy often policl, and somemes cryptc sgs that s composes Sh calld hese sayings

�Trisms"; a pcal exple s th onele Abuse of powr comes as no surprse." Se of te sayngs sound e rps to the homespun wsdom of Benjamn Fankn Poor Richard's Almanac Ad although hy cn be as bnl as fotne cooks many have he punh of advert zng sogas At rst Hoze pnted her aphorsms on pste tat wee pasted to he wls of puc places such as phon boos ad bus sheters but at she an hem on eectc sgnbords n mo pomnent locaons In98 she obned th use of th Specacolo Bord new Yoks Times Suae (g 26) nd ashd ponted remarks le Prvate popr ceatd cme and rotct

me from what I want" to longs of srprised pedstasHer subsequent instllaon peces in museums d gal eres have genealy been more meditave and subjective, notably amen fo the 190 Vec Bele, but at tis they have been spectacua At the Guggenhem useumi 199 a ribbon of er coor sgnboards n along hedges of Frank Uoyd Wright's eat spr rmp. The lghs spiing around th hlical crve of the ahtectre su roundd h vsitor wh such urgnt plases as You re a vcm of the ules you ve by."

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Jeny Hole Selecton o sms, 9 Sel Bd 0 X 0 ( 1 1 IntlltonTe Sqe New Y Sned y Pbl A Fd Inc New Yo

TH ADVATAS

OF� BENG A WOMA ARTST:Working without the pressure of success.Not having to be in shows with men.Having an escape from the art world in your ree•ance jobs.Knowing your career might pick up ater you're eighty.Being reassured that whatever kind of art you make it wil be labeed feminine.Not being stuck in a tenured teaching positionSeeing your ideas live on in the work of others.Having the opportunity to choose between career and motherhood

Not having to choke on those big cigars or paint in Itaian suits.Having more time to work when your mate dumps you or someone youngerBeing included in revised versions of art history.Not having to undergo the embarrassment of being caled a geniusGetting your picture in the art magazines wearing a gorilla suit

�PUBliC sERVIE MESAGE fOM GuERRLLA GRLS cousmN OF rE Ar woRLDS 3 2 l G U A K O A P L A C E # 2 7 N Y Y 1 0 1

w w u o < m

Ge Gl The antags o Big a Woma tis 1 9

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Hozer's srategy has roved artcury effecie forpoiic acion grous who wish to use e techiquesf adesing, bu hae more raca messages to coneyan cororae adersers. In 1985 a grou of anony·0s femiss who made ubic aernces disgusedi a costmes begn astering streets nd bses wihderisemens hat ooked ke ubic serice ouncents The grou, caing thmsees the GrrlGrsok on the mnte of te "conscience of he r wordnd ad grown usated a the sm number of women

eresented gaeries, musums, nd ositions of ower he t word Though femiist acism the seeneshad oened he door o such nstutions, oo few womenhad een aowed in One eay oser (g 266) ironicysed he aantages o beig a woman rtist begnningith Wong ithou e ressure of success Anoher

noed that he $17 ion sen on a Jase on work cod ha urchsed on work each by sixy-�major women artists, incung Mary Cassa, Fria o,Georgia OKffe, and Aremesia Gentesci The GuerrlaGirs hae cooted a rie of forms of ubic address,incuing asing osers round cies, renting sace onbiboards nd buses, ging ubic ectres (in aeatre), ubisg an ar sory book, nd oeraing a

websie (wgerragrs.com)The work of MCo (b 1944) inerrogaes

contemorary atides owad t from witin he ·ies rather tan in he sees and the meia McCoumsoeure consiss of obec hat ncton as signs of art one crc described em, hey are ke he sho signsof eyegasses hat an ocin ight hang n ont of ssho Ced Surrogaes (g 26), McCoum's obecs

7 Alln McColl 0 Plste ugat 988 nel o ydrotoe e r rio dieion

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re plaster casts of frmed pictes at he has pnted blackfor he mes, wite for he mat nd black for he picreThe thousands of Surrogae have sght inconsistencies ofsize and srface so at wile they lack any of e detlsat one expec om a work of art eac one serve: as a place older for e idea of a different work of art. In a potcaly and philosopicaly clengng queson forhose who study at, McColm asks how nyone besideshe welhy can enjoy "souvers of hat class of people who mipate story to your excusion Te issue of

cls nd rt coninued to be a pressng one in the latetentieh cenry, when coectors with big bal accounts were buying out gery shows spons? g exibiionS, promong arsts, and estabishing "good aste TheSurrogaes force one to consider whether it is the socilsans fforded by rt or is content that matter mostMcColum's mas-produced obects, ltaing museumand gllery exhibitions by speang he lngage of rt,answer n favor of e former a last causc gesre re

iterang he compici of rt nd power McCoum ceated Pereua Phoos 9889), reproducons of rt as itappeaed on e ofce wlls of e col but inuena,

Ewing O e commecial enterprise drmatiZed on theteevision series DaaTe importance of teory to rss of eerly eighies

was immeasurable. It was as if e artaboutrt impse

hat deed formsm was tlen fr beyond he coof he pice plane. The work of k Tey (b. 9on he face of it traiionl gave relism, serveevidence of e prevlence of heory nd ciicsm P in grisaille, Tanseys images resemble preparatory sketfor old master cvaes but illtrate, wit geat ibe recent story of at e monumental Triumhe r Schoo 98, Tnsey rnsforms he mmetaphor of avantgarde nto roic vraonistoy painting based loosey on Velzquezs Surre

a Breda The pning depicts French rs desseEuropen mltry uniforms (save Picasso in a r cMaisse in a cape and Ducamp a robe) passgbaton of moderism to he Aericns who r ressGs In Acion Paining (g 26) space gt proe metaphor, as he space shuttle lanc becomes premise for a oke about tl1e distance beeen te pnd he mode (the unday pnter and he acon pand a more serious commntary on he rnsformaoAbsact Expressism nto a sle n e late ies itof great concern wheer Absact Expressioism hadced into an academic sle What miht it mean to

turned he exstenial chalenge and the expressive gesof Poock or De Kooing nto a sle osed another were rsts like those n Tnseys picre, not acing seves but merely and riicously pining pice

8 Mr ney I 98 Ol on cn 6 0 ( 93 9 m)

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o By he deighes an neties, artists uned tot such n ionic srategy to vitlize nongurl abstact t

ima assins: eExressinism

h he begiing of he eghes, he eaction agnstMinimaim assumed a new intens, kned in l"e Unitedtes by young piters wih a love of bold gese, heoiccle ytc content, nd rebellous guaon. Crcs

bbed this movement NeoExpessionism Euopean

its had been praccing a Neo- Expessionsm snce hees, when Gema artists n prtcuar sought nes negotate he cultu pesence of the Uited States and

SSR in post-Wold W Euope. On both sides te Atanc, NoExpressonists evved agitated feelgladen brushwok lost all of hem geneated connt by exploing iagey so taboo, piml, or ulga hat

cpve resm seemed to pas into he slocated,ealsc relm of de, revee, o ghmare. Yet evenough the accessiblty pomised by idenable subect

ter was not qute as meate as some mght haveped, collectos, museums, he nea, and some ccs

eoced that hee at log last, wee large, goouslyoled, colored d cler meang cases. nt wold hungy as much excte1ent as for imagey, tis

s event. It was made all he moe newswohy bcauset had been spearheaded n Euope, whee Gean andtlan s were workng h a selfcodent sength

d ndependence not seen since the oiginl Expessosts he case of he Geans) o he Futists nd

etaphysical s (n the cse of the Ialians) Fo the ste in he posa ea, Contnental rst could eclam

l she of nteaonl attenon and world leadershp new a, hand n nd wih younger mercn pinters.

The so-called Neo-Expessiosts vnced a dingebce of metapho, alegory, nrratve, sufaces enerized by nd packed ith photogaphic pocesses, brokence, o even ol pnt hat made the New Imge atf he sevenes (see chapter 4) seem yoked to modeistoas of emoonal nd fomal eserve Paadoxclly, wever, we preous avtgarde movements hadended to enouce e past, the NoExpressioistsght to liberate hemselves fom modernst resictos

eiscoveng those ve elements whin tadiion mostndened by progessive, mainsream ends Fo examle, the Aecans tended to loo to the late, expressiont Picassohe icsso cetain modests had thought

nportantinstead of the cerebal iscrnang stf he heoc naltc Cubist era (see chapte 9). heyoke to he 1983 Guggeem use exhibiionevted to he Spash maste's nl decade 19373)ning n ot oly he lberated drawng and color,ut also he uestrned, autobograpcal sexepressed by a svil octogenar (g 26 Notinentay, sexult loomed largeoen blatnlyino Expessionst t as wel

26 Po Pico a uta BdWoma, 970Ol o cnv, 63% 1 6 . 9 X 1 299 ohe

Beyond hese broad, and ighy provision, generlzations, he Neo-Expessioisa tle most· none ofhem fod appopratehave little n comon Instead

of foring a cohesive 1ovement ley e1erged, moreor ss ndependeny fom the repectve culral ndtyt

c outposts In he Uted States, hose arss who

carie to he foreont of he movement id so ihsignicnt gllery support n the late sevenies and erlyeghes. The maet hat propelle he mercns ispieda reospecve nterest n the many ats whose wo hadlong shown chracterisics of Neo-Expressosm. Thecelebaion of pint id not come hout cricisms, thesrongest of which asseted that to reclm moderst sles was to gnoe postw criques of modernism econcepal t, femsm, nd Appopaon, he step backto paning seemed to may to be a step too

G emn Ne-Expessinsm

Among he Gemn NeoExpressost pntes, the seniortst is Georg Bas (b. 1938) Hs pntngs r also

perhaps he most dsincve, th he topsytuvy orientaon of e mageusu y upsde donnd hei, pe color and powerl, liberated bushwork. In agestre that w both nostalgic and naonlistic, B3seltz(bo Geog Kern) renamed hmself for the village wherehe was born, Deuschbaelt in Saxony, er he movedout of what wa hen ssanoccupied East Germad nto West Ben oswar West Germny Baset

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discovered, was domiated by the ct presence f teUed Saes Eas Gemny had been by the SoveUon In 98 he ye e Bet emgaed WestBen hosed New Amercan Painng, a show orginanga The. Museum of Mode Ar New Yok wch pomoted ass ncudng Poock, de Kooning d neThe propagansc natue of he exbon typied he pocy for rebulg Gemny wch entaed an uxof economc nd ct goo om the Ued StateAss wshing o ser creatve nd naonl ndpendence could ress he mpuse Or abstacton but wee waryof gave pg because of s connections wh SovetSos Reasm (see chapter ) Basetz's soluion waso revve he nd of nave nd symboc emoe ndrhapsoic r n wh1 Germs had pevously achevedgreaness (see g 17) Dung 19 when iteaonar w domnaed by Amecan Coor Feld pang(see chapter 9) and Pop (see chapte 2), Baset developed an conogaphy of heoc men-huge gures toweing ove devastated andscapes The monumen humn

forms were persocaons of e Geman psyche homeless er te mol d physc devtaon of e w

Basez eveny uned from e wndering heoes oges e more o ess nac bu absaced fom eayby an upsdedown poste nd the sntegrang effecsof bnt coo and aggessve pinteness (g 260)Bets teaent of hs subjects oen ends hemds of munde atves such as tng eag, ordring, amaed hem by magng thei sze ndmpulang heir boes tough evocaive stortonsof anatomy

Basetz aso made scpe hag forms outof wood o regster he medum's nheent qtes g26 Wle this may be a bue o the ate ws

of Mcheangelo, so cs o mind he Ge;nExpressosts, who exceed n woodcu

26 Geor eltzhe Bke hr {DeBrckenchor} 1983 Ol ocvs 9 1 ' 1 1 "(8 m rvcollecto

94 CAR 2 RRPCV GH

hs rebeon aganst a auhortaan norms" m pculrly those heent n the nonotc conssed cooess of sxes Amecn abstacton, MkLp (b 19) made intensty the vig fce behs sech for rtstc independence vrabty the chrer of hs stye imagnave efeence to ee atsts process, and pocs he conen of his rt Lpez

26 Go slt Utitd 1 982-8 Lmewood d

8'3 '" 1 2 071 0. ) Scots oGller of Moder Art Edbu


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Piabia as a precursor of his own stylstc restlessness(see gs. 049 322) ad casso as a mode of thebsessve quoter of esablshed No ess importante ver, was olock, who for Lpertz seemed a"Dinysac panter aned to dscoverng the mysteres ofis wn personaliy the ung process of hs artLpertz uses abstracng means to invent objecs that,le smulatng the ook of rea tngs remn totaly ciios or what ght be cled "pseudo-obects In heearl seventes, the atst excued a mot series in wch

e inroduced such recogniabe but taboo embems sGerman mlty hehets, uiforms nd signa, and combid hem wth petes and other atrbutes of he panting professon. These works signied the need to coont

hstory d he mperaive that art be grounded n concretereaiy (g 2612)

Havng crossed om East o West Germany . en (b 939 sugged s t not ol wi ece n German society bu also witl the need o come oterms with self as n exe The form tat this slftaught tst foud mos effecive for s purposes was astick greEverymn reduced to a cipheret mu

pes or sngly a tapestry or bae pate agnst a edof sold coor, wit ges nd ground so conterbnced

as o ock togeer n a dynac posivenegave reatonshp (g 2613) ng stick gures wth a whoe vocabuary of eroglyphs, cyberneic symbos grati signs,ad ntopoogc or folorc mages, enck expresses

62 Mrkus perchwazRoGod 19 Dem ncv 0! X 78%"( 00 m

CA • E OC 95


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2 R Pk h Rd ipan 1 985 Oi o cv 3 '1 1 X 6 ( 1 1 9 1 m riv lecto

24 Jg mmedorf af Deuhad 97778. Acric o cvs 9' X 1 0' 1 0" (8 X 3 3 mudwioum Ur trtiole st Ae Gera

9 CAP 6 RSCV


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sh person and publc concerns as the rgent needfor invidu sefasserton in a collecve socety As arossove imse� Penck on panted poignant vesions

of e lone sck n1an wng a tghtope or a burning

footidge spended above n abyss separatg o islands

of arennesslmost 1terpoint t Pencks radcay deperson

i ed imagery, Jg eff (b. 945) pns in adeed, if ghly conceptzed, realist sl Like Penck,e ngushed ove the theme of the individual enapped

y the conadcions of mode German life the authland series, he cntl image is the arst imselfoen seated beteen a par of allegocal colus symboliing the to halves of a polized world (g. ).Wile Baselitz, and to a geat degree Lupertz nd Penck,dopted sles tat eced the Expressioist png ofDie Brle (see chapte 8 ), mendof looked to dif-fernt sorcs. Talg from 1e u Sachlihkit (NewOecvty; see chapter 3) xamples of Georg Grosz, toDi nd Max Beclann, Immendof evokes the moral

pover and politcal disgst tat concerned these post-Wold a I painters in a sle that, ke heirs, beas more

dli to reasm ha tha of l1e prewar ExpressionstsDuring and ae s student days usseldorf where hested wi1 oseph Beuys, Iendorf joined actvistgroups suppog tennts ight and opposing 1e wa inVietnm and capitalist n1prialism His Caf Dutshlandanngs pi is polical ad aesl1ec agenda. he relavely public, accessible st, he autobiograpc subject,and the lurid isco scene, complete w1 heav, foward-ithing perspectve, express, as onald spit has witten,the ambivalence of "an egitarian Maoist oented towardthe lost cause of a democraic Ca, and a successourgeois rtist appopriated by he arket.

Si oe (b 94 ), along wit Gerrd chte,created an lternative to he naonasic cathasis of theireoExpessiost pees In te ely sxtes, the tenation t cot provided in Pop t its own aten-ave to Amerca bstact Expessionism and Europeanasacion of rt infrml and Tchim (see chapters 9and 0). Polle, ichter, ad fellow sdent Konrad Lugcreat ed Capitlst Rasm an geno form of Pop ttat responded to merican aestec hegemony his newPop Art dstoted what appered to be an Amercan infat uation with capiism to an rt sensive to te uniquecoplexiies of contempory German fe In the sxtes,Pole adopted the Benday pocess of mechaica eproducon not long aer it ad been integrated into paiingby oy Licltenste (see gs 238, 2.39) But wheesthe erca arst aestheczed the dot system, not oyy eatng it as a knd of devoped Poinsm (see chap-te 3) but also by usg it to depict established icons of ghart, the German smply handcopiednvely a blown u mea mage, complete with offregster mperfecionsand cheap tabloid subject mate (g ). The "ipefet esults daw atenon to the meas of repoducon,

2 Sa Polke Bunnes 96 Acrylc on lnen 59 X39 [ 0 X 00 m Hr orn Mueum and SculptureGaden Smitoan Inttuto, Wangton C

interfering with the seamless perfecon 1at makes bothclassical Pop At and advetsing so effective. In the context of posta German Polle's works constuted a crtic commentary on e ltraion of American mediaimagery into Geman cltre Pole oen worked on aallover grid or otherwise mechancally pattened gound.Rauscenbeg, of co·se, had incopoated oary textles and photographs into s combine panngs, as adece for geneang the shock effect once possible the unor1odox jxtaposion of materils (see g. 20)Polle, however, deveoped the pinterly "natrally out of1e mechcl, tus deostang a disturbg syncron-icit beeen subjecive ceatty d ass producton Bythe ghties, Poe was no longer creatg Pop vaatonson adveising a er assimilaon usg photography, the arist developed is agery by layerg photographic agery onto undelyg paterns of elyrepeang abstact mofs, oen talen fon1 textle designs(g ) elineated like contou drawngs and layered

a mae inspired by Picabia's Tranpa�ni(see chapter 3), te ages see paadoxicaly to demateriaize at

AP GES 97


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266 Sa olke Hchand 984 Acrlic, lacquead coto, 0'8 X '4" [33 X 2. Private coecto,New York

te same me that tey emerge ·om te spport upon whh te arst has pnted them, creang an illon

istcaly deep pictoil space even as i t seems ndependent ofal perspectve systems Moreover the graon phases inand ot of focs, as it were he prodct of photographcor darkoom mnplaons, or perhaps even of an accdent wit one of the sbstances Pole is known to have sed ncreang hs cosly syntheti� and chractersc colorsTh pact of these visly stng canvases complcated when te premse for aesthec ndlgence is asmorly nd hstorcaly ambivent as the grd tower tatappears n Hochand (see g 66)

Like his compaot Penck, Dresden-bo and edcatedGehad hte (b 93) fond himself so n conct with te socal and aesthetc contons of East Germanythat he rossed over nto the West 96 In 9626,Rchter was Dsseldorf an with Pole, leng omBeys Fl:s, and exbitons of Amercan Pop rsts.er his collaboraon wt Poe Rchter's work took adecsively more conceptl t Catalyzed by te iconoclasm of Fls Rcl1ter deled, "I had had enogh ofbloody panng and pntng om a photograph seemedto me the most moronc nd inrstc tng that nyonecold do Ths was an anrt gesre tat led to a hal

98 CAP 6 E ESCVE GE

lengng arstc ceer Snce 96 the st created scoof "photopantngs, ll of tem more stcy phographic an Raschenbergs transfers and yet m real pntngs thn Whols appopriaons of memagery hs later photopangs, Rchter felt freerdept om te ori, oen a snapshot made by arst himsef as long as he preserved somethng ogenne photographc look, complete wth s awsotoffocs blrrng, grainess or exaggerated contall of whch seem to be ponts of mediaton between pa

ng nd photography The clm, bcolic scenes of Rchtlater work (g 267) show Cental Eopean lndscmersed n a so romantic atmosphere, a lnd of tat reveals s mch abot how paintng nd photoge istort or vison of reat s t does abot wod depicted

In the late sxtes Rchter rn conter to the pho pnngs with a retrn to pre abstacton, rst n a seof heavly impstoed monochome works clled GPctres Grau Bildr) By te beginning of te eighter estigang many rent syles he came to ccenate on color, vigorosly _worked Expressio

abstracons (g 26), pnted as a series nd commentary to the cooler more objectve "classcism of photo landscapes Thogh appaently as free and gestther Absract Expressonst ntecedents Rhters absons e based on photographs of detals of hs own wChmatcy nd gestray simil to abstractons painby De Koonng n the es, Rchters nonrepresentao

woks isse om a erent itca process They prese plnar space layered n stata of relavely stnct elemea stctl concepton ready seen as chracteriscmch Posodern art. exectng tese works Rcdrew pon a vast repertore of pnterly techqe

toweng, scraping ingig scmblig and brshntlat recl the arsc procedres of Hans Hofmann

26 Gerrd cr, Scheune/B N / 983Oi o cavas 27 X 39 (99 003 ) Art Glleo Otario Toroto


15/46

26.18 Gerhad Richter V 1 984. Ol on anvas 74W X 6'6%" [2 X m)Mseu of Fne Arts, Boson

g l). In ater work, Rchter panted hs abstaconsiety, .thout the ntervenon of photogaphy

n the apocypc pngs ofAeh Kefer (b 945),Geman nd Jesh hstory are frequeny evoked syboiy t!ough the otf nd appearnce of scorched erthefer's nterest eorng the consequences of ernhistoq beg n a seres of concepta photographs thate tte to do wth he physc presence of hs NoExpessost cvases n 1969, n a coecton of photogps ced The Ocupations, Kefer docuented sefstnng Naz ufor before onuents ke theCoosse Roe gg he Na sute The scanda ofetg Hter's perst dees a cosng and oenelitng way created a scana that s coors the recon ofKefer's ork he queson ofhow to recn thGn hstory on persona natona, and ternaonasges ens centr to consderatons of Kefers art

psung such tees, Kefe eercses te freedoo epot ad ages of eny fo the ythcln1 of Vaha (e ythoogca deng pace of godsandeoes) to the horror ofAuschwtz and Nurebrg as

we as bbca and hstorc thees Hs ea are equaydverse-staw and sd overprocessed photgaph, acquer, and e-nd ght serve the epressve purposeof suang ancent ds chared nd rrowed frocentes of batte and seeng to stetch nto nKefer's eegac thees re seen Departure fom Egypt(g 26.19), one of hs ost grnose dscapes, rongaay ajescy, yet hed to he pane by te hook ofron's rod ven tough appearng as t had been swept

by a restor or uhed n bood and dung t andst, te d rerds cose specton th a ch sense oftactty nd teture

Kefer has aso worked n scupte He hs adeense "books out of ead and gathered the onsheves; te resutng assebags can wgh severa tons(g 26.20) LiKefer's pantngs, hs books contan thepast but uch through ther atera presence asthrough agery or angage ndeed, these huge voueshave a assve ·soy as physca obec tat conves apapabe sense of the weght of hstory upon us he tst'suse of ead s so resn t the centuresong hun

CAER 2 ' HE RETROSP ECVE EIGHI S 699


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26 Aelm KfrDeau f Egy 98 Strw lcqrd ol o cv edrod ted ' 8 38 5 m)Meum of CotemporArt Lo Aele

desie to rn nature into weth nd power: ead is he

materia hat chemists sought to convert ito god n the

Mide Ages. It is now used for seng aginst theraoactvit of atoc deces-a modern trnsmutaton

of mater that n some sense has led the achemist's

deam,even as it hs made great devastaton possible er

the icaon of East and West Germany in 1991 Kiefer

\I

.

�

262 Aelm Kifr Beakg he ee 99. edro l coppe we crcol d qtec X ' ' 49 8 23 m we 7\ to S LouAt Mum Mo.

7 APR 2 T ROS GHTES

moved to southe Frnce and stpped ping for

wle In he midnineties however he reveaed new cn

vases that take he romnc terran of his new home as thsoce for a series of briint ighted ndscapes ta

seem to bring a ayer of cooristic bea to is tpica

dark and pi plette

Iaa Ne-essonsmThe second naton to foster a substana N

Expressioist movement was Ity Cled the "tranavaguarda Itin rtsts of the seventes found in painnand Itaian cassiism, to trditions isregded sin

Word War II, the ingreents for a contemporary mov

ment. nong the "three Cs of Itlys transavanguarda

a group competed by Sano Chia nd EnzCucc-who st cme to nternationl notice at the 98Veice Biennle, the NeapoitnbornFro lm

(b 952) was the most proc Cemente mintanestioresidences in Rome, Madras and New York an

each ye spent me working in ach cony hie habsorbed nd sed the imagery ideas and techniqu

nave to the envioment of eah cit he tst s

owed his disparate inuences to overlap and os

fertiie This became especily appent n wors k

the tentfou mares of Fran o Clmnt Pnxexected n India n the assicl Hindu maer, usnnatura pgments on paper

Cemente taught imsef oi pg i New YorThere e Barnett Newmn see g 93), Clemen

eated a series of works ented Th Fourtn Statonterpeting he theme not it the tratona congraphy of Cist's journey to the Cross, but rather hroug

a dreamike intermngg of personl psychoogy cutr

history, and religious sbOism The artst's own ne

body is ubiqtos toughout the pings in the seri

In Staton No the ge resembes a Romancolar


17/46

priest, screng ke Bacon's bshos (see g. 2047) ndng s wte sice to revel a da, egg-shae vod

ust above tact scrotm g 2621 Bend the gure stnds a bull, anted wth ll the distorted energ ofPolloc's Guardians fth Scrt g 199) The anmcalls Nandi, Sva's b, and rovides a ln beteen the

Chrisan series d lemente's Indian worsClemente's nnmerable sef-ortrats resent n mage

of selood and mascii that s oros and exble.onvenional exectaions abot mae dentt e dermned re the bondries of the body. lemente resnts the hn form doblng on tsef as t mtatesrom a selcontaned en to a beig gled wth othrs, n scenes that ae somemes ecstatc nd somemes

al elegt vson of the loss of self n a geneatvemoment of creaton s the 983 Smn (g 2622.sended, with eyes osed, s a being loosely dened bya broen oine nd nconlete shading It resebles and of hgy develoed fets, oating in amniotc dhe le, however, sggests a conecton with swng

262· rcecoCleete The Foueeao No IV,1 98 8 O eui o c, 7 X m. Pre olleio

serm Together these ces create an ambgOs doblesense of otenal life awiing ton

In hs reacon to modernst conventons, o Ca(b 96), a Floenne wh sbeqently relocated toNew Yor, reed on Italian exubernce and a ersonalknowledge of le ersatz Neoclsicis ractced dring theFascst tenes d tres by ariss sch as Grgo deco see g 135) nd tone Rosa, who were themselves reacting agnst Ftis, Italy's st moderniststle Adong the older ainters conventionstheirabsly msebound ndes d sef-consciosly mythicstatonsbt inang the ges to baloon ooronswle redg te overblown nrratives to the scle offa>tes, a arodes his sorces e thmbing s

nose at the athenc Neocssc gor tat svved nmalism Jst as aeang the coc amlude ofthese harmless gants s the Medterren warmh oflas color and the nervos energ of his ntely srfacesalies of scle, ltte, and toc that the aristlso managed to tanslate to heroic brones. st how

2622 Freo Ceete ee 983O o le 7'9 X 1 3' X ) Pteolecio

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to tke Ca's injecton of contemporary citizens intoclassical themes, ptclay the case of the breaucat in

Th dln ofSphu (g. 6) was cental to debatesover No-Expressionism in the eightes The reclmaon of grd narratve paing even with the selfdeprecatingeptitude of Chia's Sisyphus suggested to some that thedeconsucton begun i the sties had been in vin

Unlike the world velers Clemente nd Cia, EnzCh (b 1950) remined soldy rooted i the soil of hsnative ·region near Ancona a seaport on Itly's Aiaticcost There, for generaons, the Cucci mily has orkedthe lnd a land whose circular compounds offm buildings and atastrophic ndsdes oe ged in the rtt'spigs Because of his doomsday vision and his lovof

ric texred surfaces but up wth what oen seems awxy mture of rusted graphite and co dust Cucchas sometmes been compaed with Germany's AnselmKiefer (see gs .19 0) What sets unstakably

224 Ezo cc ty i t o Ship wih Red Rs1 988 resco 9 X 1 3 1 8 X PadelpaMsem of A

7 CATR 2 H RTRSCV GHTS

22 Sad Cah dlss Ssyhs, 98 . Oi o caas wo ars: op 9 X1 8 .1 X 39 mboom 3 X 1 U( 1 0 X 39 oera1 0 X 1 8 3 X39 m e Muse ofMode Ar New York.

aprt, however, is 1e Italian heritage that he brings this drmas; he grew up amd pinngs of sts an

matyrs In s Enr no Por ofa Shp wh a Rd Ro(g. 64) austere yet emotvely rendered crosses glacross the large fresco grace clusters as purposes a eet of saiboats Such powerl composiona effecachieved with the sparest of means have led se criics compare Cucc's work with the early Rnaissnce escoofGioto

American NeoExpressonismhe rtst mst oen creted with cataptng the eightart scene n New York was the Broolynbo, exaeducated J Shnab (b 1951) For viewers star

by the ea visu et of Minmalsm nd ConceptualsSchnabel's grandsce thematc picturesrevivng twhole pnopy of religious and ctal archetypes once tglry of traonal high thad an elecrig eect

n a move both innovatve and vioenty epressivSchnabel incorporated hree imensions to a at surfai works such as Sa by embedding broken crockerya reforced wood support (g 6). The idea for tprocess came to him dung a visit to Bceona, whehe saw nto Gau's tiled mosaic benches i Gll Pa(see g 510) However, rather thn smoth nd inScabes shds proect from the surce in n regldisunctve _ rngement that visualy cons, edge edge as a ed of lged Pointist dos At the sme mat the cna pieces serve to dene shapes nd even modform, they so brel up the image nd absorb it into toverll surface cker like a pve encrusted versionthe At Nouveau gureinpatte eects of Gustav K(see g 5.) Gau's Astin cotemporay By pantover aroud, or een der the protuding ceraSla bel created every nd of picto ama, from evcaos of folloric wit and chm to suggesons of myt


19/46

2 Ju la Scabel ea 1 98 1 O wood wteca pots ad plaser 9 X 3' (2 X Saatcolecto Lodo

itul. The emotive effect of Scabel's wok ases less

·om te image wch not mmediately decipheablean fom an audacious slistic pefomance, o pocess,at smultneously stuctues ad shattes bot ge nduface In e nneties Scabel took s a fo dma

ad s contol ove mtiple fomal nd natve layes toHollood makng o well-eceived lms

Among te Ameicn NoExpessionists one of themost contovesial tsts ws Dad ae (b. 95 Sallefoged a unpomisng mix of secondhand isassoiatedlements nto a new oinal concepton In te panngnnon (g 2626, te ast pofessed a Conceptualbackgound by letteng out te title in capitals, acoss a

eld dominated on he le by a found wooden elief of an

e and on te ight by a nude woman wi1 he back to teviewe Te nme of a Victon poet, a piece of eotcand a seveed eaat st te ffeent images may seemto cancel one note out and ease all menng unl oneecalls tat in 958 Jspe Jons epoduced Tennysonsname acoss te bottom of abstact canvas panted nsobe gay on g as if in bute to te aistic ntegitand lyical, highnded spiit of ngland's "good gaypoet. The cection to Johns is esseted by te disemboied ea which could also evoke the poet's "ea fo

wods o Van Goghs selfmposed mutlation but also,and moe tellngly Jspe Jss Ta wh Plar Cas(see g 215. Johns oiginlly xed a theedmensionle among ote anatomcl pts above the png of atget In Jlss wok te Wcomtable elationspbeteen te destnaon of ow o bllet ad heexposed agments of a naked body geneated a nge ofpesona and poticl content Such coespondences weeless cle in Salle's woks thoug suppotes thougt thatpntigs lke Tnnn should be ead as a commentay onte nked woman, e sexsm such magey epesents, dte ole of the nude in l1e istoy of at.

Salle's selecon of poses tpical of socoe ponogaphy (ough copied fom Ses own photogaphy at1etan published souces), at histocal mstepiecesfond objects nd pop cultue efeences encoaged teintepetaon of is pantngs as dustbins oeicn cul To sppotes Salle was a de pattone of pastiche the ciicl assemblage of existing cultual elementsto elicit n analyic esponse om he viewe If, by teighies pantg wih its gnd tadon ad canonicalstoy was undestood to be a potcally suspect medmtn Salles casual combinaions foced it to come donq its pedestl ad sully iself wit the mundne objects

of eveyday life To citis in he eighties it was too ealy to

2626 Davd Salle,eo, 1 983 Ol adaclc o cavas ' X99" X 3 m Pvatecoeco New York

A 2 T RTROSECV GS 703


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presume hat it was common kowledge hat png hadbeen compromsed by its relaionshp to he elte of history

The image of themselves hat nany Neo-Expressioistpntes put forwad did nohing to assuage their ccs.Complete wih beautl modes, roops of assitns, and

the ubiquitous cig, hey appeed to be more ke cichsof te moderst ges thn cics of modernismWihout such a crique, Salle's imagery, like most Ne

Expessiost paining appeaed to mny as nVe andsexist pining for the gor days of he great mae ptes.

Few of he NoExpressiost painters address heart totaly to he gure, in its naked physicl andpsycl1ologica compexit Foemost ong suc pinters

is Eric Fisch (b 948) whose immense eshscapes havea unsully highvotage effect on viewers (g 67)Created in tndem with a lge body of photographs ndfascnang prepaatory sketches made of ovelaid drawings

on racg paper, Fiscls pesentaon of nui tkes on aselcosciousness form as we as content Deberatey

composed to occup he spaces of alienaon andAmericna famii to he work of American pintes such

as Winslow Homer and Edward Hoper (see gs 48

18.37) Fisls subjects move beond a fascation wiheiher esh or pnt to become impcated in suggestonsofacoholsm voyeursm, onaism, honosexut, andcest Ths· can b seen pantings set the grdens onhe beaches in the weappointed rooms and on theachts of uent America ll popuated by men, women,and chidren scattered about or clustered in scenes of boredom and isolaon Lke the cathc abstracions of his

NeoExpessionist peers, but a se hat eferenced the

262 rc ish , Old M d he Old MDog 982 Ol n caas, X (2 1 X 1 CletMr and Ms Rrt Lehra Wasigtn, C.

704 CHT 2 ' RROSCTV GHTS

atons of meric Relsm, Fiscl painted upmiddeclss angst d and hlfembarrsed absobed and et vel, even inten, aware of

nohers expose, hese gures commuicate he ind

ul's psycc as wel as physica nledessThe painngs in Fiscls Inda seies a sees of in

based on scenes observed on a ip to noren I 1988 have been descbed as he work of a "moden toust The sees ke Cementes work inmiiatue trado, mplies a crique of he "Orentl

nd "exoticism oen featued in Europen mages ofand Mca om the neteenth centuy ust as Fi

nudes e in pt a crique of femle nudes by aneothers Sepang Fisch from hs cooiaist predecehoweve is the fact hat he woks in n era n wWestern mpeiism most oen takes the form of tond economc expnsion rather han ouight miconquest Even the beggas and the goup of meOn h Sar ofh Tpl suggest lile beyond a tousnapshot, he reament of a wan at he center poa more complicated respose Clothed pk and bain spendid ight she might at rst seem to evidence at

some attempt by the ast to fahom oher cuture,its ierent understnding of spiriu and physica be

Yet the aped gue comnunicates rea ambivaThe viewers expectaon that she be freely avlable obect of visu delectaon is at least plly conrmhe subjects ncanaon of the steeope of veled "Oof he East

The Challenge of Photographyin 1 980s Art

NeoExpressioism was healded b mny as a eu

paintng and curatos ceebrated hat young sts etuned to he pnters pots But m lso tookeras into the suo Eic Fischl's painngs were oeresult of studying not ust the model, but photograp iends, nd sngers Sle generated many mofs by duplicatng he composiions and he appeof photographs In the cical debates of he day Expessiosm gured as he etn of he pntely, Appropriation tapped into he potenal of mass m

pculal photography The sue was aways comand a number of sts xtaposed the aesthec braof he former with the sociocultl anaysis of the la

The t of Rober ongo (b 93) which hasdescribed as "apocalpic Pop features ovelimagey taken from or inspired by lm television, c

books, ad adversements; a secondhad wod of and hgh culture mixed and mated to povoke voisc responses to such basic themes as ove, death, and

lence No ess amac is he seenipitous viet of mthat ongo and s colaborators (usuay named)

combined: scptue (wood carving stone taglobonze csing) pang (acrlic, spray paint and


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62 et Lg Unld (Mn n e Ciies ees) 8 1 Cacal and grape n pape 8 (2.4

2 .

le), drawg, sscreen, an photogpy. Lou � vtce pt im n e compy of Appropraon arsts wes aggressve content wic as cded ba Amecanags, s nd ge ocean waves, s s work to teNeo-Expressost mpse

ongo gned eary recogion wt a nmber of lgebakandwte carcoa drawigs, sc as te 197982series n n h C. For tee impressive wors, test ptograped snge gres cad n sober bnesscoes d sezed in te cotorted roes of wat cold beeer agony o ecstasy dyg or dncg (g 6) Btwe sc condton sod eate a sense of ea, egres are oen-nd peraps te more anng rte tenson at s bgi prodces Peraps beeran of s pees, ngo cap·ed te sense ofcorporatedced freny tat mated te atod in teeay egies Hs contorted d voent gnres dressedn bsness atre epress e neasy combnaion ofrgeny d dsregd at eag rt vesmentscod prodce. At a ment of escaQ pres: andmos t sts te ience of money on sc sccessfet as f t ad never been geater, casng great ambiva

ence te t coy n n h Cws ceatedby ransferg potograps tat ongo too of s endsleapng dncig, d fgg on is roof T magswere projected d dpicated by mens of empac ndsyed carcoa nd grapte ngs wic ongo eected wt e elp of assiss

Te denc tns e and Dg Stn (b 961)prodced wor coboration ogtey ave asopanted, eir prncpal edim s a eabote variet ofpotocoage In te wor, tey approprate a potogp nage d sbect t to l mnner o tecal

teratons. Tley mgt enrge n age enormosy or

make a toned rint of it n e eteencentry manner Bt ey w also deberatey 'scratc e negave, ooterwse stress e imge, crease or te e print stan

262 Me and gtar, Dbe Mona swi SePor,1 888 Tned sepr and Oh fl,ctc tape and wd,8 1 33 7 1 ) Me eAr B

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it wih glue, or cut it up They will ten complete the workby mounng nd ming te separate pieces or tape themdiecy to tl


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Leo Go, e Squ V E Slvr, 983.Acryc on cva 0 X 1 2" (3 X 38 m aatchCoecton, London.

aocities, complete th he ungailiness of men exuber

anty and sensuly caught up n the daly work. He madehis pett rts ten feet (3 m) ta, pressed hem forwardwth a gound of Pompean oxide-red (itself a payemblem of perial, potcal power) and cropped the anheroes' legs off to spill e scene forwad as to teviewe's own space. Far too commied ad subte topreach or sloganeer, Golb simply uses is longsesonedpictoal means congruence of image, form, process,and psychologyto induce feelgs of compcit in a system that mpulates some diiduals to desroy humalife and oters to ignore te fact that it is happeng

Since te beging of her caeer in Chicago te late

forties N Spero (b. 1926), ke her husband Golub,

pursued politcl d social themes In te sixtes, herVietam angs were mong te most powel statements agnst te war Sarh and Dtfrom 967 showsone of te hecopters tat saw much combat SoutheastAsia, but Spero images he cra in a tastcal,Goyaesque form its nose ke te lnce of a huge swordsh, or perhaps a hypoderic neede; den into te chestof a faling ictm

In subseqent work, Spero expded her awings intoelaborate sequences These she presented in te form of

frezes or uoled scrolls: paoamas of iniidul panelsof print ad colage, stretcg up to 180 feet (55 m)These ibbons ofmages repesent woen from al eras andcles Gdd (g 232), ancient Greekasedacers and caorng goddesses appe again d agaad eer and late souces he ersi of the gesprinted textres and colos om one ppearance to tenext makes the ee ch nclusie its oldggraphc deelopment Speo said that her scrolls are"amost ke a map A map of te range of human expeence om brt to aging, wa, and rape, to a celebratorydance of ebut depicted trough images of women

Politicay and socially cotted, ad as uncensoredn her appoach as Golub or Speo, the Bshborn istSe Coe (b. 1951) moed to Nework 1972 Thereshbega aimng he agirop collage-pings at such targesas te I male chauinism nuclea brsipapatheid South ica and tate te policies ofresidet Ragan (g 233) oe was insped by thesocil and polical ineqties ad righteous dgnaionexpessed by tsts such as Brueghel, Goya Daumier, dOrozco She is a ue Expressiost usg t to indct aujust wod with the se passion tat inspired earlierenthcen heroes of moral protest such as Kthe

I


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26 e Mll X and th Slgt Hs 985.i paper, coage, 59 49 (52 251 m)Coectio Don Hanson

Coe employed a whole battery ofprovocaive techniquesa helishly dk plette of grapite ad gore; razor-shrawg; jmed, rraonal spaces; coaged tabloid head·lnes of wich she wielded with a seengly unshlable fith he righess of her percepions. But, howeverexreme or fanaic these works may seem to viewers o aess poliical persuasion, one cannot hep be moved by thepo justice at work n a ight world of evdoers m·morphosed to snkes nd her hapless vis nto ngels,or in a pnti overprted wih a bnner e: "If nmalsbelieved in God, then he deil wod look like a hum

26 Ida Appebroogbl lds, 98 io canva five paneovera 72 X (22 34 m) oomonR. Gggeeim Msem,New o

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sins" Nob Fd for nstnce, our aenton isled bac nd forth by 1e strip of images setrclly

sposed across e hoont panel at he top; by the

ured, supported mle, he lne of hghkckng ncers,

the ing femae in 1e right panel by 1e delcatelyited monster wh a boken rm and a fry ess n het pane� and by the chd gorgng mself on massveaermelons n he sta unar lndscape at he center

ese compeg areas of nteest are as ct to reconle with one nother as e the members of a acous m

, or the aye of gult nd pain 1at i members bea

W of Fme: Graffii androon rss

NoEpressionism opened rt to he many possbltiesce bnned by Mimst purism, and Appropriaon dew on he commerc medi, a nber of evenunger aris found hemselves rawn nto he enegd autenc" of one of the most ipure" of aphic modes. Ths was gra, those logos" ials orclmes) and scrawled tgs (signaes that er per

ors clled rng" and had fet-ipped nd sprayainted (or bombed") ove New York Cis subwayains snce about 1960 For many passengers, s eoverof publc wlls by an ngenous, compulsive grapsm simly constituted vandsm, but as a loo back at the pntngs of Jaon Polock, ean Dubuet, and Cy Twomblydcates, grf-e mrks have long been used by majorsts see gs. 199, 2018) Not n the eghies, howeer, did he underground word of sef-taught gra ters, ma from the Bo and Brookn, teract with theaovegro1d, Mnhanbsed rem of ists d tschool student 1983 the upwary mobe grt

ats receved a boost when Rerd's Boymanvaneungn Museum put on e rst exhibion of grafit, nd subsequenly one of he world's premer delers nodern art, Sney Ja, put on is PostGraf show te laer event, Jis splayed the canvases of giti witers 1e very gleries where for yes ew Yorkers hadewed such bluecip masters as Mondrian

The ti ars nd cartoos who proted 1eost fron1 the encounter beeen uptown and downtown t were hose who brought he support of an tschool educaion to 1e experence. Tis eqpped themd a basic pictorl lnguage t was charged byte grati st' ge to commicate nd the powerl cigrapic trust, and aowed hem to expand theirwn Popcrtoon vocabul·y into a new, broadlyepresve language. The st Vage n New York Ciecame the he 1d exhbton space fo m1y of theseyoung arist

ag Basquat, and Shafe de of the t-school grat ist was ihHig (195890, who, is Schol of Visual rts

prepaon and love of worlg n publc spaces, serve the portnt lnk beeen 1e subway word of selftught grf wters nd the younger mnseam·sts responsive to he opresent, abrasive fom ofpp ul expesson At the sn1e e at he made s presencefet in e g nd ctoon rums, Haring was savelng throughout New York Cs subway system andleavng is aistic clng crd on vally every ran platform. The ubqtous format is promp exhibiions was the blac pnel om whch an adversng poster

had been emoved, providing a srface somehat e hatof a schoooom blackboard er 1980, Hng madehousnds ofchlk awings in anst, lways quck, smpe, strong, nd ec, for he acivi crried wi< it heisk of rrest for decement of pubc proper He developed a istncve vocabulry of cartoon gesatchd, baking dog, yng saucer, prayg mn-erngled i such 1verslly readabl sgns a the coss, tehlo, the pyramid, e het, nd he dollar, renderedwh such cheeress and generosi that 1eir stateencould be nei1er smssed no stlen g. 237e in is commer work Harng seemed to prefer

ng h bla si k or Magic Mrker on paper,oakag, berglass, or vnyl tpa, he remned readto unleash s progious capai for grapc nvenonon most any nd of surface, nuding 1ose provdedby poery vases or plaster cas of such cich icons Botcei's Vnus On these, a well on vas outdrwas, he somemes collborated with genuine riters, most of whom oherwise prefeed te movng, sbterrane1 enviroent of the MTA rins

Though Harng gnered consierable respect inEurope, is conbuon remned deppreciated

mericn museum rcles duig s lifeme Though he

aspred to have work compred nd ehibited de Koong nd Masse, s populst and poticl acviesseemed to work aginst ord recogion Hrng waspoicy acve, reang posters and donag art forIDS orgazatons n pcar. In 1986 e opened thePop Shop, wich deveoped is project of brngng tto the masses who ely ventured nto Soho glleries. Ate Pop Shop, Hrng sold lowcost mendise sucha pn nd t-ss h signaue mo. The Pop Shopis s n operaton. In 1997 seen yers aer deatfrom AIDS, Hring receved a maor eospecv at heWtney Muse of erican rt

A key gre n te nsformation of grti intpinng in 1e eighes was e Brooly-o HtHspnc rtst JMich sqt 1960-88) A hghschool dopout at seenteen, Basqat ws probably hemost meteoric st among he tens asoated wga. Ue he other success fists-rnedptersBasquat never ac bombed rns Rather, wemore or less living on he sreets n Lower heformed a prtnersp with a friend named Dz dbeg Magc Mrng poetc messages, illusrated wi odd

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symbols, all over th cty. The pa sgned the workSO© (stng fo "same old st) Basquat's tageveals soethng of the usaton he lt as a black atstyng to asset is at withn the context of a pedomantlywte gley syste In the summer of 1980, SO©exbted at te Tes Squae Show, a goup exhbtonpoduced by the rtss' coectve CoLab that was prasedfo ceag n envronent t an abdoned budngon 42nd Steet hat mrored the eclectc decay fo

.,

26 Keih Haring,OM ShwIntaation viw 1982on hafai Gaer,ew Yok

he steets arod t Basqat, together wth HaJo Ahea (see g 2640) and K Smth (see 2710), contrbuted woks that aracted voable crtcattenion Shorly therefter, Basquat stuck out on own, ad hs drag soon evealed soethg ore thagapic steet smrts-what appeaed to be a devooto Pcasso's Guna (see g 156) Basquiat's coloed at s charactesticay peopled by scheac grwth lage atened, canmask faces set aganst el

266 jeanMie aqiat Gll 1 984 Oil on wood wt ai, 8' 7'6' 1 6" 24 5.3 046 mtefan T Edl Colctio, Ciago

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vigorously actvated by such grati elements as words andphrases, arrows nd grids, rowns, rokes, and syscrapers.N n the work of Poe and Se, the composional forceofBasqiat's work es not in its dei to expected rules ofcomposion, but raer n he poetc juxtaposiion;--some

times abrasive, someimes soong-f a variet of mages,signs, and symbols Quite apart om s compelng senseof drawing, color, nd cposiion, Bsqiat seemed to beale to balance e conradictory demans expected of ayog Africanmerican in e arorld of te ely eight·ies His gral stle suggested e smulated primivismof much No-Expressionsm, but seemed to come with thecahe of Basquiat's race and biography. Polis aside, eytmi rge of Grllo (g 66 demonsates that theartist ws adept at coorinang graphic power wi textualligree to provide elements of formal grace and oen brutl content Basquiat's ife and work s provided materl

for a vie of wrters to reconsider the expectaons ofe arold and the role of expression, biography, race,money, ad taent in the history nd producon of art. Hsearly deah le a sigcant artsic potent untapped.

Key S:·f (b 958) so worked briey l1 graists, but he took is primary inspiraton from the spaceage fantasy world of children's animated TV cartoons, suchas ]on> a seres generated virtuly next door towhere Scharf grew up in Los ngeles At st, the asteveloped s signatre sle reedmensionally, s he�cstomized" all he ectroc gear i the bung usedfor e Times Square Show, and en created a sees ofClosets', complete rooms bombed" t Sch's caracterisically wsic spraypaint assalt o cstomeradios, TVs, telephones, re, and whole envonts, Schrf applied to ese objects and spaces a mnr ofsalvage"sch items such as plasc inosrs, toyrObots, fake s, ropes of nsel, old hood ornamen, aer headwch he en spraypted to u the mshash forms nd spaces

Scharfso painted on cas In one vast wor, entitledn h Worlds Colld (ig 67 and measng some

6 en char,Whe WordsColide, 1 98 Oacric, and eaml sprapa n caas 1 0'2" X175" (1 X .3 m)Whtne Msem Amercan At, ew Yok

ten by seventeen feet 3 5 m) he sed, in a ind ofn-house big bang," what crc Gerld Mrzoai clledthe Sardaymorng nocence, the phonedoodlepschedea, the magpie deium, e electric cromacdazzle " Here, aganst a spaced-out background ivided

into maple elds of empyren blue, sofocus jellybens,starstudded black holes, and loopy sretch springs, a huge,sny, sharpfocus red mounn metamorphoses ino ajoy monster wih a waterfll tubing over one shoulderand a moonscape vsible l1 deps of his broad grinAll about s goo, improbable create oat whirngcannonbas, cottoncandy clouds, isemboed eyes andouhs, wriggng amoeboids, and an orngecolored,sabertooe, crosseed pxie n Whn h WorldColld gyle lusistc Srrealism e dooms

day world of Hieronymus Bosch has been reconceived by a rnia conist, n st certain hat you deitely

caot have too much and equipped to go about itth the composional ad rop l'ol ambions of a

iepolo Scharf appes the sle ofhyperreasm to the subject matter of visual edia in order to telescope in on theprominence of fantasy in merican cure

Wojnarowiz and WongAother alunus of e East age scene, DadWoow (95492) began ls brief career scrawlingpoliticized invectves and stenced slogans in public places arist ith a for drama to match e volale fehe led, Wojnarowicz developed a coage aestetc atsurrounded the viewer with the brutalit of contemporaryfe. He was a proc witer and photographer, as well asa painter, sculptor, video arst, musicia, and performerWojnrowicz's insalations recorded the personal pa ofgrowing up gay n e Uted States nd the continuedcost of homophobia nd AIDS Hs graplc work effectivey juxtaposed the romanticism of Arlr Rimbaud,one of Wojnaroiz's nuences (nd, in one series ofphotographs, ls alter ego), wil1 e landscape and ind·scape of contempor erica he results e harrowng

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26 v·d Wo·nrow, , 198 Acrc nd ixd md on woo, 7 96" [ 1 .83 244

assaults on e treament of he inividual that resonate

wih lmost apocypc fervor. ir (g 2638) was created the yer the ist was agnosed wh IDS d e

ye s lover, he photographer Peter Huja ied of he

_disease The age consts manmade power wh 1epower of nate and cime In a comic nd big detail

he dungbeee is shown to possess a human b irdhe our Eln Sri·ofwhich it is pat have been interpreted as attept to visulize a worldvew hat might

bring sense to he loss nd violence surronding the arst

M Wg (94-99) was a pater who took public ring, luding grafi sign lngage nd even

hrts of he consteaions s a undation for his art

Wong begn his career while wog as a corroom arst

and there is a song commucave element i his rtThoug his work is grlne of his most controversil

panings B Ha (9) represents o ·emenwrapped in eah others' ms as a bilg smolders behind

hemWong most oen replaced he physiognoc detail

reqired of a portaist w a sensii to he expressive

potenial of he urban enviroment Aorn SrHandbal Cour wih Auobiographial Po Pinro(94) (g 263) is a ldscape of a lower

Maan playground wih Wongs stzed sign langage

notaon of a poem by Miguel Pinero Above the oaig

signs graft ados he rbn playground poey ls e

71 CR H RTSCV GHS

sl he e of the pining is wen in gold and blal o

simlated and consucted mes. he auhor of hpoem, Miguel Pero stood at he center of he Nuyorica

Poey oveent a group of writers commtted to crea

ing literature at he tersecton of Lao and US culturnd lguages Pineros work resonated with Wong's ow

commitment to a rt responsive to he uehc ml

cltur and polyglot commit in whil1 he liveWongs paintng like hat ofasper Johns or Sigmar Pol

presents the vewer wih a collecion of ifferent mea

of commucaion, hough w he context of low

Mnattan d wh a romanc eye towrd its resden

a grac migling of poey pnting, and he seiself, Wong gives form to 1e metaphor of 1e ci as tex

omodern ren: Inion rnstlaton works of ma fferent kinds were create

houghout he sxes and sevenies, by ariss wo l

worked in Perfoce, such as Nam une Pik osepBeuys nd Rbecca orn and by arsts wih lks

Concepal art such as onathan Borol nd Christoph

Buden The speci potenal of environmental \Vork

however, came to e fore n he eighies. Since we c

w around inside hem such works lend theselves

terpretaion as scle models of the wold at large, n


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26 o, toy St: Handa Cou wih obogahcl Po y Pno, 8 84 Oil 2 1 1 4 (0 2 )

sllations made in s retospective decade increasingly seemed ke comments on the state of the Posmodernd Se of hese installaons were specically sites ofeory s n Cistin Boltanskis workplaces to reect te roubled history of 1e tente century and erle played by art witn it. For many arsts workg in isde, such s Ilya ablov, e lo aspiratos of edernist t had collapsed Meanwle, rtiss such s BlVila and Jenny Holzer who tuned to new elecoctchnologes d so with a war skepcal rony undercuttig any great fai in e Brave New World of the e

In 98 le CoLab collecive of arsts created theies Square Show n an abadoned buing on 42dsee The show set o e decade wi an impulse to flle interiors of he arorld wih the detits of the steetsls, subway tnnels peep shows movie houses, stos

pa and vacant lots of te ci The obsession with creand degradation at lled the Times Square Showsimulated rats crawled through he rooms, and rape and oher of violence were depicted again and againwasrelieed in a few notable wors Ke Scharfs deghtfspace age decoratons were one and the sclptual oeuvreoLa organizer ohn Ahearn provided another.

en (b 95) was an upstate New York arst, wth s associate Rgobeto Torres, chose to live in Sou Brox and lere portray its ciens a sees of

relief sculptres. ke George Segal and Due Hansonbefore m (see gs. 224, 2476), hea mes life casts�1at comment on hman relaonships and socet at lage.hearn's content of indomitable subecvi is generatedrough reasclly rendered faces, their intense gazesconveying ferocous gt. The rtst has said: "The basicfoundation for the work is art that has a popular basis, notjust in appeal, but in its orin and meanng It cn meansometng here, d lso in a museum Certainly thereliefs communcate a great deal in galler setngs, but bhere Ahearn means the exteor wlls above the vesteets n wch his subects ve nd work (g 0)Even n the neighborhood, however heans placement iscarely selected to suggest content Hog o h olofh Bronx: Doubl Duth Kll Str rd JTown S (98-82) was insted on an exterior wall

severl stoes above the ground ern apped a surealist maipuaon of the orar and rather straghtrwardsmbosm to suggest 1at the footing these chlen haveas 1ey navigate te complexties of lfe expressed in theto eercircling jumpropes ·om stable So populrare these open stllaos that the asts neigborscompete to sit for ent minutes with their heads coveredby a fastsetng dentl plastic From e molds tis createsAhean 1en casts e form in fberglass But what bringsthe works to life s immense gi for color, whch llows

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264 John Ahearn, omge the eple f the x Duble Duh Kelly Street : e, evee, w Scey, 1 8 �82i o fbegla igre ieie Key teet, oth Bonx New ok.

harn o vok th ambn ght and ha of kin lIn a urou trn on dial akn to obr Sthon /nont . 2445) harn ra o ofah work on for ollor and muum and th othr

71 4 TR 2 T RTROSTV HS

to tay rood th ommun th oon of tro whom t rrn

po Osorio b 955) ha found nallaton o a man to ak ar of and for h urto R

264 Peo Ooio Cm (he e 987Mxe eia intallaion;be 75 7 78 9 1 7 1 98 ) roomimensions 40 45 37 37 ) CoeionE Meo e Baio


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commut. The enveoping natre of his format, oenroom-size environments busng wit forms of deorae elements from beads and owers to baseba ards andbyles, mimis what Osorio nderstnds to be a PuertoRian aestheti but one that embraes s viewers regardess of tei bakgrod Duing is ely eer, Osorioorked as a seorker in te New York Ciy deprtmentof ilren's Servies nd he is ommitted to t ofsoia onsiene Osoo dees asti suess teiaon of te individul, naon or larger ommuit,

d iversl Bd (g. 2641, a piee deiated toe memory of Juana Hernndez, te woman who livedith s ly and hped rise hm, demonstates hemultple referenes Osoio's work the enter of aroom rests a lge bed adorned wth cp souveis giveni Puerto Rio at wedings, baptsms, 14 versaiesThe installation presens loss though e lens of ultrallyspe tuals of elebration, h inviting a naon ofelebrants to omfort he tist and praise the dead Thd nvites te artist's audene to a family experienei hs own home: oter installaions fous on he hoiesand lives of tonalized fes Oen aompied by

perfomnes, Osorio's t moves eely beteen £t dton, as well as personal d so rees, and lways\ith an "aesets of abundne at idenes his rootsand his art

Kv b 933 grew up in e former SovietUon during he hsh Sst era Trned s an arstom an eay age, for my ears he eaned his livng as anillustrator of stories, most of them for ildren, whle piately he made elaborate bms ombing poeti, somemes biarre, tales and awings baov began reangll·sae envoenta piees in e d-ighties hey,too, ontaned elements of narrative, oen revealg the ifulties and pvaons of Soviet dly lfe, but aso onveyig informaton hrough fantastl gatherings of objets,or what h been ed abakov's materil poety erthe ollapse of he omust state, these works took one haater of arheologia sites, where visitors ouldplore he ultur history of a vaished system

Th n Who Flw no Spc o Hs Aprn(. 2642) the hahips of ora peop are iroajtaposed wit he grnose projets of the statein hisase, apparenty, the Soviet spae program, wih launhede rst human bing into orbit About s tay workakov said:

The person who ved here ew no space om s room,

rthaving blown up he eng and the ac above He

aways as f as he remembered fet hat he ws no qute haban of tis earh nd onsanly fet he desre o

eave i to escape beond is boundaes. And as n ad

he coneived of hs deparre ino spae

he room we see, with a gapng hole in its roof, ontaste debris le behind by t1e asonauts mprovised tleo roken shes, the remans of some sple nitre,

2642 lya Kaak Te an Who Flw to Spac from s

Apam 98 8 8. th nstaat 10 Charts pstr pas wh cllag fr clthg catap hshld bcts wdn pn scl-yp patng twpags f t papr draa R nsns 8 7' 23 (4 X 24 37 )

d stay items ofworn othing Glued to the ws arevous poil posters as well as the taver's blueprints,ight plans, nd ations; om the eling hangs theaaplt tat lung hm awa om it all, up to outersp�e On a smll model of a ity, whih has a ght bulb for

a sun, a stp of urved metl sng om n apamentbuilding shows te planned rajetoy of "he one whoew awa

Lile mny of the NoExpressioists, Frenh installa·on artist Cs Bos b 944 also dels withEuropean memoies of Wold War I Boltansk was boin aris on iberaon Day (September 6 944, as telied aies etered the ity, d hs ddle name isibert He oen eated works for prsons hospitls,and shoolsinsuton sites muh onerned wit theonsequenes, and he lessons, of the past a series ofelegies that evoke the Holoaust, Boltansli hung upsghty blurred photographs of en 1d sroundedtem wit groups of smll eleri bulbs that st a glowlike andlelight a plae of worship g 2643 ) Some ofs other works evoke feengs that e onsiderably lessoverwheming, nd moe mxed h Shdows for exmpl,ombes the maabre and te playl, suspending smplegries in ont of ghts so that the ast lage, ominousshadows on the wlls te paper dols hng b the nekand skeletons dangling in ida stat to look ke te indetermate shapes a sm hd ght be id of in e

CAPR 26 H SCV GHS 71


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I

dak At he same e, hey give a !og ist to hetaion of the Banese puppet-shadow heate.

The Ameia video aist B Voa b 95) has also

exmed the theme of memoy Viola ceates not justvideotapes but ene istallatons that emplo objects,video images, and eoded sound He hs long bee iterested i how the eye ad ba poess visul infomaon,and he seeks to eveal hei wogs his at In atr oor (g 2644), an upooted ee lies iagony aoss he oo of a dkened oom is bachese dzes of lantens A ideo mage is pojected aginstone wall At intevals, wite noise, mosy stat, euptsfom the speakes, sepaated by long peods of sileneOf his nstallaon Viola sd:

I r rdng ou n n h n nr·

�

os sys :g o nrsd wh cuss h ggr-

71 AP 26 ' H OPECV G

264 Christanltanski, a, 198723 blaca-whiptgraps 1 1 ghts, vera apprx66%" 1%[2 5 stseern, wizerlan

ng onrv rngs h rr ps ops snsons

ny ong ory I c cross h o nurons n rn r pyscly dsconn o

c ohr, gg n ndng n ny gp o p

spc h ckng p o y ny sprs o

hog gng s gps cos h l or n

susnc o or s.

His istalaon is a kd of wog mode of he bphysiology, as if he viewe wee stdng inside "theate of a fantasay huge aum he antense he ny spaks of hought hat igite aog bng "ee of o inicate neual t\o; he pjected video image evoes he "show'' that memoy epbee o mind's eye t is a dededly mehaist, ecil, view of how huma onsousness opeates, be omanc sense of mystey is oneheless supp

2644 il Va, a 98 Vesnstallat ewprHarb At Mse,Nwprt each,Caliria.


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y the drmacly it ree, te achaic lantens, and thekened theaticl space.

n the Empire of igns: Varieties ofNeo-Geo

The em Neo-Geo efes to the wok of atsts impessedih the 1eoeic potenal of Appropriaton u sedhing fom imist blocks o vacmcleanes ther ident beers of conen, thogh no neces

iy that most eadily assoiaed with tem Recontexalizaion was key, bt, nke heir Appopriaionistes, eoGeo rtiss wee lso inteesed in expession

times objects tat wold seem to be impotn for heiil nction lled pimary expressive d aestheticles he wok of he mos poen of he NeoGeotsts, Pete Halley, consisted of sqaes and ectangles

hose fon1 and meng wee detemed by a set ofial ccmstances raher than form ones Halley associed his forms, called ccis, wih the netoks of com

nicaton nd power coempory vlizationeoGeo tiss ntentonly enlised te stoy ad on

taions of a fo when they composed ate than hopg fo a esonce beteen te shpes on te cnvs nde sol of e viewer, modernists oen had he ndeanding tha hee is specic eang aher thn generaled expession in abstrac fo was clealy articaed ine id o lae eighes, and cones to ndeie pemptions abo abstction ody

·G bsra cinPtr Hy (b 9) was the nispted leade ofNeoeo In a series of painings based on Albers' Hoag o hqua (see g 79), Hlley teaed he sqare, hs ownods, "as a sign fo cerin kds of egimented o con

ng stces the socil ldscape His emphasisn the esictive nate of posndstial societ reectshe inence of iche Focalt's essay on conemen,

hile his eqaon of a seemingly abstract sign wit "theial landscape deives fom J_ Badad's notion of

"hyperreit Halley d othes took from Focat theinsigh hat te eglated gome ofmode socie, ·omte calend to he ofce blng, were sites whee oden ide of geomet·ic pit d athoiin conol cocided he cpaibili beteen modenist geomeri andte reglaion of nealy evey part of or lives was, it wassggested, no coiidence he inton tha moden twas ceced o oden indstry had informed macneage art om beteen he wars on bo1 sides of 1e Alantic a deconsrcve ove, Focal stipped the n1yth of

pogess fom he elationship o evel a moe oppessiveregime NeoGeo eied on tis Postodern insigh, besised the implse, so song modernis a, o ansfo a new idea ino the fodaon for an art of evelation

he challenge fo Hley was how o expess conentwio sbsttg one decostrcted ·h fo anot_er;how, i other wods we cn tel that Halleys geometriccondits were erent fom e inds·ial abstaconsofChares Sheele or Pal Sand (see gs 7 ) Haey sed the wring of Badrid to explin ha,thogh he elied on Focal's insigh, he, ike themachineage atis, id not clim to be pesenng te con

necton beteen ar nd dstry as a key o hman nareAccoding o Badrillard, \o ed sysems, ternaonalcapitalism nd mass meda, force eveon o ve in agttering "empe of signs where "pereal images"simlate _d spplan orny reaty Painngs lie TwoCl wth Culang Condu (g 2645 "simlaehis "empie by pesenng he higtech eqvlent of its"plmbgsqaes, o be nderstood s bot batteryand pison cells, coeced by les or "condis for the"i�laon of infomaton and power Haey, whosewtngs d eviews e oen brogh ogethe wih spings to fom a single, pitoialheoetical package,conends tha s wok collapses "the idea of 1e absracd the repesentatonal and gives absacion a conent imporan lement Hley's wok is his se o DayGlo pa, scco sfaces, and, in more recen wok, neoncolored wallpaper hese elements aw on aesthecof ce ha esists compason to eier modeiss'

64 Pete woells with culaingonui 985 ,· acyl and Rll

aex n anas 5'4" 8'8 (1 63 26 )Cllectn Cper ndnc

CHAT 26 o H TROCTV GHT 71 7


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quests for ut. Through suh devies, Haey simulatesadiional arst's olor and evokes te mat beauy ofthe informaion age. Most impotnly, lough olor andtheory, Neo-Geo fored past syles of absaon to signew meaings rather thn, as ·is wod lm of NcoExpressioism, fore ontempory minds to appreiatereuperated syles.

Ross Bemer (b 1949) was quily assoiated withNeo-Geo by Hlley and others for is use of vivid stripesto make large-sale absat pinngs Hs work is osely

related to that of artss uh as Sherre Lvine, whoade "generi Versions of past syles in order to deonstut moderst myths (see g 262) However Bleknerered in his onenrated atempt to move beyonddeonsuon to pant ages about lfe d loss ontemporary Ameria Blekers oen obsessiey repeatedpaes do not simply llude to sxes Op t; theysmated the hdedged syle in a way that reletsa Postsuralst ique of the moderist story ofweneteny absaion as a progressive ufoldng ofsyles, eah blt upon the other, eah "heroi d orignalad unrepeatable By howng te ret sequene

awry with the appropriation of an "inorret syle suhas Op, Bleer showed hat he past offers a vaiey ofpossiblies d has no ed, neessay reationsip toontemory risti prae or mning.

2646 Ro lkne ing nd Belevng 198 1 Oil dwax n anas 9' '" (9 X 37

718 CA 6 T RhSCY GHTS

As if to reifore the pot, 1983 Bleer stteto exhibit somber pngs, suh as Tw Nghts NNhts (g 66), in w evoaons of spel lansapes ae ombined th symbolshds, torhes, owers, and uslled from the Baroque ionography death d slvaon Suh tenebrist painings were monhe eest memorials to the viims of AIDS, whih wrst idened n 1982 Painted with wax and ground piment rather than preped paint, hey e bllant deosaons of a retn to oldmaster tehques, whi

Blekner shed with anoher CalArsrned st, EFisl (see g. 2627)

Commo d ArThough appenly qte different om te pinng Hey nd Bleler Neo-Geo also enompasses spby Jeff Koons Haim Steinbah, and Ashley Bikertowhih maipulated the ooes of apitalism a tpainters had maipulated sles. Ts at ntoned like nonobjeive ounterpt, but onsisted of reogzabelemens from pop ule. Mihael Jalon or a lalamp ght be inorporated into a work to perform a

aese tion as we as to iate a range of potenmeaing� he ompleted woks were no more limted he spei signe of te ontents han Halley Bleers were restrited to an art about sque d stbsts e evine or Pre Koons ad ompy apprpriated teir objets om mass ulture ad re-presentedUnlike Appropriaion art, however, he theorel positiof he omoiy tss was pny nlea Not oly dthe work see to feshie its mateis raher th aaaly reontextie them but wile Hlley nd s itreferred to Fouault Baurillard, or Smihson the ommoiy side of NeoGeo played at a Wholesque nvet

Je Koons (b. 1955) sted showin elegaiimast gements of onsumer goods a smindependent glley th Peter Halley Meyer aismn, aAsley Bil


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264 Jeff Koos, New Hover Ou!lex New HverCvetibl Nw Hver Dmenn 900 New Hvermenn 100, 1 98 1 -86. oo c ce cycgss fece gh 8'3" X 4'5W X 2' (25 X1 36 X 0.7 ) Pe coeco

signs of s own creave act Uie Levne and oherswhose pracce the Ban Show invoked, howeverKoons did not cricy reframe s seected fs. In

dscussing is rt Koons evinces a surprisng commit-ment to a rather moderist beief in essences raher thana Posmodern convicon n the consructed Climngwith isarmng innocence: " in about my wor everyinute of the day, he has elined that he ims torevel the true nare of s object by putng in a placewhee that nare s exposed He equates ts wthputting a shy person n pubc where you can reallysee ther shyness. The subjects of chal Jakson andBubbls (g 2648), it is supposed revealed n the decate ish of porcen under he heat of the gerylights offer up the true ad rather unsetting spiritDespite cms for a new res Koons c� Halleycapitaized on tice presening objec that while heyrevel son1ehing of he aions of Aercan c�lesuggest that he deses that creted Mchae Jacson ndBubbles re simuated ad correspond to noing morereal than television

�

264 Jff oo Mcel jckn d Bubbe 1 98 8 oce, 36 X 5' 1 X 28' 1 06 X 79 X 083

CHAPTE 26 , TH RTOSIV GH 7 1 9


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The Banali Show ws ceated as an enseble, andthough iniidual works stood lone, the effect was a composition of simuaed desires wch Koons mselfposed, with eathe: jacet d fasionmodel ooks, asits cenerpiece.

Co

H.H. Arnason - The Retrospective 80's (Ch. 26)

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Transcript of H.H. Arnason - The Retrospective 80's (Ch. 26)