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Module 16
POP ART
POP ART
Though much of the work of Abstract Expressionism was truly beautiful, the public had become increasingly dissatisfied with the inability to understand the work and the forest of intellectual verbiage that grew up around the work that became increasingly convoluted and elitist. Even in the UK, artists were beginning to look at the everyday, the kitsch, the common.
Richard Hamilton's Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? is considered by critics to be one of the earliest Pop Art works.
In New York, Andy Warhol began exhibiting his work during the 1950s, about things that everybody could recognize and understand, Campbell’s soup, and Brillo boxes, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe.
Pop art was a redefinition of art not only through a return to representational art but to a subject matter that reflected popular consumer society – in addition the hallowed ‘subjectivity’ of the artist as genius – was replaced by the mechanical production of his works through silk screening and the use of assistants.
Warhol changed how people understood art and artists – the style was an immediate success and can still be seen in a lot of art produced today. These two movements highlighted the distinction between high art and low art. Art that is common, popular and considered less important than art that is considered rare, expensive and created by ‘masters’.
And, did we say FUN?
Richard Hamilton, Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? 1956
Soup Cans, Silkscreen Print, Andy Warhol 1962
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein
Brushstroke 1965
Brushstroke 1965
Here Lichtenstein used it to make a direct comment on the elevated content and loaded brushwork of Abstract Expressionism. The brushstroke, as the token of the artist's personal expression, is depersonalised.
Here Lichtenstein used it to make a direct comment on the elevated content and loaded brushwork of Abstract Expressionism. The brushstroke, as the token of the artist's personal expression, is depersonalised.
Conceptual Art
Conceptual Art
Conceptual art is art for which the idea (or concept) behind the work is more important than the finished art object. It emerged as an art movement in the 1960s and the term usually refers to art made from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. However, there is still a lot of conceptual art being made today.
Chair, photograph of same chair (to scale), enlarged printed definition of the word "chair" - Museum of Modern Art, New York
Joseph Kosuth 1965
A well-known German photographer sued American artist Barbara Kruger for her use of a photograph of a woman with a magnifying glass. Kruger cropped and enlarged the image, and then superimposed three large red blocks containing words that read, “It’s a small world but not if you have to clean it.” Given that the photograph was in the public domain in the United States, the artist subsequently won the case.
Barbara Kruger – I shop therefore I am, 1987, screenprint on vinyl, 125 x 125 cm
A critique of our consumer culture.
The phrases in her works often include pronouns such as "you", "your", "I", "we", and "they", addressing cultural constructions of power, identity, consumerism, and sexuality.
Watch this.....
He represented the numerous hardships LGBTQ people faced during the time in his artistic work. One of his posters Ignorance = Fear notes the challenges people with AIDS continuously faced and he worked tirelessly to reach as many people as possible to express the importance of AIDS education.
Postmodern Visual Art
Postmodern Visual Art
In the visual arts, postmodernism is associated with a group of New York artists – including Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman – who were engaged in acts of image appropriation, and have since become known as The Pictures Generation after a 1977 show curated by Douglas Crimp.
By the 1980s postmodernism had become the dominant discourse, associated with “anything goes” pluralism, fragmentation, allusions, allegory and quotations. It represented an end to the avant-garde’s faith in originality and the progress of art.
But the origins of these strategies lay with Dada artist Marcel Duchamp, and the Pop artists of the 1960s in whose work culture had become a raw material. After all, Andy Warhol was the direct progenitor of the kitsch consumerist art of Jeff Koons in the 1980s.
Remember this woman? It's Venus of Willendorf!
Contemporary Artists and Art
Contemporary Artists and Art
Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui
The Story Behind Banksy Please Read
The Story Behind Banksy Please Read
A little girl who lets a heart-shaped balloon go: Girl with Balloon represents one of Banksy’s most popular works. Next to it, there was the famous inscription “There is always hope”. Always produced with a stencil, this drawing was painted in 2002 on the facade of a London store.
Watch this short video
Artist of the Week: Ai Weiwei
Artist of the Week: Ai Weiwei
"Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential. Simply put, aside from using one's imagination - perhaps more importantly - creativity is the power to act."
Ai Weiwei
Check out his website here:
Remember our discussion about art and activism? Here is one artist walking his talk.
Ai Weiwei Covers Berlin's Konzerthaus In Refugee Life Jackets
Ai Weiwei Covers Berlin's Konzerthaus In Refugee Life Jackets
Ai Weiwei is a very interesting artist. He is a Chinese contemporary artist and activist wh0 has been openly critical of the Chinese Government's stance on democracy and human rights. I consider him one of the finest examples of an avant-garde artist.
noun: avant-garde
new and unusual or experimental ideas, especially in the arts, or the people introducing them.
"works by artists of the Russian avant-garde"
adjective: avant-garde
favoring or introducing experimental or unusual ideas.
"a controversial avant-garde composer"
In French, avant-garde literally means “advance guard.” The term (which also gave us vanguard) originally referred to the part of an army that marched in front.
Mary Mattingly, Life of Objects 2013
And last but not least for this week. Interesting Ted talks to watch about art and activism.
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