Terminology
A tendency in art that emerged in the late 1800/early 1900s and focused on moving away from representing the 'real world'.
What is Abstract/Abstraction?
A mid-twentieth-century, largely American movement characterized by its artists' emphatically idiosyncratic handling of paint, which was often thrown or dripped across large canvases.
What is Abstract Expressionism?
This American visual artist was a leading figure in the pop art movement. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished in the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture.
Who is Andy Warhol?
In one of the exhibition reviews we read, Rosalind Krauss is critical of later generations of this form of early-twentieth-century art, largely for what she saw as its overly representational trend.
What is Cubism?
"Pure" Cubism vs. "academic".
Jackson Pollock, Number 1A, 1948. Drip/thrown acrylics on canvas.
1. Abstract expressionism; Chance embraced as integral to art making process ; mark-making, pouring, drip paint
2. Movement of the artist's body around/across the canvas
The term first used by French artist Marcel Duchamp to describe works of art he made from nothing more than industrially manufactured objects. It has since been applied more generally to artworks 'made' using this same method.
What is a Readymade?
The movement that emerged in Zurich after the onset of WWI; its works incorporated absurd gestures to spotlight the increasing absurdity of modern life—parodic performances of wacky poetry, or collages that juxtaposed wildly diverse images, are just two examples.
What is Dada?
This Dutch artist was a pioneer of abstract art, particularly in the form known as De Stijl ("The Style"). His art style is characterized by geometric abstraction, where he reduced forms to their most basic elements of vertical and horizontal lines and primary colors.
Who is Piet Mondrian?
Building on the medium-specific criticism of Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried refers to this term as 'the condition of non-art'.
What is objecthood?
Kazimir Malevich, Black Square, 1915. Oil-on-linen.
1. "Zero Point" of painting - or a break from representational art and move towards pure abstraction
2. Suprematism - avante-garde Russian-Soviet movement emphasizing a realm of pure feeling. Formally emphasized by geometric simplicity and white background.
3. Soviet/Communist idealism and artistic yearnings towards utopia
A (former) military term term meaning ahead of the times, often involving a visionary artist or group, and often referring to the association of art and politics.
What is the avant-garde?
First appearing in the USSR, these two movements concerned themselves with the creation of objects that could be of interest or use to, by, and for the working class.
What are Constructivism and Productivism?
This Russian artist pioneered abstract art in early 20th century. His unique, mystically-inflected perspective on the form and function of art emphasized the synthesis of the visual and the auditory. He heard sounds as color, and this unusual perception was a guiding force in the development of his artistic style.
Who is Wassily Kandinsky?
In "Radical Reversibility", Yve-Alain Bois discusses the career of avant-garde Soviet artist El Lissitzky, especially the great shifts in his career between the 1910s and '30s.
How does Bois locate politics in the work of Lissitsky?
1. Politicization is overt in the 1930s, when Lissitzky is co-opted by the Soviet government to produce propaganda.
2. During the middle period of the artist's career, Bois locates a utopian undercurrent in the artist's "Prouns", a series of axiometric paintings that distorted viewership and caused viewers to question reality.
Andy Warhol, Gold Marilyn Monroe, 1962. Acrylic and screenprint on canvas.
https://www.arthistoryproject.com/artists/andy-warhol/gold-marilyn-monroe/
1) Pop-art, drawing on Byzantine/Christian iconography. Hearkening to an older tradition of icon-making
2) Appeal to an increasingly popular, perhaps 'average' viewership
3) Highly recognizable image created shortly after Monroe's death.
A photograph of a collage; it's typically associated with the extreme juxtaposition of ostensibly disparate images, often for overtly political purposes.
What is a photomontage?
An art style emerging in the 1950s and 1960s that aimed to highlight the processes by which artworks are made and viewed, rather than any inherent aesthetic qualities they might be said to have. Its works typically feature an overtly industrial materiality and are often thought to direct viewers' attention to the physical space around them rather than to the works themselves as aesthetic objects.
What is Minimalism?
This French artist broke down the boundaries between works of art and everyday objects. His irreverence for conventional aesthetic standards led him to devise his famous readymades and heralded an artistic revolution.
Who is Marcel Duchamp?
Darby English's "Fantasias of the Museum" frames the artist Fred Wilson as partaking in this kind of practice, one typically associated with probing the various power relations that help to structure everything going on within the art world.
What is 'Institutional Critique'?
Jenny Holzer, YOU BE MY ALLY, 2020. Augmented reality (AR) artwork. Chicago.
https://news.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/images/2020-09/MerchandiseMart1380.jpg
1) Pandemic creation at UofC. Outdoors, a medium that was safe to engage in.
2) App-based, hold your phone up to building to see projected text.
3) Contrast between what is on your phone and what is in real-life, context of 'alternative facts', presidential election, pandemic.
It's the process through which the elements of an artistic medium become a concern for the production of future works in that medium.
What is autonomization?
A German art school active between 1919-1933. It sought to merge all artistic mediums into a unified approach, combining individual artistry with mass production and utility. Its design were often abstract, angular, and geometric, with little ornamentation.
What is the Bauhaus?
This Berlin Dada artist is primarily associated with the development of photomontage, which she used to take up issues typically relating to contemporary politics and/or women's role in Germany's burgeoning consumer society.
Who is Hannah Höch?
It's the term Michael Fried uses to describe an experience of instantaneous conviction as to the quality of a modernist work of art.
What is presentness?
Hammons, David. Lady with Bones, 1983. Human hair and wire. Whitney.
https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/4541/installation_images/41495
1) Hammons - black artist working after the Civil Rights movement.
2) Human hair collected in Harlem barbershops
3) Use of hair as a symbol of innate blackness, staging of stereotypes.