Big Ideas
Why does Harold Rosenberg refer to Jackson Pollock's paintings as an arena for action?
process of painting is as important as completed picture. We are looking at the traces of a performance in which canvas is the stage. Not a painting thought out as an image.
Why did women begin to use their bodies as vehicle for artmaking in the 1960s?
What is the driving question behind Marina Abramovic's Rhythm 0?
Are people naturally good or bad? What is the root of human behavior when we are removed from the consequences of our actions
Why does Harold Rosenberg refer to Jackson Pollock's paintings as an arena for action?
Process of painting as important
What art movement elevates everyday mass consumer items to the level of fine art?
Pop art
What is the concept of the Flatbed Picture Plane when applied to Robert Rauschenberg's works?
Flatbed- vertical field like a tabletop, studio floor, beds, letting the world back in again after AB. Ex., but not the Renaissance world, the mundane everyday - merging art/life.
What are the main ideas behind Afrofuturism?
a speculative way of imagining possible futures throgh a black cultural lens, often merging technology and new social/political relations
Why can Hans Haacke's Metromoblitan be understood as a cover up?
mobil's words and exhibitions sponsored at the MET cover up images of state/police violence against Africans living under apartheid rule. the implication of the artwork is that the MET is allowing Mobil to white wash their identity through sponsoring exhibitions to get rid of the ick of their financial implication in the South African Apartheid rule.
Wangechi Mutu's Yo Mama employs Afro-Futurist themes of creating new myths and futures. What history is she reimagining in this artwork?
A garden of eden in which Eve has decapitated the snake. Feminist re-imagining of Christian origin story.
What is institutional critique?
Artworks and actions that draw the viewer's attention to the ideological and monetary system of the museum/ art world as an institution. Can also draw attention to archives, housing practices, etc.
Why do scholars often list Pop Art/Jasper Johns/Rauschenburg as the shift from modernism to post-modern? What is this shift?
A shift away from sincere belief in utopias/art can save the world. Artist/art becomes a bit more ironic and satirical. Still a belief in art, but less belief in utopian aims of art. Art more cheeky/playful, artworks more and more about the idea than the physical work as an object of aesthetics.
Make viewer think about Picasso's appropriation of African art differently. Celebrate Black contributions to art history and reframe history of modernism.
Why can we think of Jasper Johns's Flag as more of a flag than a mirror?
None of the artists political intention visible. The artwork shows you a flag, and your response to said flag mirrors your own thoughts on America/Americanness in that moment. Pointing out the contingency of signs that parade as universal.
What question about abstraction did Frank Bowling want the viewer to ask in his work Who's Afraid of Barney Newman?
Challenging the dominance of North American artists in defining abstraction, and playing with the idea of the "death of the author" in Ab.Ex.
Arguing abstraction can still be about the biography of the author and perhaps a valid political statement.
What type of artworks does the term minimalism refer to?
reductive abstraction- industrial materials and surfaces in sculpture. lack of expressive context. What you see is what you get.
What does the term the Death of the Author mean regarding post-war art?
intentions of the author begin to matter less and less for the viewer. Works of art become less vehicles for the artist's politics/ideas and more spaces for the viewer to contemplate- Ab. Ex. etc.
What is the historical context for the emergence of Earth Works?
First environmental movement. lots of ecological disasters happening around that time. First general acceptance of global climate change being driven by human actions.
How is Yoko Ono's Cut piece both a feminist and pacifist statement?
Mirrors objectification/vulnerability of women's bodies in society, but also in taking the souvenir reminded of the use of atomic weapons and the resulting human cost of their use.
What was the aim of Walter de Maria's Earth Room?
getting the viewer to reconnect with nature inside of NYC in the wake of the first environmental movememnt.
What does the dematerialization of the artwork mean in the context of conceptual art?
The artwork itself or the physical object becomes less and less important. The idea behind the object is the real artwork, or is the driving factor. The objects represent the idea or serve as a mobilizer of ideas.
How did Gutai's insistence of individualism differ from the insistence on individualism of Abstract Expressionism?
Gutai less obsessed with their art as a reflection of their individualism. Artworks were playful and often not considered precious to the artist's individual psyche. Wanted to develop individualism in viewer. Ab.Ex. considered artworks an expression of the artists individualism/inner psyche - only Pollock could create a Pollock.
How can we see the legacy of Duchamp in operation in post-War art?
There are a million ways to answer this. Some include?
- rise of conceptual art
-readymade/everyday objects
-artist as jester/provocateur
-humor and whit on the rise in art.
How does Joseph Kosuth use One and Three Chairs as a metaphor for the question of conceptual art?
How does Fred Wilson's Mining the Museum use the language of museum display to challenge the viewer's relationship with the museum?
creates juxtapositions between object or lack thereof. Museum tactics of display/organization still apply, but done with objects jarring to put together.
What was the general political idea behind the Japanese Gutai movement?