Materials & Methods
Who is Michel Tuffery? (Pisupo Lua Afe / Corned Beef 2000)
Flattened food packaging + rivets = a charging bull with a message about imported diets.
What are the walking paths? (The Gates)
Thousands of saffron-colored fabric gates were designed to trace this pre-existing feature of Central Park.
What is the Information Age? (Paik, Electronic Superhighway)
Neon + TVs + US map = an artwork about America entering this era.
What is a confrontational gaze?
In both Rebellious Silence and Olympia, the subject does this to confront the viewer.
What is installation?
Term for a temporary work designed for a specific space that surrounds or situates the viewer.
What is Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds?
Mass-produced-looking handmade objects that were individually crafted, then piled into a huge field.
What is Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth?
A crack across the floor of the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall becomes a metaphor for exclusion and division.
What is cultural hybridity (and colonialism)? (Shonibare)
Dutch wax fabric in The Swing (after Fragonard) points to colonial trade and this idea.
What are layered geologic formations (like fossils buried in layers)?
Mehretu’s Stadia II feels like maps + diagrams + marks stacked so thick they resemble this natural structure.
What is kitsch?
Low-quality, mass-appeal aesthetic (often sentimental, shiny, popular) used knowingly in contemporary art.
What is Xu Bing’s A Book from the Sky?
A “book” you can’t read: thousands of characters that look legit but communicate nothing.
What is Pepón Osorio’s En la Barbería no se Llora?
This installation was literally built like a functioning neighborhood business—chairs, products, culture, masculinity.
What is Kara Walker’s Darkytown Rebellion?
Racist 19th-century imagery becomes silhouettes to force viewers to confront stereotypes that still circulate.
What are societal divisions / segregation / exclusion?
Lawrence Panel 49 and Shibboleth both use a strong central “divide” to emphasize this theme.
What is an earthwork?
Art where the earth is the medium; the site is part of the work.
What is Bill Viola’s The Crossing?
Video installation filmed at extremely high frame rates, then slowed down until it becomes spiritual.
What is Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial?
This war memorial is non-figurative, made of polished black granite, and forces the viewer to descend.
What is Wangechi Mutu’s Preying Mantra?
Hybrid female/cyborg-like figure critiques how women’s bodies have been constructed by art history/media.
What is nationalism (propaganda/pageantry)?
In Stadia II, bright shapes + movement lines can suggest flag-waving crowds and this force.
What is assemblage?
3D work made by combining found/varied objects and materials into one piece.
Who is El Anatsui? (Old Man’s Cloth)
Bottle caps and copper wire become a shimmering, cloth-like “tapestry” that hangs like fabric.
What is Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI?
Rome museum with dramatic interior flow: hard geometry + curving ramps/stairs = signature spatial drama.
Who is Jeff Koons? (Pink Panther)
A “kitsch” sculpture pairing a cartoon character with glossy perfection is most associated with this artist.
What is Impressionism? (Kngwarreye)
Earth’s Creation connects Aboriginal ceremonial practice + a Western movement known for atmosphere/light/color.
What is action painting?
Abstract painting approach where the physical act (drip/splatter/gesture) is the main expressive “subject.”