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Contemporary Art, During the 20th century, art became less useful for…

- - - - Kagan's three-part performance piece was a testimony to her experiences with generational trauma. She sat in a rocking chair for hours, knitting a cocoon made from cotton and silk yarns. The act of knitting is symbolic of the intertwining acts and beliefs that form new knots until the cage of yarn is complete. She would then escape from the bindings and break the cycle of generational suffering. In the room there were the overlapping sounds of the other sections of the work. The harsh audio recordings combined with the stories of others telling their experiences with trauma contradicted the imagery of a woman knitting in a rocking chair to produce an uneasy reaction in the audience. This work is about Kagan's experiences as a daughter of Holocaust survivors. It is specific to her experience and the formation of her own identity.
    - - Untitled #216, 1989 by Cindy Sherman
        
        Sherman photographs herself as a stereotype of religion and motherhood. She does so to criticize the culture of binding women into feminine archetypes, but by using herself as a model, she makes this piece about her own experiences as a woman.
      - Stories to Tell, 2015 by Margaret Keelan
        
        This piece has been composed to produce an unsettling response in the viewer. The contrast between innocent and disturbing is dramatic, but there are a number of subtleties in this work that imply where Keelan's attitudes lie. Though this work is not solely about identity, there appears to be personal feelings that Keelan directed at her childhood.
      - The Two Fridas, 1939 by Frida Kahlo
        
        This is a narrative self-portrait created in response to Kahlo's divorce. She is illustrating the reaction of personal events for the audience to see.
  - - - Though many people think of the Black arts movement was only literary, we know that it was a celebration of all forms of art. It formed as a reaction to centuries of political and cultural oppression. It honored black culture and promoted visibility through art, but it was also a rebellion in the response to the erasure of black identity. It emphasized a unique black aesthetic, forms that were accessible, a shared history in culture and separatism. The Black Arts Movement, in producing this art, they were simultaneously celebrating and perpetuating black culture. Additionally, the movement was attempting to make a celebration of the black aesthetic sustainable. "the Black Arts Movement embodied a search for a black aesthetic, it also sought out alternative institutional structures that could nurture and support these new art forms," (Jones, 52).
      - Charles White, an integral contributor to the Black Arts Movement, pursues collective identity through a series of haunting drawings, paintings, and prints. His work predates the bulk of the Black Arts Movement, but he brought "with him a practice inspired by social realism and progressive politics. A younger generation of artists, those more fully a part of the Black Arts Movement, connected directly with White's Activist voice when he began teaching at Otis Art Institute in L.A. in 1965," (Jones, 45). White was one of many artists to advocate for black power and dignity, but his work is an ideal example of using representative and figurative work to comment on systematic racism in the U.S.
      - Charles White created his art in response to events that were crucial to the black experience. White is known for using the black body to express the trauma that is ingrained in the black experience. In Birmingham Totem, White uses a teenager curled inward and sifting through a pile of wreckage that was formerly a church in Birmingham. Though he is in a small position, he is elevated on top of the pile of rubble and seems relaxed, even expectant to what he may discover. The boy is naked, with long, thin arms, and there is a blanket draped over his shoulders. His expression is soft and mournful, and his hands are gently sifting through the rubble; the weight of his suffering is evident when observing his posture. The trauma that is evident in Birmingham Totem establishes a sense of resilience and quiet power that the community conveys in the face of racism.
      - A Subtlety, 2014 by Kara Walker
        
        While this piece does overlap as a form of political critique, it is also a response to the racism that has formed the identity of women of color.
- - - - Objecthood
        
        Michael Fried, in his argument against minimalism, claims works of minimalism are insufficient for the same reasons Judd argues that it is successful. Fried says that there is a limited form and structure that ignores aesthetics and emotion, and there is no way to interpret minimalist work in a constructive way. He argues that good art transports the viewer into the work of art, that there should not be reflective moments about anything outside of the work. He argues that art should not be seen as an object, it should be seen as art. Fried seems to take issue with art that pushes conceptual boundaries, and believes that the audience should only take a passive role.
        
        According to Fried "the literalist espousal of objecthood amounts to nothing other than a plea for a new genre of theate, and theater is now the negation of art,"(3).
        
        Minimalist work is not considered revolutionary because of a distinct aesthetic style, but rather because of how it was interpreted. Minimalism does not need to be a method of visual communication, rather it is considered as a creative presence, and should be viewed as one. It becomes part of the world and encourages the audience to become aware of the time and space the work is in. There is no universal viewing experience, as everyone who engages with minimalism sees it in a slightly different context. The point was, essentially, to have the audience treat the work as an everyday object, and to reflect on your own experience in relation to the object.
      - Minimalist artists
        
        Generation, 1965 by Tony Smith
        
        Tony Smith was a notable figure during the minimalist movement. His background in architecture allowed him to design large-scale work, and he had them made industrially, which was a radical approach for the time.
        
        Untitled, 1980 by Donald Judd
        
        Donald Judd was a advocate for objecthood, and it was his work that Fried criticizes in his essay. Judd hated being labeled as a minimalist artist as he felt it was a degrading term, but the name stuck and Judd is now one of the most reputable minimalist artists.
  - - - light art
        
        Frequency Chronology, 2022 by Luftwerk
        
        Luftwerk uses color and light to play with the audiences perspective in a way that has rarely been done before. When the lights and colors shift, it is
        
        Our Colour, 2016 by Liz West
        
        West manipulates light in a space to literally immerse the audience in the art. The structure of the building is essential to the piece, but the art is the light itself.
      - Rosalind Krauss: Sculpture in the Expanded Field
        
        Krauss argues that although sculpture has been expanded to include non-traditional mediums, it has not yet lost its identity as sculpture. She recognizes the historical context for this nontraditional sculpture by bringing up famous landscape sculpture such as Stonehenge and the Nazca lines. Essentially, sculpture has been somewhat appropriated, but "it is a historically bounded category and not a universal one,"(Krauss, 33). Krauss believes that the expansion of sculpture is not a negative one, just a form of evolution that will become comfortable over time. She knows that it formed naturally; the death of the monument in the 1950s exhausted that form of sculpture, then modernist sculpture appeared out of nowhere. Then it became bigger and landscape and architectural art became part of the expanded sculpture movement. Krauss further assumes that expanded sculpture has been framed as a logical issue instead of a historical one, and it could be the reason expanded sculpture had a difficult time being accepted as art.
        
        Spiral Jetty, 1970 by Robert Smithson
        
        Spiral Jetty is a large spiral peninsula winding counterclockwise off the coast of the Great Salt Lake. Visitors may walk the length of the jetty, but they will not be able to take in the entirety of the view unless airborne, leaving the audience without a full sense of the piece’s authority. The Spiral Jetty is made entirely out of rock and has been piled on top of the floor of the lake, making it visible during dry weather. The sculpture symbolizes a connection to the environment and blurs the lines between the natural and the manufactured. Since its construction in the 70s the Great Salt Lake has been drying out rapidly due to climate change so the jetty is almost never under water. Looking at the raised, dry sculpture may then provoke sadness in the audience, as we can physically see the effects of our unstable climate.
    - - Empire, 1965 by Andy Warhol
        
        Empire is a black and white film that runs for eight hours and five minutes and focuses on the motionless Empire State Building. The lights on the building are the only movement for the entire film aside from, the reflections of the film-making crew that are occasionally noticeable. While the production of this film took a significant step in redefining what artistic film could mean, it does effectively convey the message to an audience without additional reference. The audience is not able to use their aesthetic instincts. If the audience is supposed to manipulate the art to fit their own narrative on the piece, did the work succeed at it's intention?
    - - Performance is not solely a visual art. It uses and responds with parts of the brain that learn by doing. It has a different language that is only translatable through motions of the body. There is also the matter of collaboration. Traditional arts are traditionally solitary, but a performer typically needs an audience to respond.
      - "Performance is not always about art. It's a wide-ranging and difficult practice to define and holds many, at times conflicting, meanings and possibilities," (Taylor, 6).
  - - - The case for Identity Art: Allowing a space for marginalized artists is necessary to include art of all identities. Art about cultural identity has become increasingly popular for a reason- there is sizeable demand for representation that is not oppressive. The issues with identity art does not lie in the art itself, rather the response of the institution to the art. Artists cannot be asked to ignore systematic violence and oppression for fear of being boxed in. Identity art has to be made and accepted if there is going to be progress in a macrocosmic world.
      - The case against Identity Art: Creating identity art can be an entry-point into the art world, but it is also a limiting condition. Artists are only allowed into the system if they are willing to be representative of the culture they are from. Qualified equality is not equality. Creating a space for marginalized artist does not result in equity; Identity artists transition "from marginalization (on the outside) to ghettoization (on the inside),"(Anders Kreuger and Nav Haq as quoted in the Art Story). The movement of Identity Artists was reductive, as artists who wanted to voice their commnal experiences were tokenized and dismissed.
- - - - Lorde uses her experience as a black lesbian to explain the culture of sectionalism in the second wave feminist movement. She argues that only limited progress is available when using oppressive methods to combat oppression. Without intersectionality and the examination of women as having more than one identity, there can be no dismantling of other sectional structures. Lorde claims that only a complete and total celebration of women will result in interdependency becoming nonthreatening. The defense of racism and homophobia that white women are perpetuating caused a schism in the movement, which could threaten the entirety of the feminist movement.
      - "Only within a patriarchal structure is maternity the only social power open to women," (Lorde, 1).
    - - San Quentin Arts in Corrections Art Studio, 2008 by Ronnie Goodman
        
        The self-portrait of Goodman's workshop in prison is an excellent example of a work about confinement.
    - - Guerilla girls
        
        The Guerilla Girls were a group of female activists and artists that formed in the 80s to combat gender and racial inequality in the art world. They used street art like this poster to gain support for their cause. This image that was dispersed among the streets and was turned into a poster campaign targeted against the institutions and individuals they felt were complicit. The quote "Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?" is a direct result of research done at the Met. Museum and is a pointed accusation that the art world in New York City is actively excluding women in favor of male artists who sexual the female figure. The image of the woman in a mask in a sexual and classical pose is based on the famous painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres as an example of the objectification.
- - - - "There are many problems with this idea, not least of which the difficulty of discerning a work whose identity is willfully unstable," (Bishop, 52).
      - Bishop comes out against Relational Aesthetics, and argues that the space in the institution is exclusive, and does not advocate for change as it should. Bishop claims that putting a relational work inside of a private institution defeats the purpose of relational art: the development of public social relations. When people come together to view art in a museum, it cannot generate situational diversity in individuals that is needed in a 'public' space. If there is no public, there cannot be a democratic artistic process and, therefore, is an exclusive environment. Bishop also criticizes the lack of political engagement. She argues that many famous relational work does not have an active political message as it should, and gives examples of better work that provides a more unified subject.
      - "Yet what the viewer is supposed to garner from such an "experience" of creativity, which is essentially institutionalized studio activity, is often unclear," (Bishop,52).
      - "This relational antagonism would be predicated not on social harmony, but on exposing that which is repressed in sustaining the semblance of this harmony. It would thereby provide a more concrete and polemical grounds forrethinking our relationship to the world and to one other," (Bishop, 79).
  - - - This embroidered piece is both a piece of social activism and a critique of the definition of craft. There is a beautifully crafted square in the center, filled with patterns of pink and red flowers, butterflies, and in the center, two blue vases mirroring each other. The patterns in the center are feminine archetypes, and are surrounded by quotes about women's craft. Quotes of artists line the edge of the work, arguing against feminine forms of art. "The fundamental characteristic of female creativity is... ornamental liveliness," and "ornament must be something overcome" are stitched across from each other. Reichek uses quotes like these in her work to depict the anti-feminine sentiment in art, and directly opposes it by creating a traditionally feminine piece of work to defy the view that strong, masculine art is inherently better.
    - - Betty Woodman was a ceramicist who made functional ware to push the boundaries of domestic objects and defy the conceived notions of art versus craft.