Contemporary Art
ART AND OBJECTHOOD
In the Postwar era in 1950s the art world shifted to NewYork city,which led to the end of Modern Abstract Expressionism
Modern Painting
Jackson Pollock ,Autumn Rhythmn ,1950.
Action Painting on the floor
Notion to medium specifity
Exploration of medium 🖌,canvas, surface and texture
Jasper Johns, Flag, 1954-55
American Flag, painted on wood:collage
Barnett Newman ,The Wild,1950
Oil on canvas
"Zips", split the color field of the painting
Zip standing alone
portrays sculptural quality as well as painting challanges itself
Modernist Sculpture
David Smith , Cube XII,1963
Material:steel
Autonomous as a whole: individual parts/pieces compose the whole
Stable sense
Does not rely on anything else than than itself
Anthony Caro, Early One Morning,1962
Spatial unity
Individual pieces held together
Anthony Caro, Yellow Swing ,1965
Holds itself up
Internal Unity
ANTIBLACKNESS
Modernist advances the following ideas
Works are autonomous
Artist use smaller parts to create unified whole
"Imperative to defeat or suspend its objecthood" Fried, argues the following
Arent making an object, making a work of art
Works of art are in some respects, not an object
Once the work is complete the artist stands outside of it and the artwork has its own unity and life
Not art but instead embodies objecthood
Is incurably theatrical (relies on duration experience and of the beholder to garner meaning )
Exists in a situation(not autonomous)
Thinks art should not be theatrical as theater already exists as its own entity
If art loses autonomy then what is its point? Its theater, a situation you stumble into . Art has meaning in itself. Does not like that all the meaning comes from the inexperienced viewer and not from the art itself
MINIMILISIM
Artist definition: extending the abstract ideas that art should have its own reality and not be an imitation of some other thing, no attempt is made to represent an outside reality. The artist wants the viewer to respond onto to what is in front of them
Began in the 1960s:artist emerged who made art using simple geometric structures similar to modernist architecture
Artist made work that was opposed to being decorative or functional
Donal Judd
Complaints as hw was annoyed that the critics kept labelling him as minimalist as he believed minimalism was a lazy shortcut used to oppress artist
Judd is still a very well known minimalist today:known for his glossy metal box sculptures
work
Geometric boxes made of wood and coated in paint
abstract/inorganic forms
ramps ,shelves,etc
no way to interact withe pieces or meaning attained
intentional lack of content was an affront to established art world tastes
"Believed that a work only needs to be interesting" means offering a uniques instantaneous aesthetic experience
Qualities lacked the qualities that define Western art.
Adopted manufactured materials and incorporated found objects; planned their pieces on paper
Simplification and Reduction :choosing what to preserve and omit was a form of creative labour
Demands we should look at a single object for and in themselves :intensifies what is there
less can be more as long as you have more of the less part
does not have to represent anything, document reality or communicate the artists individuality
unique experience as the meaning resides on the viewer and not the maker and the time context
Fanons The Fact of Blackness
recognizes blackness/anti-blackness in the world
3rd persons consciousness
Frantz Fanon an afro -French psychiatrist/philosoper
argues that colonial racism has pschopathoilogical effects :fosters mentally disturbed behaviour
cultural assimilation : a process that occurs when the native culture of a colonized people is replaced by the culture of the colonial power
prevents the colonized from developing an independent sense of identity
western culture : white =purity/good, black= impure /evil ;colonized learn to equate blackness with evil
prevents colonized individuals from developing a sense of self:the advent of cultural studies
grow up aspiring to be white
sense of alienation as to doubt who they are and with whom they should identify
Black colonial subjects learn they have no viable identity : learned that to be black is to be subhumuan, they cannot identify as black , aspiration to be white is destined to fall
colonized unable to celebrate their native culture and unable to achieve equality within colonial culture
teaches its citizen that the only way to be human is to be white :agonizing positions
colonial racism is also a socio economic issue: uses ideas from Marx and Lacan
colonialism shape the worldview of its citizens from their earliest years of development
NEGRITUDE MOVEMENT
Literary and philosophical movement developed by African writers in France whose work was critical of French colonial rule
Articulates the displaced identity of colonized people
Existentialism argues that individuals develop by exercising their own free will
Colonialism which stifles the free will of the colonized is shown to be inherently dehumanizing
One of the first texts to examine the damaging effects of colonial racism : call to arms, urges black readers to take action against colonialism
MAIN PRINCIPLE
dissertation project rejected
asking crucial questions as a psychiatrist
clinical study of race and colonial encounter
juxtaposition of white and races in context of colonization
BLACK MAN WANTS
To be white
cultural assimilation :equality
colonization:Black people have nothing. White people have everything
Desire to be white is due to specific configuration of power, economic,material,cultural,sociopolitical conditions
Society persists on the "The Negro Myth" Blackness is evil
Social and Political system of representation of values
to persists in Blackness is a form of non-being
FANON AND OBJECTHOOD
Black means you are treated as an object (in the midst of other objects)
Black people will never be granted subjecthood
The audience(beholder)becomes subject within a situation where they encounter /experience objects
Blackness precludes the possibility of attaining this sense of being subjectivity
Blackness is pre determined by Whiteness
Ontology:having a being or an essence
No Being for the Black Man
Thomas Ball,Emanticipation Memorial,1876,bronze
Centering of Whiteness : Lincoln is hero
Former slave on ground, still in shackles ,stand up and be more like an educated white man
Racial epidermal schema
Betye Saar,The Liberation of Aunt Jemima ,1972, assemblage
New heroine
takes derogatory image to empower the revolutionary :creates a hero that rebels against her past enslavements
inspired by Black Panthers and Pop art(Andy Warhol)
FUGITIVITY
Glenn Ligon,Untitled,I Am A Man ,1988,oil on enamel on canvas ,40*25inches
Ernest Whithers ,Memphis Sanitation Strike,1968
Fred Moten ,"Case of Blackness",2008
Fugitivity to blackness
Blackness is insofar as it is not ,because it can never be
Blackness is the thing that racism represents
BLACK OPTIMISM
Black culture is the very thing that calls into question the illusory privilege of Whiteness and race (emphasis on what blackness is rather than what it falls to be)
SOCIAL ROLE OF ART
Paul Sietesma,Figure 3,2008,16mm film
American artist
Inspired by pre colonial images (South Asian /Pacific Islands)
He did not find the objects in his film
break his sculptures and piece them together
filmed in high contrast Black and White almost as if it were aged already:falsified
comment on art/art preservation and history
obsession with material and craft making art in a very deliberate manner
mimics the process, function and story of pieces made before him
Mickalene Thomas ,Potrait of Mnonoja ,2010
rhinestone, acrylic and enamel on wood panel
96*120 inches
portrays power and patriotism
Obsalique traditional pose drawn
contrapussto pose
fingernail matches her shoes
claims her space
commissioned by Susan Rice ,ambassador under Obama ,political figure
performance starts from photographs to collaborations
approaches portraiture through photography ,painting and other materials
presents positive images of black woman :will to adorn
Robert Lugo,40 Cooler 4,2016,
china paint
hate against love ,hate finally looses
graffiti:directly inspired by marginalized community
did not grow up in the art world
reference ASCO,spray paint LACMA (1972)
Defaces social inequality
Lugo uses his art to show others they themselves are not nothing ,if he can make something functional and beautiful out of nothing , then they can too
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EXPANDING CINEMA
1960/70s takes on alternative forms(alternative narratives ,multi -projecter films ,installation environments)
Fore runner to projected image installation(1990s)
Precursors
Handmade cinema (Germany 1920/30s )
Oskar Fischinger ,An Optical Poem ,1938
Walter Ruttman Litchtspel:Opus,1921
Handmade Fashion
Intermedial :unifies art and technology
time and duration offers what static art cant
oil paint on glass: recorded frame by frame
temporal rhythm of visual events
Middle ground:black and white art and music ,much like Krauss in her diagram makes a new kind of artist
Unifiing sound and image relationships
early stop motion
Man Ray ,Return to Reason ,1923
objects randomly on film stock
filmstock is the manipulated medium
combining these elements to take up film as a sculptural form ,tactile medium to be manipulated over
Cynatype(developed 1840's)Anna Akkins ,Crystoseria Grannlata,1853
placed plant on photo graphite paper, made a direct imprint
American Avant-Garde Cinema
materials turn to film :modernist way
exploring mechanisms and limitations
Maya Deren ,Meshes of the Afternoon,16mm film ,1943
small handheld camera
circular narrative :investigates 4 different version of herself that manifests over time
resists logic of Hollywood narratives
Stan Brakhage,Dog Star Man ,16mm film 1961-63
forefather of American Avant Garde film :takes film and tries to elevate it to different artistic level by focussing on expressive abilities of the camera
extension of artists eye :internal vision of the artists worldly experience
similar to Abstract Expressionism (Jackson Pollock)
edits very quickly
starts painting scratching the fimstock
a new way of looking at the world through all potentials of the moving image
Structural Film
P .Adams Sitney ,Visionary Film ,originally published 1974
Fixed camera position
Flicker Effect (stroboscopic lightning)
Loop Printing
Rephotography
Michael Snow ,Wavelegth,16mm film,1967
camera slowly looms into picture on the wall
audio waves follow a sin curve
beginning and ending events emerge that make us consider what's going on
endless progressions forward ,can't and won't be stopped
Paul Screening:Touching Sharits ,16mm,1968
Paul Sharits Screening:T.O.U.C.H.I.N.G
16mm film
critical sound -image relationship
tongue in between succors bladed :looks like he mutated himself
mandala cycle :made around Vietnam war
physical act that film and cinema can take on, a form of tactility bothy to the filmship and audience psychological response
Destroy-His Straw -History sound keeps changing
flicker attack the eye ,locate you in your body
speaks to your own bodily vulnerability
Became more about expanding consciousness social utopian ideas -offers new kind politics and sense of community amid widespread resistance
Gene Youngblood
ranges from experimental film practice to Stargate scene of 2001 an oddessy
creating new ways to expand our mind through cinematic aparams
Stan Van Der Beek ,Movie Drome ,1936-66
Far out experiences (drugs)
projected images on walls:enviornmental sight specific installations
overwhelm the senses
Moving image installations /the projected image
being mobile in the gallery does not mean the audience is more interactive with the work
emerges in the 1990s
Erika Balson
the integration of cinema into spaces of art after 1990 must be seen as abiding by an interplay between old and new media , where cinema is both an old medium in which one might encounter the redemptive possibilities of the outdated model and an new technology that has wrought dramatic change to the place of moving images
Responds to Chrissie Iles "Into the Light "exhibition Symbolized acceptance of the projected image in galleries
Piiplotti Rist Ever is over all ,1997
double image
large scale video installations
PERFORMANCE ART
REPRESENTATION/ABSTRACTION
Precurrsors
Allan Kaprów,Household,Performance documentation ,1964,"Happpenings"
thinks about how the art merges with daily life
does not like how the art world operates ,the way its sectioned off from soceity
Happenings :Kaprow and his friends would do things events where no would notice or pay attention
Peanut butter sandwich all over car, wipe sandwich across the hood ,lick the jam
audience is participants for the event
Gutain in Japan ;Suburo Murakami ,passing Through,1956
tall sheets of paper
jumps through it like it is the canvas
remains are the artwork
suggests artists as the sight of action /performance
intervention into painting create a foundation into understanding performance art
Feminist Performance
number of artist who respond directly to the presentation of the female body /form in a male dominated art world -vulnerability revealing an interior spirituality that isn't seen from the outside
Yoko Ono ,Cut Piece ,1964
sits on a stage in front of an audience
audience members line up to cut a piece of Onos clothing and take it home as their art object
becomes nuder seeming more violated
selling of an art object ,presentation of the artists body becomes an integration of culpability
Carolee Schneeman Fuses ,1967,16mm film
her most famous film
landmark in structural and experimental filmmaking and expanded media :fuses the bodies of the film with the material the film stock itself
unsimulited sexual content
collages or the film stock itself
portrait of sexual bodies
depiction of the female body as an sexual body is that she is criticized for ,rejects the critics
Mary Duffy, Stories of a body ,performance
born without arms
presents herself unclothed
references the Vet figures of antique beauty at the time
society does not show beauty in the disabled ,not a common representation
talks about visit to the doctor
reclamation of the female body as that is beautiful and sexual
mark of an artists woman's experience in the world
Body under Duress, Chris Burden,Shoot,1971
performance
guy puts himself under extreme situation
public art opening
Vietnam war -different sense of burden
audience never intervenes -passively watches
about the audience and their ability feel they can intervene on behalf of the artists
body abstracted from being human
Charles White (1918-1976)
father of Black arts movement on the west Coast
"Negro Americana" connection to traditional views of America that are filtered through images of Black life
Black art circles in Hollywood
Participate in multiracial shows that promote racial understanding -utility for progress
Black arts movement begins in a place of promoting racial understanding ,presenting Blackness in a context familiar to White audiences
Birmingham Totem 1964, ink and charcoal on paper
moves beyond the new negro movement
Civil rights era cannot deny the presents ,moves past pure positivity
16th st Baptist Church bombing -4 young girls killed
helped lead to the passing of the civil rights act in 1964
direct dealing with this past :boy carefully pulls through the wreck age ,not shying away ,working through disaster
began critiquing the characterization of African Americans
Angel of history atop the wreckage of Birmingham reflecting a new way for ward- does not deny the racism or legacy of slavery continues to fight
Framework for Whites Impact on West Coast art via Black Arts Movement
Priviledge the figure /representational body
Fascination with visual narratives of history particularly African Diaspora
Commitment to making art available to wide audiences through visual and political legibality
Kelle Jones ,South of Pico,45
Supposed to be easily readable images -not hiding confrontation ,clear politics
Betye Saar(1926- present)
born in LA
comments on how woman were being steered away from the fine arts and into craft and design -homemaker esque
primarily a printmaker before going into sculpture
To catch a unicorn ,1960,colour etching
establishes themes that will run through her career
sun/moon cosmic connection ,mystics
unicorn tamed by virginal maiden
unicorn force for good
maiden stands against the tradition whiteness of the unicorn :shapely ,nude black woman creates contrast
emphasis on the female body
precedes feminist art movement of the 1970s's
House of Tarot ,1966,colour etching
alternatives believe system -familiar to a new way of spirituality
female body representation
Anticipation ,1961, serigraph
self portrait -pregnant with first daughter
awaiting the first baby
Melvin Edwards (1937-Present)
1955-Texas -LA
1967LA-NYC-not an artist from the west coast
welder-grandfather worked on railroad
collects scrap metal -primarily material
combo of art and life
representation of objects and material investigations
The Forth Circle ,1966,painted steel
balance tension of large steel pieces vs fine articulation of curved and linear forms
speaker to modernist sutulptures
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The Lifted X,1965
Malcom X assassinated as it was being created
sociopolitical reading speaks to the combo of elements that forms that triangle and visual upward thrust
commemoration -lifting Malchom X
SCULPTURE IN THE EXPANDED FEILDS
Krauss/Miss
expanded arts diagram
interconnections of the arts
refuses that art inhabits separate spheres
shows how interconnected everything can be
against older ideas at that time
center of field different perspective of space
delicate ,half of something ,uncertainty ,work can't be seen in one moment
incomplete with what's being presented
changes our interaction with sculptures and space
fundamentally incomplete -photo is limiting
earthwork -still something more than a sculpture
infinite Malleability
when talking about a sculpture your looking to save the category in the face of the new
sculpture itself is collapsing -so broad its no longer logical
Expanded Field Diagram
Equestrian sculpture Marcus Aurelius VS Gates of Hell
sculpture is historically bound ,gives logic to its medium
inseparable from the logic of the monument
logic of sculpture is a commemorative representation
It sits in a particular place and speaks in a symbolical lounge about the meaning /use of the place
the historically specific logic of sculpture -monumental commemorative
Marcus Aurelius thinks Gates of Hell is a failed monument but a monument nonetheless
Clasical Sculpture
follow the logic of the monument while modernist sculptures is the negative condition of the monument
Modernist form takes up classical but doing it as a means of inversions :positive vs negative, particular place vs sitelessness /loss of place
Alice Ayocock , Maze,1972 new sculpture
60s-70s sculpture enters no mans land sculpture and entered the full condition of its inverse logic and had become pure negativity a combination of exclusions
Modernist working through divide yet associated with logic of the monument
no longer about the negative conditions of the monument it combines things that exclude one another
set of opposites
The expanded field is thus generated by problematizing the set of oppositions between which the modernist category sculpture is suspended , sculpture is rather only one term on the periphery of a field in which there are other different possibilities .Thereby gained permission to think these other forms
Exploring the effects of time allowing for and encouraging the natural,inevitable disintegration and evolution of our physical world
Spiral Jetty and Sun Tunnels
Marked Sights
Smithsons ,Spiral Jetty,1970 ,Great Sea Lake,Utah, black basalt rocks and earth
geological time
bare landscape ready to be marked -human interaction -grand gestures
Nancy Holts ,Sun Tunnels ,1973-76 ,concrete cylinders ,Great Basin Dessert ,Utah
traveling to sight is apart of the work /experience
varies with time of the day
disorienting landscape and space ,marked by human-artists role marking the landscape for human interaction /experience
Sight Construction
combo of landscape and architecture
Alice Aycock,Maze ,1972
play labyrinthian thing
James Turrell, Roden Crater ,1977-present
Christo and Jeanne Claude , wrapped Reichstag,1971-75
Axiomatic Structures
place and sight
Bruce Nauman,Live video Taped Corridor ,1970
see yourself on screen
smaller when closer
missing because its a live tape
Battery park Landfill
spaces nearby towns and other spaces
Mary Miss, Sunken Pool,1974
does not have a bottom
Teaching Hseich ,One Year Performance
1978-1986:working in NYC
illegal allien in 1974 -remained illegal until he received amenity
Time clock epicene 1980-81
punched a time clock every hour of everyday for a year
absurdist role of the worker - can it get a job as an illegal alien
becomes the worker :marginal ,unsafe position
accepts the passing of time
documentation either does or does not give us experience of the peice
Fraiser Ward :negotiating subjectivity- his confrontation of being an illegal alien within the society confronts the lack of subjectivity that marks the entire experience
Teaching Hseich ,One Year Piece ,Cage Piece,1978
system of power and control
markings work against our sense of understanding a performance of living, passing time
The Art Object
the creation of an object is no longer the thing that centralizes the artistic discourses -there is no longer needs to be an object
changing the role of the object
Yves Klein ,Transfer of a zone of Immaterial Pictoral Sensibility ,1962
photo documentation of Yves transferring the piece to its new owner
offered to sell an empty space, had to be paid for gold
Burns the cheque and throws gold into the river
David Hammons,Bliz-aard Ball Sale,1983
unannounced ,small-large snowballs
critique of the art world and American art had moved to the streets
art world administers value to object making
Hammon undercuts the idea of the art world selling /buying materials from artists ,also transfers sense of power to another audience invited into the system of exchange
MARGINS
Bell Hooks (1952-present)choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness,1989
speaks about silences -unadressed places within personal ,political, artistic ,evolution
thinks about speaking through pain/suffering ,also looks for ways to transform the conversation ,how we speak through our own practice
speaks to how a person is able to speak in/from a structure or system that has been oppressed
Opening Statement
"As a radical standpoint, perspective,position,the politics of the location necessarily calls those od us who would participate in the formation of counter hegemonic cultural practice to identify the spaces where we begin the process of revision . Language is also the place of struggle
hegemony:sytem of power -work against them
we need to identify a space of revision there is already a language in place to find a way to transform it so to becomes radical
reclaim current historical legacies to transform reality
more than a recovery of the past, serve to illuminate and transform the present
home becomes less about comfort and safety and more about estrangement and allienation
The Particular case
privileged places want black folks to surrender their class and cultural differences to be the exotic other
to speak from the margin means you retain the identity and actively against assimilation
tension between the center and the margin of the society creates the radical open space
resistance instead of assimilation
Issac Juliens The Attendant(1993)
response against criticism of his work
features numerous Black critical theoris
approaches fantasy with and as a vital component of history
between real and every day scenes
color emerges into fantasy
role of history on its head fills the gaps in representation
shifts the dialogue the character creates his own reality
alternative view takes the original even and refashions it as sexual/queer -gives power to the gay black subject
MEANING AND MATERIAL
different material agencies
artists think about particular ways to use material that speak to larger sociopolitical history as well as allowing that material to use itself to convey its own messages about the past
craft connection
Thematic ,open ended module
Kara Walker (1969-present)
paper cut outs
the end of Uncle Tom and Grand allegorical Tableanx of Eva in Heaven ,1995 cut paper and adhesive on wall,10*35ft
use of silhouette between flatness the figures
mimics 19th century silhouette portraiture
private images kept in the home to commemorate an absent figure emblems of power and privilege :Antebellum south
private images kept in the home to commemorate an absent figure-emblems of power and privilidge Antebellum south and slavery
psychological flatness:we don't have access to the figures internal lives through their physical body /appearance etc
Fanon imposition on Black subjects by whiteness , blackness created by whitness
1st image group of woman -exaggerated ,stereotyped features
walker plays on physical stereotypes that play up the stereotypes of bath slaves and masters
draws out the sterotypical features
Black positivity in the face of racism and history of Uncle Tom
Betye Saar dissaproved
be more of a purposeful distortion of history and misremembering of slavery 3 generations removed from that :connection not as direct generational divide
race levelling function these figures are all black does not mean they have frozen in racial blackness
Kevein Jerome Everson
16mm film
document every day lives of Black American in the industrial midwest
Night -Three(2008)
16mm -tonal range
made for gallery setting
light concentric off the mans chest, reflects on his face
searing burned quality
swirling film grain in high contrast form
constantly changing set of conditions :light ,mans face /action ,value range
connected to an idea of labor -man struggles to blow out candles ,slowed quality makes it seem painful for him
rich formal detail esp in the smoke:dark background vs burned out foreground -negotiation of the space with the figure
final frame leaves episode in complete darkness
tonal range speaks to something more social life ,the passage of time ,labour
Bettys Room,2011,acrylic on canvas
ceramics emerge from the pictorial
protrude out into the gallery space
push both ceramics and painting forward
Amber Cowan
investigates history of the American industrial glass movement
wall sculpture made out of abandoned and thrifted American press glass
ART IN THE AGE OF MASS INCARNATION
galleries /museums and prisons emerge around the same time period ,late 18th/19th century
both created as institutions of power
designed to cultivate notions of citizen subjects of cultural values and ideas
prisons:law and order punishment
museums :marking of identity ,culture ,value and representation
Nicole Fleetwood,Marking Time
carceral aesthetics :rendering one self out of sight to imagine and construct other world ,productions of art under the condition of unfreedom
government regulated conditions make prisoners invisible to the larger public
Ode To The Sea :art from Guantanamo Bay Curated by Erin Thompson,Charles Sheild and Paige Laino (2017-2018)
prison famously suspended the rules of law and war from the Geneva Convention
also suspended Habius Corpus :you must be assigned a crime in order to be held-many innocent held there
Djamel Ameziane ,Ship sailing in a stormy sea,2010
imagining outside and other environments :thinking beyond the prison
Moath Al-Alwi Model of a ship,2015
constructed from found parts
Ghaleb Al Bihani,Itouses Reflected in a bay ,2015
neutral scene
Muhammad Ansi ,Titanic(Recalled from Viewing during Interrogation),2016
recalls cruel treatment
Liberty sign of freedom :welcomed so so many immigrants
