HA 261 – Global themes in Contemporary Art

Neshat

Turbulent, 1998

• Race, gender.
• Male/female identity. How they are viewed In Western and Iranian culture.
• Reverential exploration of Islamic traditions
• White and black binary. Highlighting differences.
• Man singing a love poem. Woman guttural sounds, etc.
• Male has audience, woman does not.
• Comparison: Karawane, 4’ 33’

Edward Burtynsky

Shipbreaking #49, Chittagong, Bangladesh, 2001

• Metaphor for modern existence
• Ships pushed up on shore and broken apart to sell for scrap.
• Same as whale carcasses on beaches

Takashi Murakami

Eye Love Superflat, 2003

• Incorporates Japanese manga figure eyes
• Taken design to fine art level
• “The Warhol of Japan”
• Flatness of image refuses to engage viewer. Illusionistic depth. Society is flat

Ai Weiwei

Coloured Vases, 2003 – 10

• Speaks out against government and its policies. Calls attention to the working individual. Harm inflicted by the Chinese authority.
• Celebrated in West as artist shaking up China.
• Dips into industrial house paint and allows it to drip.
• Choices of how much to use, what colour.
• Questioning originality. Taking ancient object and changing it. Questioning cultural values. Graphic designs peak through the vases.

SCUL 349 – Working the Dumb End.

HA 261: The Body in Contemporary Art

identity politics

Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection

National Endowment for the Arts

absence/ presence

diaspora

Serrano

Piss Christ, 1987

• Bodily fluids used to create something arguably beautiful
• Referencing theory of abjection. Boundaries, rules, social morals, processes are disrupted. React in visceral way. Grotesque result.
• Cibachrome. 60” X 40”
• Heavenly glow. Vibrant. Vivid. Almost transcendent.
• Deemed degenerate

Gonzalez-Torres

Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991

• Interaction between object and viewer. Encouraged to take from the installation.
• Weight of candy was same as artist’s lover. Dying of aids. Viewer taking away. Cathartic interaction. Kind of memorial

Yasumasa Morimura

Portrait Futago (Twins), 1990

• Engages with issues of race. Olympia.
• Artist is both figures. Gender.
• Challenges high art.
• Identity is never fixed.
• Ceramic cat, totem of prosperity. Consumption in Japanese culture

Abramović

The Artist is Present, 2010

• Performance. Pushes own mind and body to physical limit.
• Sat across form a chair. 700 hours. Her and the audience sitting together in complete silence.
• Declaring her as being present
• Attracting audience who would not usually attend.

Walker

A Subtlety, 2014

• Short term installation art. Domino Sugar Factory
• Attendants are Kitsch-y blow up to life-size
• Comparison: Saar, appropriating from similar contemporary imagery.
• Great Sphinx of Giza. Created through slave labour. Protector of the pyramids. Body of a cat.

HA 261: Contemporary Commodity Art

Commodity art: commercialism, value of the object, myth of artist, love/hate relationship with the artist

• Warhol, Hamilton, Manet, Holzer, Kruger

Koons

New Shelton Wet/Dry Triple Decker, 1981

• Vacuums lit from bottom. Glows in cases.
• Appear to be floating. Drawn to the objects
• Provocative: Taking everyday objects into the museum context
• Married a pornstar and created shocking pieces
• How consumerism and capitalism drives society

Michael Jackson and Bubbles, 1988

• Rendered in gold elevates showmanship
• Memorialised.
• High end materials
• Figure that was beyond life-size during his lifetime. Sculpture is larger than life.
• Kitsch?

Wilson

Mining the Museum, 1992

• Value of art objects in a museum. Pseudo-archaeological dig.
• Two types of objects juxtaposed. High crafted silver set. Slave shackles.
• Issues of labour. Who created them? Who served with them?
• Questioning American’s history and sanctity of museum space

Hirst

The Physicality Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991

• Tiger shark suspended and preserved in formaldehyde
• Links between death and immortality.
• Tank is minimalistic sculpture. Pseudo-habitat. Falls apart over time, leaks. Replaces tank.
• Controversial artist. Death made into a commodity.
• Information on death not always given to the viewer
• Intimidated. Fundamental fears.
• Memento mori.

For the Love of God, 2007

• Sold for over $100 mil.
• OTT. Ostentatious.
• Blood diamonds. Labour, life.
• Skull is a platinum cast which Hirst found in an antique shop. Inserts original teeth
• 8600 flawless diamonds. Costs between $16 – $20 mil to make
• Never seen a hearse with a trailer hitch

Postmodern Art & Architecture

Piano and Rogers

Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, 1971 – 78

• Open space on interior. Flexibility for moving walls.
• See process. 20/21 Gallery, Sol LeWitt
• Transparency as metaphor.

I. M. Pei

Grand Louvre Pyramid, 1988 – 89

• Commissioned to modernise the Louvre.
• Underground entrance
• Comparison: The Pyramids of Giza. Greco-Roman inspired from Egyptian architecture. Pyramids hiding what is inside but the Louvre Pyramid is an entrance made of glass.

Sherman

Untitled Film Still #21, 1978

• B&W 8X10
• Author and actress. Portrait of Sherman adapting the character.

Untitled Film Still #81, 1980

• Looking to mirror. Not illusionistic. Image of self.
• Additional information limited. Conscious choices.
• Traditional male gaze onto female replaced with female gaze on female

Untitled, 2008

• Stereotyping of age
• Greenscreen photograph
• Elegance, then cracks in make-up, red-rimmed eyes.

Levine

Fountain (after Marcel Duchamp), 1991

• Appropriating then changing
• Curvilinear, feminine lines emphasised in bronze version

Holzer

Protect Me From What I Want, 1977

• Billboard Times Square
• Reach the masses
• Title seems simple. Didactic. Meant to teach.
• Trying to call attention to language that we digest on daily basis

Kruger

Untitled (I Shop Therefore I Am), 1987

• Text and image in 2D
• Juxtaposition of phrases

Prince

Untitled (Cowboy), 1991 – 92

• Not his image. Source from elsewhere. Marlboro cigarettes.
• Pop culture image use elsewhere

Feminist Art

Yoko Ono

Cut Piece, 1965

• Performance.
• Non-productive art. Not to buy or sell. Ideas over commercial value.
• Audience reacts with cheering for those cutting. Females not cheered as much as males.
• Fabric sheers
• Element of bravery on both sides
• Comparison: Grande Odalisque, Olympia 

 

Judy Chicago

The Dinner Party, 1974 – 79

• Calling out how women have been represented throughout history
• 400 different people involved in making. Very collaborative.
• Three tables arranged in triangular shape. 39 place settings.
• Heritage floor. 999 names written on floor. Who didn’t earn a place at the table. Obscure women who have supported the 39.
• Plate design reduces down to their sex.
• Different times and ethnicities represented
• Typical of early feminist artwork. Throw the idea into the audiences’ face
• Social historical context backs up the work. Chicago criticises this. Who has been left out, why.
• High art, not utilitarian objects

Mary Wollstonecraft

• Wrote on the vindication of the rights of women. Women should be educated so they can educate their sons and husbands.
• Elaborate embroidery.

Georgia O’Keeffe

• Last chronologically
• Most sculptural

Ana Mendieta

Untitled, 1977

• Performance. Roll around in mud gathering earth onto body, place self against tree trunk.
• Sense of place inscribed on her body
• Morphing the earth. Intigrating.
• Comparison: The Spiral Jetty, Autumn Rhythm 30
• Layering of racial identity
• “Reactivation of a primary belief” 
• Cut Piece: Body posture. Distance between audience. Setting. Lack of control.

Betye Saar

The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972

• Combines found object from every day culture.
• Congenial African American woman
• Caretaker of privileged white child
• White paper: Images of racial identity. Pencils: Broom and gun
• Background: Image of Aunt Jemima taken from syrup bottle
• Overruling the idea of servant for African Americans
• Polished sculptural piece.

Miriam Schapiro

Heartfelt, 1979

• Femmage. Combination of feminine and collage
• Paints on fabric. Adheres to a canvas.
• Maximalist
• House-like shape. Basic geometric form. Centre is a heart made of felt.
• Traditional female roles and materials. Celebrates them.

According to Broude, what is the nature….

Broude argues….

• Taking material and not trying to alter the context. Showing the originality.

In this essay…

• Bauhaus. Mundane mass produced objects and spiced them up.
• Oppenheim. Luncheon. Different context through adding different materials. Making it abstract and decorative.
• Duchamp. Fountain. Bicycle. First trying to challenge what is low and high art. Taking unappealing things and giving them different perspectives.
• Pollock. Autumn. Appears haphazard but is actually thought out. Meticulously thought out.

Guerrilla Girls

The Advantages of Being A Woman Artist, 1988

• Take women artists as their subjects. Role of women in the art world.
• Anonymous. Wearing gorilla masks in public.
• Distributing messages through guerrilla means.
• Calling out cultural biases of institutions