THAD Final

Joseph ibn Hayyim

Colophon to the Kennicott Bible

1470

Kennicott Bible was a Hebrew Bible that Hayyim worked on, where the Jewish people had to create their own physical copies of religious texts, due to Christian monks that refused to help print them, and also the Jewish people were discriminated against at the time, where not long after the K.B was published, Jewish families were forced to evacuate or convert to Catholicism.

Shows manipulation of abstract artwork to convey ideas about God and Religion.

Picasso

Les Demoiselles Avignon

1910

Erasure of African Art influence without acknowledging it, shows how the abstraction movement violently erases and refuses to give credit to African/non-European cultures who’ve been making art similar to European abstract art.

Henri Matisse

The Red Studio

1910

Monochromatic Abstract Art, one of the two popularized european abstract art techniques, and it’s seen as more feminine, emotional, and irrational when compared to the grid method, which is more masculine.

Emile Nolde

Crucifixion

1910

Another stance on the crucifixion of Jesus, where he is depicted as sickly and frail, compared to the Biblical heroic savior he is often portrayed as. This piece is much more visceral and emotion-provoking, it was an example of expressionist, degenerate artwork that the Nazi Party was against (fyi Nolde was also a Nazi until got his ass kicked out cuz expressionism was a no no) 

Kasimir Malevich

Suprematist Composition

1910

Abstract Artists felt the need for their work to not be seen as meaningless or as “craft/folk” art, so they often put lofty meanings to try and make their work seem very deep with lofty meanings.

Duchamp

Fountain

1910

Emphasizing the idea of a artwork over the technical skills needed to create it, basically deskilling art-a readymade - Questioned if artwork need to have technical skill to be considered art, however he got to decide what is art because bro was white and a influential dude who had power and authority in the art world.

Mondrain

Compositon with red blue black yellow and gray

1920

Grid Abstract Art, one of the two popularized european abstract art techniques, and it’s seen as more masculine, rigid, cold, and rational when compared to the grid method, which is more feminine.

László Moholy-Nagy

Untitled

c.1920

a pioneering work in abstract photography, innovative spirit of the bauhaus movement, “new vision”

Lucia Moholy

The Bauhaus Building, Dessau

1920

Was a school where Moholy and other artist developed the “new vision” movement in its commitment to a fresh modern asthetic.

Tina Modotti

Workers, Mexico

c. 1920

captures the spirit of mexican workers in a more dignified way, putting faces to their work and number

Varvara Stepanova

Cover of Soviet Cinema, Issue no. 1

1920

principles of new vision and russion contructivist movement, merging art and politics

Tarsila do Amaral

Abaporu

1920

Example of an artist taking European modernism and taking the stereotypes of savagery and cannibalism and using European modernism as a building block for their own art and taking a stand against European colonization.

Rodchenko

Assembling for a demonstration

1920

Exembflying the greatnes of new vision and workers collectivily working together to demonstrate

Joaquín Torres-García

Universal Composition

1930

Another artist taking European Abstract art themes (specifically the grid technique) and transforming it, making european abstract the new old (while they usually like to portray indig artists as primitive art, now the tables are turned)

Marc Chagall

White Crucifixion

1930

Chagall portrays Jesus as a Jewish martyr, and surrounds him with imagery of crimes against the Jewish people, where he makes explicitly clear that the hatred/violence against Jewish people was religiously motivated. Parallels how Jewish people were persecuted across Europe due to their religion. 

Lee Krasner

Composition

1940

Example of a Jewish artist creating abstract art! Additionally, married to stinky Pollock but no one cared much about her art since she was a woman.

Jackson Pollock

Number 1, Lavender Mist

1950

After the war, attempting to create new beginnings, Pollock, who is labeled as one of the great post-war artists, attempts to establish his painting as an origin painting and attempts to erase what came before the war. Attempts to erase the past and create a new world (new to who?)- erases the history and violence against people 

Hans Namuth

Jackson Pollock at work, East Hampton, NY

1950

Presentation of Pollock, and of artists in a god like, deity sorta way, where the artist is completely into their work and free from the concerns and realities of the world due to their studio, studio as a protection and cocoon that separates the artist from the public. Individual versus community. 

Annie Albers

Red Meander

1950

Artworks by women weren’t considered “abstract art” and rather they were seen as craft. They were labeled as textiles instead of painting, furthering emphasizing the divide between abstraction and folk, textile work and declaring that abstraction was better and more advanced.

Robert Frank

Elevator

1950

“Othering” of Americans, that captured an outsider’s view of America, it was heavily criticized by Americans due to the unfavorable depiction of their country - though they do and assume things about other countries due to shitty Beato photographers

Chris Marker

“Korean Ballerina” From Koreans

1950

A very different view of North Korea, showing a more private, intimate, everyday life. Humanization of North Korean citizens.

Robert Rauschenberg

Factum I & Factum II

1950

A critique of expressionism as a myth..copies of one another however the expression of emotion are different.  How could we be feeling the same things if we look at these two differently moody paintings?

Frank Stella

Die Fahne Hoch

1950

The origin painting of minimalism (FUCK MINIMALISM)

European abstract art, no expressionism, it has a rigid shape and simple design. There is a visceral power and violence in the piece which is a critique of facism and expressionism(?)

Lygia Clark

Walking

1960

Shows the connection between art and the human body and how we interact/manipulate it. Shows a turn in the art world where there is emphasis on the process and participation.

Andy Warhol

Race Riot

1960

Exposes the surface equality in America and how though it presents itself as perfect and pure, under the guise of democracy it masks violence, and the presentation of it as equal hides the structural racism that many people in America face 🙁 critique of American Propoganda

Joseph Kosuth

One and Three Chairs

1960

Questioning and testing the limits between language and meaning. Is language arbitrary way to describe something? Shows how an artwork can embody the idea of an object even if it’s not specifically physically present.

Cecilia Vicuña

Guardian

1960

Found objects from people throwing stuff away and destroying nature - repurposing those things and responding to nature, resisting colonization and capitalism and the destruction of nature

Donald Judd

Untitled

1960

The simplification of a form and idea to the very minimum. Gets rid of meaning and just becomes an object.

Eva Hesse

Accession iv

1960

Post Minimalism art which used unconventional materials and still maintained the basic geometric form. Additionally, the interior of the work was more complex and textured, which contrasted against anti-expressionist minimalist art. suggests the inside of bodies

Gego

Gran reticulárea

1960

Dissolving the boundary between line, art, space and the viewer, immersing them in an experience rather than a viewable artwork. Rhizome

Cildo Meireles

Insertions into Ideological Circuits

1970

Relies of the flow of commodities under capitalism and how any commodity can be a way to fight against capitalism and the system, utilizing anonymous messaging to dislodge the public from complacency

Teresa Burga

Self-Portrait. Structure. Report, 9/6/1972

1970

Shows how people are abstracted and can be deconstructed into numbers - violence of abstraction , conceptual self portrait

Nancy Holt

Sun Tunnels

1970

A very site specific piece that orients us to the movement of the sun and earth and makes us aware of our surroundings and place in the world. Making art that can’t be put into a white walled gallery

Mendieta

Silhouette series

1970

Relationship between femininity and the earth, reclaiming nature and taking up an impermanent space in the land, leaving an imprint behind.

Artist once known

Kuba cloth

early 20th century

Abstraction influence from African art was happening at the same time as the colonization and cultural erasure. Abstraction is playing with this same dynamic through erasing the African influence on abstract art, while proclaiming that African art was primitive, and Abstract was the new “modern” while they pulled lots of elements from African art into abstract art. Hypocrisy! 

Agnes Denes

Wheatfield - A Confrontation

1980

Turned a dumping site into 2 acres of wheat, “How should we use the land in a valuable way?” food that can be used to feed people, we should be using land as something productive and purposeful and reimagine its purpose.

CADA

No +

1980–present

Protests dictatorship and utilizes art as a tool for resistance.

Jesús Soto

Penetrable

1990

Shows a visual and physical deconstruction of the human body, where the body is abstracted into different parts.Makes the audience question if they are part of the art/ experience.

Dog are you art?

Fred Wilson

Mining the Museum

1990

Examines the material relationship between a pair of slave shackles and fancy silver jugs, where these objects are inseparable from one another. Wealth is only enabled through the physical labor and suffering of others.

antoni

Loving care

1990

Antoni mops the floor with her hair in a gallery space, reclaiming that space for women artists (mopping ties with femininity and cleanliness), rejection of the ideas of femininity and cleanliness, using the body as a tool, dirtying the white gallery

kentridge

stills from felix in exile

1990

Erasing as forgetting, post war state setup, erasing blank state, the forgetful nature of the human mind, the landscape eats away the subjects consuming and destroying them, but also erases violence- humans tend to forget the violence of war

Carrie Mae Weems

From From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried

1990

Critique of how history appropriates people and the system continuously reinforces that stereotype and appropriation in order to keep people divided. White America’s depiction of black people, and how it was supposed to reinforce the racist ideas about black inferiority. These photographs were taken as if they were specimen rather than people (naked, no stories, etc)

Norberg and Ayubbi

Malcolm X Mural, by any means nessarey

1990

Honors Malcolm X / Malcolm Little who was an African American human rights activist leader during the civil rights movement

Ellen Gallagher

Untitled

1990

Black history, appears to be minimalist in style, but in fact shows disembodied people and reduces them to their eyes, the cruelty and violence of abstraction and the violence in the US’s history (and now!)

Alys

rehersal

2000

Film was shot on the border between Mexico and the US, the process of a car trying to get over the hill and it repeatedly fails - being bound to fail but trying anyway- crossing the border though its very high chance of failure but keep trying dammit

Elizabeth Catlett

Negro Es Bello II

2000

Black is beautiful! :D Feminist work, black women are just as important as the dudes!

Visual representation and reminder of the beauty, resilience, and strength of the Black Power movement.

Edward Burtynsky

Manufacturing #3

2000

Abstraction and deindividualization of people, shows them fighting against their workplace, protest, also not viewing the workers from the same plane so it furthers the view that East is different from the West. 

Cao Fei

Whose Utopia

2000

Shows the individuality and dreams, passions, hobbies of people, giving back their individuality and humanity from a dehumanizing workplace they are constrained to. Chinese society shenaniganary

Kader Attia

Oil and Sugar

2000

Destroying the whiteness of the white cube, debunking how the US presents itself as ideal, perfect, and universal, by taking apart the white cube and deconstructing it, it breaks apart the illusion of purity and perfection that the US and whitewall gallery spaces present themselves as, and shows it’s much more dark and insidious system.

Fayeq Oweis & Susan Greene

Edward Said Mural

2000

 Represents the Palestinian culture and honors professor Edward Said who was an activist against Orientalism

had to confront the uncomfortable nature of history

Jacqueline Medez, Marc Nicely & Larry Sallaway

We Are Still Here

2000

It’s a tribute to Bay Area Native America,s men and women who have experienced oppression.

Pascale Marthine Tayou

Sierra Leone Landscape

2010

Rematerializing the monochrome, critiquing western abstraction

Depicts Sierra Leone through the eyes of the West and Europe and how they only see the land as a place to extract materials from their own wealth

Emory Douglas

As Much as things Change, They Stay the Same

2010

Honoring Oscar Grant, who was murdered by policemen and one of the first police violence cases to be caught on camera. As much as the world progresses, there will always be institutional problems and deep rooted racism.

Ibrahim Mahama

Out of Bounds

2010

30 m long corridor is covered in jute sacks which were used to transport cocoa beans internationally and it talks about how farmers are exploited by the US in order to make money. We love capitalism!

Scott

on the impossibility of freedom in a country founded on slavery and genocide

2010

Referencing a 1963 Civil Rights event, where non violent protesters were blasted with water hoses, using the human body as a visualization of the physical struggle and pushing up against inequality and racism.

Agents of Change

Ethnic Studies and the Arts

2010

Examining the racial conditions on college campuses across the US in the late 1960s, focusing on two protests at San Francisco State and Cornell, the demand was for more curricular changes and more inclusion.

Kara Walker

A Subtlety (The Miraculous Sugar Baby)

2010

Celebration and homage of the underpaid and overworked people who worked tirelessly in the sugar industry, and talks about how the slave trade had traded sugar for bodies and bodies for sugar, blood sugar. Also about how we only see the end products of a supply chain and never think about the exploitation of others that’s allowed us to get said item.

Hank Willis Thomas

What you see is what you see (Stella)

2010

Challenges the minimalist view “what the artist sees is what everyone sees” since every individual has their own explicit experiences and will always interpret artwork differently due to said experiences. 

Morelos

The Embrace

2020

A short poem gives instructions encouraging with the ground

Hulking, giant mass of the earth, and giving people the ability to get physical and touch the earth and smell it, experience it, encourages people to touch grass

Brining “dirt” back into the gallery