ap art history - global contemporary art

Guggenheim Bilboa Museo

• 1997

• Bilboa, Spain

• Frank Gehry

• Titanium, glass, and limestone 

• Gehry developed his design using CATIA CAD program 

• The building resembles a boat, referencing Bibloa’s past as a shipping and commercial center 

• It was a part of an urban renewal program 

• An aging port and industrial center, the city entered a period of significant decline during the 1980’s

MAXXI National Museum of XXI Central Arts

• 2009

• Rome, Italy

• Zaha Hadid

  • Iraqui-born, British-based architect

• Glass, steel, and cement 

• Internal spaces covered by glass roof 

• Walls flow and melt into one another, creating new and dynamic interior spaces 

The Gates

• 2005

• New York City

• Christo and Jean-Claude 

• Mixed media installation

• 7,503 “gates” of free-standing saffron colored fabric panels 

  • 16 foot tall gates formed a continuous river of color 

  • Covered 23 miles of footpaths 

  • Framed all the pathways in Central Park, New York City 

• Temporary installation; left for sixteen days 

  • After the exhibition closed, the materials were recycled 

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

• 1982

• Washington D.C.

• Maya Lin

  • Ohio-born Chinese American 

• Black granite 

  • Black granite as a highly reflective surface so the viewers can see themselves in the names of the veterans 

• V-shaped monument cut into the earth with 60,000 casualties of the Vietnam War listed in the order they were killed or reported missing 

• One arm of the monument points to the Lincoln Memorial, the other to the Washington Monument 

• Strongly influenced by the Minimalist movement 

Horn Players

• Basquiat 

  • Brooklyn-born and was raised in middle-class comfort, but rebelled by quittiing high school and leaving home to become a street artist 

  • He covered the walls of lower Manhattan with short and witty philosophical texts signed with the tag “SAMO” (Same Old Sh**)

  • He said that he wanted to make “paintings that look as if they were made by a child” 

  • He began his career as a graffiti artist when he was 17 

  • He was invited to participate in the Times Square Show in June of 1980 

  • Economic prosperity fueled a booming art market as the number of New galleries soared from 73 to 1970 to 450 in 1985 

  • His paintings expressed a vibrant artistic spirit 

Summer Trees

• 1983

• British Museum, London

• Song Su-nam

• Ink on paper 

• To choose the medium of ink on paper was important for the artist, a leader of Korea’s “Sumukhwa” or Oriental Ink Movement of the 1980s

• Sumukhwa is the Korean pronunciation of the Chinese word for “ink wash painting” also called “literati painting” 

• Sumukhwa provided Song and his circle with a way to express Korean identity 

• His interest in abstraction and the formal properties of ink has led some art historians to attribute the inspiration for his work to that of the American artists like that of Morris Louis 

• May reference a traditional theme: a group of Pine trees can symbolize a gathering of friends of upright character 

Androgyn III

• 1985

• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

• Magdalena Abakanowicz 

• Burlap, resin, wood, nails, and string 

• Contrast between solids and voids 

• Abakanowicz draws on her personal history, but her sculptures possess an ambiguity that encourages multiple interpretations that speak broadly to human experience 

• Alludes to the brutality of war and the totalitarian state

  • The body is a husk without arms, legs, or a head 

  • It is an expression of suffering, borth mournful and disturbing 

• Sexual characertistcs are minimized to increase the universality of the figure, hence the title Androgyne or an androgynous figure, one that is neither male nor female 

A Book from the Sky

• 1987-1991

• Madison, Wisconsin

• Xu Bing

  • Chinese born artist- US resident

• Installation 

• 400 handmade books placed in rows on the ground 

• Uses traditional Asian wood block techniques 

• Many of the Chinese characters are inventions of the artist a

Pink Panther

• 1988

• Museum of Modern Art, New York

• Jeff Koons

  • Pennsylvania-born artist

• Glazed porcelain 

• Kitsch

  • Something of low quality that appeals to popular taste 

• Work exists as a commentary on celebrity; romance, sexuality, commercialism, stereotypes, pop culture, sentimentality 

• Artificially idealized female form 

• Tender delicacy of the panther’s gesture 

• More than 3 ft tall made of porcelain, a material more commonly used as a knick-knack than sculpture 

Untitled #228

• 1990

• Santa Monica, California

• Cindy Sherman

• Photograph 

• From the History Portraits series 

Dancing at the Louvre

• 1991

• Faith Ringgold

• From the series: The French Collection 

• Acrylic on canvas with fabric borders 

Gifts for Trading Land with White People

• Native American symbols

• Oil and mixed media

Earth’s Creation

• 1994

• Australia

• Emily Kame Kngwarreye 

  • Australian aborigine artist 

• Synthetic polymer, paint on canvas

• Stimulates the color and lushness of the “green time” in Australia after the rains when the outback (the vast, remote, interior of Australia) flourishes 

• Four panels, eleven meters wide (around 36 ft)

• Patches of bold yellows, greens, reds, and blues seem to bloom like lush vegetables over the large canvas 

• She painted, seated on (or beside) and intimately connected to her art 

Rebellious Silence

• 1994

• New York 

• Shirin Neshat

  • Iranian-born artist, raised in the United States 

• Photo by Cynthia Preston 

• Ink on photograph 

• From the “Woman of Allah” series 

• Chador

  • A type of outer garment → only face/hands exposed → keeps women’s bodies from being seen as sexual objects 

• Poem on face written in Farsi, the Persian language; poem expresses piety 

• Black and white photograph 

• Poem by Iranian woman who writes poetry on gender issues 

• Gun divides body into lighter and darker sides → adds ominous tension to the work 

• Image of obedient right-minded woman ready to die for faith or an expression of female opression 

• Neshat explores how Iranian women are stereotyped in the West, claiming that their Islamic identities are more varied and complex than is frequently perceived

• Although the woman wears a chador, she looks directly and defiantly out of the photograph at us, meeting and returning our gaze

• Neshat confronts our prejudice while also raising questions about the position of women in contemporary Iran 

En La Barberia no se Llora

• No crying allowed in the barbershop

• 1994

• Pepon Osorio 

  • Puerto Rican born artist living in New York 

• Mixed media installation 

• Large installation recreating the center of Latino male culture: the barbershop 

• Challenges the viewer to question issues of identity, masculinity, culture, and attitudes 

• Video screens on the headrests depict men playing, a baby being circumcised, and men crying 

Corned Beef

• 2000

• Michel Tuffrey 

• Mixed Media 

• Canned corned beef is a processed food high in saturated fat, salt, and cholesterol

  • These are all things that contrubute to disproportionately high incidences of diabetes and disease in Pacific island populations

• Also criqtiques serious issues of ecological health and food 

• Tuffery is interested in the introduction of cattle to New Zealand and the Pacific and how they impact negatively on the plants, landscapes, and waterways of these countries 

• Theme of recycling is emphasized 

Electronic Superhighway

• 1995

• Smithsonian American Art Museum 

• Naume June Paik 

  • Korean-born artist who lived in New York City 

• Mixed Media 

• Neon Lighting outlines the fifty states (Alaska and Hawaii are on the sides) 

• Neon lights symbolizes motel and restaurant signs 

• Each state has a separate video feed (313 monitors) 

• A camera is turned on the spectator and its TV feed appears in the monitors for New York state; turns the spectator into a participant of the artwork 

• Generally described as celebrating the fact that the electronic superhighway allows us to communicate with and understand each other across traditional boundaries, this particular work can also be read as posing some difficult questions about how that technology is impacting culture 

The Crossing

• 1996

• Bill Viola 

• Video and sound installation 

• Room-sized installation that comprises a large two-sided screen onto which a pair of video sequences is simultaneously projected 

• One possible meaning can be purification and destruction

• In terms of religion, it evokes eastern and western spiritual traditions: zen Buddhism, Islamic suffism, Christianity, etc. 

Pure Land

• 1998

• Los Angeles, California 

• Mariko Mori 

• Color photograph on glass 

• Artist uses a creative interpretation of traditional Japanese art forms > animated figures of aliens play musical instruments on clouds 

• Mori herself is in the guise of a deity (the essence of beauty and the harbinger of prosperity and happiness) 

• Jewel symbolizes Buddha’s universal mind 

• By taking on this ancient person, Mori dissolves her own identity and is transformed into the elegant Tang lady and goddes of fortune, while simultaneously performing the welcoming role of Amida Buddha. 

• The artist seeks to lead the viewer into her immersive paradise. In both formats, the multi-sensory video Nirvana and pure visual Pure Land photograph, the message is clear: enlightenment is for all 

Lying with the Wolf

Darkytown Rebellion

• 2001

• Luxembourg 

• Kara Walker 

  • California-born, New York based, African American artist 

• Cut paper and projection on wall 

• Installation; A brilliant pattern of colors washdes over a wall full of silhouettes and enacting a dramatic rebellion, giving the viewer the unforgettable experience of stepping into a work of art 

• The ensemble, made up of over a dozen characters, plays out a nightmarisg scene on a single plane: 

  • One figure stands upright over his severed limb 

  • A teenager holds a flag that resembles a colonial ship sale 

  • A woman with a bonnet and voluminous hoop skirt may be attacking a smaller figure on its back, perhaps a crying baby 

The Swing

• 2001

• London 

• Yinka Shonibare 

  • British born but of Nigerian descent 

• Mixed Media 

• Life-size headless mannequin 

• Dress is made of African print fabric 

• Headless figure: guillotined by the French Revolution 

• Most likely a reference to the use of the guillotine during the Reign of Terror in the 1790s, when members of the French aristocracy were publicly beheaded 

• Shonibare invites us to also consider the increasing disparity between economic classes today, especiall alongside the growing culture of paranoia, terror, and xenophobia in global politics since 9/11 

• Used dutch wax originated in Indonesia and manufactured in England and Holland

Old Man’s Cloth

• 2003

• El Anatsui 

  • An African artist whose career was forged during the utopia of mid-century African independence movements, his work has always engaged his region’s history and culture 

• Aluminum liquor bottle caps and copper wire 

  • The bottle caps, for Anatsui signify a fraught history of trade between Africa and Europe 

  • Colors represent colors of Nigeria and Ghana 

• Anatsui’s choice of discarded liquor bottle caps as a medium has as much to do with their formal properties as with their historical associations 

Stadia II

• 2004

• Pittsburgh

• Julie Mehretu 

• Ink and acrylic on canvas 

Preying Mantra

• 2006

• Brooklyn, New York 

• Wangechi Mutu 

• Mixed media on mylar 

Shibboleth

• 2007-2008

• London 

• Doris Salcedo 

  • Columbian 

• Installation 

• Shibboleth is used to identify foreigners or people of another class-to exclude people from joining a group 

• The crack represents the gap in relationships, a reminder of gaps and spaces 

• Reference to racism, colonialism, exclusion 

Sunflower Seeds

• 2010-2011

• London

• Ai Weiwei

  • Chinese artist and activist 

• Installation containing millions of individually handcrafted ceramic pieces resembling sunflower seeds

• They symbolically represent an ocean of fathomless depth; each seed is made in Jingdezhen, a city known for its porcelain production in Imperial China 

• 600 artisans worked for two years, each seed hand-painted 

• Sunflower seeds were eaten as a source of food during the famine under Mao Ze Dong 

• Ideology of Chairman Mao: he was the sun, his followers were the seeds 

• Originally you could walk on the installation, but it raised harmful ceramic dust; viewing was then limited to the sidelines

• Although the seeds appear the same from a distance, each one is individually handcrafted, representing the conformity and censorship in China. 

Deconstructive architecture

• Emerged in the 1990’s 

• Architects deliberately disturb traditional architectural assumptions about harmony, unity, and stability to create decentered, skewed, and distorted designs 

Triptych

Assemblage

Earthwork

• A large outdoor work in which the earth itself is the medium 

Installation

Kitsch

• Something of low quality that appeals to popular taste 

Identify two works that use new media and discuss how new media creates a new
way to express artistic ideas

• electronic superhighway

• old mans cloth

Identify two works that portrays the artists’ personal take on culture identity

• no crying in barber shop

• shibboleth

Identify two works where the artist uses unconventional materials

• old man’s cloth

• corned beef

Which two artists clearly show influences of past famous artists or artwork?

• basquiat - picasso

• shonibare - the swing fragonard

Identify two installations that relate to one another

• xu bing book from a sky

• ai weiwei sunflower seeds

Identify two Contemporary Architectural buildings. How do they fit under
Contemporary Architecture?

maxxi national museum of xxi and guggenheim bilboa

Identify two artists who are passionate about defending the people of their
homeland

• song su nam summer trees

• faith ringgold

Identify two female artists who are similar in their artmaking process

cindy sherman and mariko mori