ARTH 432 Final (Readings)

Lauren Strauss, “A Circle fo Radical ‘Kultur-Tuers’: William Gropper and his Yiddishist, Artist Comrades”

• Gropper influenced by the communities he grew up in (Jewish & New York

• Influenced by mother’s experience working in a sweatshop 

  • Contributes to works that depict interpretations of the inhumane working conditions 

• Interpretation of communism → shifts during WPA, still politically motivated 

Alain Locke, “The Legacy of the Ancestral Arts”

• Black artists perceived Africa as a source of artistic inspiration → connection to ancestry 

  • Served as a link between African civilization and culture (specifically Egypt and Ethiopia)  

Renee Ater, “Race and Americanization”

• Ethiopia is a representation of the emancipation of Black people (connections to Egypt) 

  • Linked cultural aspects (ancient and current) to the modern struggle for liberation and resistance 

  • Artistic celebration of race

Richard Powell, “Paint that Thing!” 

• Centers Douglas as a “true modernist” → work is largely considered outside of modernity definition because the definition is founded on interpreting Eurocentric works

• Douglas should be considered through expanded modernist lens → take into consideration influence of Black culture on Black artistry beyond Harlem Renaissance

Emilie Boone, “A Nimble Arc: James Van Der Zee and Photography”

• Only viewing Van Der Zee in conversation with the Harlem Renaissance is limiting 

• Argues his photographs are influential in propelling photography into modern art movement 

  • Limiting interpretation devalues the extent of his portfolio

Lauren Kroiz, “Defining Straight Photography” 

• Pictorialism photography defined as an effort to draw on aesthetic and conventional art forms → connecting to painting 

  • Characterizes emotion and human connections created within the works of art

• Straight photography defined as an effort to avoid idealized and edited aspects

  • Focuses on reality of American Urbanism → unedited and unfiltered depiction of the modern American age and culture 

  • Rejected celebrations of European art and society that pictorialism highlighted

Sascha Scott, “Georgia O’Keeffe’s ‘Black Place’”

• O’Keeffe’s paintings are direct references to war → emotional and physical destruction 

  • Goal was to capture the fears and anxieties of the public captured through the landscape

  • Mimicking current events through paintings which reflect the gravity of the time

Sharon Corwin, “Picturing Efficiency”

• Paradox at the heart of the precisionist art movement is that these works are intended to be seen as efficient forms of productions,  yet in reality that are very laborious and time consuming

  • Works that look efficient are incredibly time consuming

Cecile Whiting, “Practicing Democracy through Abstraction”

• Argues that abstract art itself can be a form of anti-fascism

  • Abstraction is a departure from authoritarian nature of traditional figuration 

  • Relationship to Marxist ideas

Celeste-Marie Bernier, “Don’t Tell Me How to Paint”

• “Self-made” rather than “self-taught” when referring to Pippen 

• Pippen’s art is a form of self-representation 

  • Working within a social context of Black artistry and representative of barriers the art world 

  • Acknowledged that formal art training isn’t a necessity for expression

ShiPu Wang, “The Other American Moderns”

• Calls out traditional understandings of modernism as it’s attached to the Eurocentric white male label

• Asian-American artist confronting the “Americanism” label and its impact on society from the experience of being an immigrant/minority in a racialized existence

Jacqueline Francis, “Making Race: Modernism and ‘Racial Art’ in America

• Focus on the racial aspects of Asian-American artists and works

  • Points to connection of identity to understanding works as modern art

• “Othering” of artists in modern movement explores the limitations of modernist definition

Monica Bravo, “‘The American Artist’: Edward Weston, Muralism, and Mestizaje”

• A modernism that incorporates the artistic achievements of North America rather than just the US

• Discusses influence of Mexican art and culture in crafting a blended artistic identity