Art in 1900s Final

Karawane, 1916

Hugo Ball

Dada

Centers the idea of nonsense as a response to the world

Performance piece; Ball refers to himself as an elephant-lobster mixture in a pope-like manner and then recites a nonsensical poem

Brings audience together through experiences the strangeness all at once

Collage Arranged According to the Laws of Chance, 1916-17

Jean Arp

Dada

Collages made through chance and not his own hand; cuts up construction paper and throws them down onto another paper

Conversation brought around about artists removing themselves from the art

The Spirit of Our Time (Mechanical Head), 1919

Raoul Hausmann

Berlin Dada

Dada assemblage of object (like a collage but 3D); mass produced mannequin head with various time stamps from that era -- ie. yarn, protractor, tape measure

Conversation on how rationality & technology was at the forefront of everyone's mind at the time

Wood represents hard-headedness

Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany, 1919-20

Hannah Hoch

Berlin Dada

4 quadrants represented

Top left = figures who rejected pure bureaucracy & aligned with Dada

Top right = anti dada movement

Bottom left = call to join dada

Bottom right = Images of dada artists comedically placed

Kollwitz (female artist associated with the movement of "the New Woman") placed in the center; also contained map of countries where women could vote

Fountain, 1917

Marcel Duchamp

Dada

Sat on jury for an exhibition that stated it would accept any artist and piece; applied under pseudonym and became the only piece rejected

Dealt with ideas of beauty and pushed back against centuries of sculpturing

Created conversation of value around the piece and similar types of "art"

The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), 1915-23

Marcel Duchamp

Dada

Pushing back against traditions of painting and sculpture

Submitted to Brooklyn Museum, broke upon returning & transformed into true final piece according to Duchamp

Bachelors constantly grind chocolate grinder and shoot toward the bride's pistons/nets -- they shoot their shots but cannot reach her; play on ejaculation

Machine is frustrated because it cannot reach its masturbatory desires; epicenter of the irrational: love & lust make you crazy

Glass means you can see behind the piece and introduces chance through a constantly changing environment

Battle of Fishes, 1926

Andre Masson

Surrealism

Freehand drawings where he scribbled, poured glew, and threw sand on top; decided what the scribble looked like afterwarn and then elaborated --> he saw aggressive-looking fish and gave them teeth

Psychedelic expression after WWI

The Tilled Field, 1923

Joan Miro

Surrealism

Depicts a stylized view of his family's farm; poetic metaphor that expresses his idyllic conception of his homeland

Cubism, imaginary

Carnival of Harlequin, 1924-25

Joan Miro

Surrealism

Dark & muted color palette

Jester is seen with half red and blue circle-- appears worried and upset. He is slumped over w/ mustache askew and worried eyes. Represents how Miro felt about himself,, he was a starving artist

Automatism

Combination of many things that don't belong (juxtaposition) in upward structure

The Persistence of Memory, 1931

Salvador Dali

Surrealism & Hyperrealism

Unsettling dream; expansive landscape representing the psyche after WWI

Land is flat and devoid of texture, no waves in water and no plants

Ideas of decay & melting while the ants eat the clock and viewers see a strange carcass

Message on how memories fade and decay

The Treachery of Images, 1929

Rene Magritte

Surrealism

*NOT ON FINAL BUT STARRED*

"This is not a pipe"

Object, 1936

Meret Oppenheim

Surrealist Objects

Young, female artist

Juxtaposition between hard and soft, organic and inorganic, function made nonfunctional

Tea is generally associated with upper class

Tea looks vaginal; dipping biscuits inside and putting mouth to cup = oral sex

Migration Series (Panel 1), 1941

Jacob Lawrence

American Avant-Garde

Massive project consisting of 60 paintings coming out of the Harlem Renaissance

Focused on Great Migration during US Reconstruction Era; Black Americans left the South due to Jim Crow laws and flocked northward

People are moving from right to left in unified manner -- enhanced through color and shape language

Woman I, 1950-52

Willem de Kooning

ABEX Action Painting

Tried to paint the essence of a woman, which can be shown through her large breasts; plays into themes of fertility and motherhood

Hoof-like feet that collapse the essence of a woman with a violent overtone; she bares her teeth and morphs into an inhuman figure

Guardians of the Secret, 1943

Jackson Pollock

ABEX Action Painting

Started thinking about and through calligraphy, surrealism, and automatism; there are still visible forms here, but they are starting to abstract

Totem-like guardians of the secret protecting some sort of scroll,, manifestation of the psyche which breaks from surrealism toward abstractionism

Phantasy II, 1946

Norman Lewis

ABEX Action Painting

Differs from other action painters of the time through use of line; contains the painting through red implied borders

Untitled (Rothko number 5068.49), 1949

Mark Rothko

ABEX Color Field Painting

Massive in size, meant to signify a meditative process. Viewers are meant to go up very closely and feel absorbed by the piece -- almost as though they are inside of it

Vir Heroicus Sublimis, 1950-51

Barnett Newman

ABEX Color Field Painting

Field of red broken up by "zeps," which were seen throughout many of his pieces

Zeps break up the solid color and create tension + constant interruption

Imperfectly placed, with some Zeps slightly diagonal

Man can be both heroic and destructive; where do you position yourself in this canvas?? Zeps become different positions within the sublime and where you place yourself on that spectrum.

Bed, 1955

Rauschenberg

Neo Dada

Neither sculpture nor painting, but rather a combination of the two

Bed sheets + pillow hung on canvas and painted on the wall instead of the ground, where you would generally find a bed

Brushwork is turned into a product of chance instead of ABEX

Extremely intimate piece; beds are spaces of privacy, intimacy, and many other personal moments

Rauschenberg's queerness adds to this piece because he can't express absolute freedom like other straight, male ABEX artists

Flag, 1954

Jasper Johns

Neo Dada

Encaustic painting created with hot wax and newspaper strips that were then painted over

Not actual brushwork, but rather the hardened newspaper creating texture

ABEX brushstroke no longer connected to the artist's gesture and psyche

Raises question on what the flag means -- does it represent freedom or oppression?

The Store, 1961

Claes Oldenburg

Pop Art

Created small objects with paper mache that you would find in an everyday bodega/cornerstore (which play important roles in city communities)

Sold everything for the price you would normally buy each object at

Critique on art as a commodity