Unit 10: Global Contemporary, 1980 CE to Present

Contextualization Global Contemporary Art

• Advancements in Technology of Art
  • Digital art software: Adobe Creative Suite, Procreate, Corel Painter
  • 3D printing technology: allows artists to create physical sculptures and models
  • Virtual reality: immersive experiences for viewers and artists
  • Augmented reality: enhances physical art with digital elements
  • Artificial intelligence: used for generating art and assisting artists in the creative process
  • Online platforms: allows artists to showcase and sell their work globally
  • Mobile apps: allows artists to create and share their work on-the-go
  • Motion graphics: combines animation and graphic design for dynamic visuals
  • Interactive installations: engages viewers in a participatory art experience.
• Globalization in Art
  • Emerged in the 1980s
  • Refers to the spread of art across national borders
  • Enabled by advancements in technology and transportation
  • Resulted in increased cultural exchange and diversity
• Modernization in Art
  • Began in the late 19th century
  • Refers to the shift towards abstraction and experimentation
  • Marked by the rejection of traditional techniques and subject matter
  • Led to the development of new art movements such as Cubism and Surrealism
• Growing Inclusivity in Art
  • Representation matters: Art should reflect the diversity of the world we live in.
  • Accessibility: Art should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their background or abilities.
  • Intersectionality: Recognize and celebrate the intersection of different identities and experiences.
  • Education: Educate yourself and others on the importance of inclusivity in art.
  • Collaboration: Work with artists from diverse backgrounds to create inclusive art.
  • Empathy: Approach art with empathy and an open mind to understand different perspectives.
  • Critique: Critique art through an inclusive lens to identify and challenge biases and stereotypes.

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Materials, Processes, and Techniques in Global Contemporary Art

• Materials
  • Found objects: Artists often use found objects such as discarded materials, everyday objects, and natural materials to create their works. This approach is known as "found object art" or "readymade art" and was popularized by artists such as Marcel Duchamp.
  • Mixed media: Mixed media art involves the use of multiple materials and techniques to create a single work of art. This can include anything from paint and collage to sculpture and installation.
  • Digital media: With the rise of digital technology, many contemporary artists are using digital media such as video, animation, and interactive installations to create their works.
• Processes
  • Collage: Collage involves the layering of different materials and images to create a new composition. This can be done using traditional materials such as paper and glue, or digitally using software such as Photoshop.
  • Performance art: Performance art involves the use of the artist's body as a medium to create a live performance. This can include anything from dance and theater to political protests and social commentary.
  • Installation art: Installation art involves the creation of a three-dimensional environment or space that the viewer can interact with. This can include anything from large-scale sculptures to immersive multimedia installations.
• Techniques
  • Abstract art: Abstract art is characterized by the use of non-representational forms and colors to create a purely visual experience. This can include anything from geometric shapes and patterns to gestural brushstrokes and splatters.
  • Realism: Realism involves the creation of art that accurately represents the world as it appears to the artist. This can include anything from hyper-realistic paintings to detailed sculptures.
  • Conceptual art: Conceptual art is characterized by the use of ideas and concepts as the primary focus of the artwork. This can include anything from text-based works to performance art that explores philosophical or political themes.

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Purpose, Audience and Interpretations of Contemporary Art

• Purpose
  • To express the artist's personal vision or experience
  • To comment on social, political, or cultural issues
  • To challenge traditional artistic conventions and push boundaries
  • To explore new forms of media and technology
  • To engage with and provoke the viewer
• Audience
  • Art collectors and enthusiasts
  • Curators and museum-goers
  • Critics and scholars
  • The general public
• Interpretations
  • Formal analysis: examining the formal elements of the artwork, such as color, composition, and texture
  • Contextual analysis: considering the social, political, and cultural context in which the artwork was created
  • Psychoanalytic analysis: exploring the artist's unconscious motivations and desires
  • Feminist and gender studies analysis: examining the artwork from a feminist or gender studies perspective

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Global Contemporary Artworks

➼  Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

• Details

  • By Frank Gehry
  • 1997
  • titanium, glass, and limestone
  • Found in Bilbao, Spain

• Form

  • The building has swirling forms and shapes that contrast with the industrial landscape of Bilbao.
  • From the river side, the building resembles a boat, referencing Bilbao’s past as a shipping and commercial center.
  • The curving forms were designed by a computer software program called Catia.
  • Fixing clips make a shallow dent in the titanium surface; it produces an effect of having a shimmering surface that changes according to atmospheric conditions.
  • Curvilinear forms evoke the architecture of Borromini and the Italian Baroque in general

• Function

  • A modern art museum featuring contemporary art in a contemporary architectural setting.
  • The work follows the tradition of the Guggenheim museums around the world, many also created by prominent architects in daring designs.

• Context

  • Frank Gehry is a Canadian-American architect based in Los Angeles.
  • The revitalization of the port area of Bilbao is called the “Bilbao effect,” a reference to the impact a museum can have on a local economy.

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➼  MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts

• Details

  • By Zaha Hadid
  • 2009
  • glass, steel, and cement
  • From Rome, Italy

• Form

  • Internal spaces are covered by a glass roof; natural light is admitted into the interior, filtered by louvered blinds.
  • Walls flow and melt into one another, creating new and dynamic interior spaces.
  • Constantly changing interior and exterior views.
  • The transparent roof modulates natural light.
  • Subtle modulations of color: grays, silvers, and whites contrast with blacks.

• Function

  • Two museums (MAXXI Art and MAXXI Architecture), a library, an auditorium, and a cafeteria.
  • The complex specializes in art of the twenty-first century.
  • The flowing form encourages various paths to understanding history rather than a single narrative.

• Context

  • Zaha Hadid was an Iraqi-born, British-based architect.
  • The work references Roman concrete construction.

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➼  The Gates

• Details

  • By Christo and Jeanne-Claude
  • 1979–2005
  • mixed-media installation
  • Found in New York City

• Form

  • Installation of 7,503 “gates” of free-hanging saffron-colored fabric panels.
  • The installation framed all the pathways in Central Park in New York City, a nineteenth-century park originally designed by Olmsted and Vaux.
  • The work was mounted in the winter so the colors would have maximum impact; the trees were bare and the gates easily visible.
  • The 16-foot-tall gates formed a continuous river of color.
  • The work covered 23 miles of footpaths.

• Context

  • Christo is Bulgarian-born; Jean-Claude was of French descent, born in Morocco.
  • The work was put on hold for many years, but installed a few years after 9/11.
  • Temporary installation: 16 days.
  • After the exhibition closed, the materials were recycled.
  • Spectators walked through the gates to see ever-changing views of the park.

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➼  Vietnam Veterans Memorial

• Details

  • By Maya Lin
  • 1982
  • Granite
  • Found in Washington, D.C.

• Function

  • The war monument dedicated to the deceased and missing-in-action soldiers of the Vietnam War.

• Materials

  • Black granite, a highly reflective surface, is used so that viewers can see themselves in the names of the veterans.

• Context

  • Maya Lin is an Ohio-born Chinese-American.
  • This was the winning design in an anonymous competition held to create a memorial on the mall in Washington, D.C.
  • The work is not an overly political monument with a message, but a memorial to the deceased who sacrificed everything.
  • One arm of the monument points to the Lincoln Memorial, the other to the Washington Monument, placing itself central to key figures in American history.
  • It digs into the earth like a scar, a scar that heals but whose traces remain, a reflection of the impact of the war on the American consciousness.
  • Strongly influenced by the Minimalist movement.
  • Initially strongly criticized by those who wanted a more traditional war monument; later, a figural grouping was placed nearby.

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➼  Horn Players

• Details

  • By Jean-Michel Basquiat
  • 1983
  • acrylic and oil paintstick three canvas panels
  • Found in The Broad, Los Angeles, California

• Form

  • Flattened, darkened background; flat patches of color; thick lines; text.
  • Heads seem to float over outlined bodies and dissolve as the eye goes down the body.
  • The focus is on contrast and juxtaposition, not on balance or scale.
  • Some traditional forms: triptych, canvas, oil paint.

• Content

  • The painting glorifies African-American musicians; in flanking wings there is a salute to jazz musicians Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.
  • The words painted onto the canvas are those attributed to the musicians (ornithology misspelled; reference to Charlie “the Bird” Parker).
  • Words such as “soap” critique racism.
  • Gillespie used meaningless words “DOH SHOO DE OBEE” in improvisational, or scat, singing.

• Context

  • Jean-Michel Basquiat was an artist born in Brooklyn, New York, of Puerto Rican and Haitian parents.
  • The artist rebelled against his middle-class upbringing.
  • The artist was influenced by graffiti art and street poetry, and in turn he influenced these art forms.

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➼  Summer Trees

• Details

  • By Song Su-nam
  • 1983
  • ink on paper
  • Found in British Museum, London

• Form

  • Large vertical lines of various thickness.
  • Subtle tonal variations of ink wash.

• Context

  • Song Su-nam was a Korean artist who used traditional ink on paper.
  • The artist was one of the leaders of the Sumukhwa, a new type of ink brush painting in the 1980s.
  • Ink painting is a traditional form of artistic expression in Korea; this movement revitalizes ink painting in a modern context.
  • Inspired by Western abstraction.

  

➼  Androgyne III

• Details

  • By Magdalena Abakanowicz
  • 1985
  • burlap, resin, wood, nails, and string,
  • Found in Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

• Form

  • The figure sits on a low stretcher of wooden legs, substituting for human legs.
  • The figure is hollowed out, just a shell.
  • The figure is placed to be seen in the round: the complete back and the hollow front are visible.
  • The pose suggests meditation and/or perseverance.
  • Sexual characteristics are minimized to increase the universality of the ­figure; hence the title Androgyne, or an androgynous figure, one that is neither male nor female.

• Materials

  • The work is made of hardened fiber casts from plaster molds.
  • The hardened fiber has the appearance of crinkled human skin set in earth tones.

• Context

  • Magdalena Abankanowicz was a Polish artist who endured World War II, the Nazi occupation of Poland, and Stalinist rule.
  • Since 1974, the artist had been making similar figures, often without heads or arms, in large groups or singly.

  

➼  A Book from the Sky

• Details

  • By Xu Bing
  • 1987–1991
  • mixed-media installation
  • Found in Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Form

  • The work references Chinese art forms: scrolls, screens, books, and paper.
  • Four hundred handmade books are placed in rows on the ground.
  • One walks beneath printed scrolls hanging from the ceiling.
  • All of the Chinese characters are inventions of the artist and have no meaning.
  • The artist uses traditional Asian wood-block techniques.

• History

  • Original title: “An Analyzed Reflection of the End of This Century.”
  • Originally in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Beijing; filled a large exhibition space.
  • The artist lost favor with the Communist government over this work.
  • Mounted at many venues in the West afterward.

• Context

  • Xu Bing is a Chinese-born artist and U.S. resident.
  • The artist was trained in the propagandistic socialist realist style; that background led to his critique of power in works such as this one.
  • Criticized as “bourgeois liberation;” it was claimed that its meaninglessness hid secret subversions; others interpret the meaningless characters as reflecting the meaningless words found in political doublespeak.

  

➼  Pink Panther

• Details

  • By Jeff Koons
  • 1988
  • glazed porcelain
  • Found at Museum of Modern Art, New York

• Form

  • Artificially idealized female form: overly yellow hair, bright red lips, large breasts, pronounced red fingernails; overtly fake look.
  • Life-size.

• Content

  • The woman is Jayne Mansfield (1933–1967), a popular screen star and a Playboy playmate.
  • Pink Panther, a cartoon character, generally seen as an animated figure.
  • The panther has a tender and delicate gesture around Jayne Mansfield.

• Context

  • Jeff Koons is a Pennsylvania-born artist, working in New York.
  • This work is a commentary on celebrity romance, sexuality, commercialism, stereotypes, pop culture, and sentimentality.
  • The work is kitsch but is made of “high art” porcelain.
  • Creates a permanent reality out of something that is ephemeral and never meant to be exhibited.
  • Part of a series called The Banality at a show in the Sonnenbend Gallery in New York in 1988.

  

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➼  Untitled #228

• Details

  • By Cindy Sherman
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  • from the History Portraits series
  • 1990
  • Photograph
  • Found in Museum of Modern Art, New York

• Content

  • This image explores the theme of the Old Testament figure Judith decapitating Holofernes (from the Book of Judith).
  • The richness of the costuming and the setting acts as a commentary on late-nineteenth-century versions of this subject.
  • Richly decorative drapes hang behind the figure.
  • Judith lacks any emotional attachment to the murder that has taken place.
  • Judith uses her sexuality to attract and slay Holofernes.
  • Holofernes appears masklike, alert, and nearly bloodless.
  • Red garments denote lust and blood.

• Context

  • Cindy Sherman is a New Jersey–born American artist.
  • The artist appears as the photographer, subject, costumer, hairdresser, and makeup artist in each work.
  • The artist expresses the artifice of art by revealing the props used in the process.
  • The artist’s work comments on gender, identity, society, and class distinction.
  • The artist uses old master paintings as a starting point, but the works are not derivative.
  • This series sheds a modern light on the great masters in this case Italian Baroque.

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➼  Dancing at the Louvre

• Details

  • By Faith Reinggold
  • from the series The French Collection; Part I; #1,
  • 1991
  • acrylic on canvas, tie-dyed, pieced fabric borders
  • A Private Collection

• Materials

  • The artist uses the American slave art form of the quilt to create her works.
  • Quilts were originally meant to be both beautiful and useful—works of applied art.
  • These quilts are not meant to be useful.
  • Quilting is a traditionally female art form.
  • The artist combines the traditional use of oil paint with the quilting technique.

• Content

  • Figures in Ringgold’s works often act out a history that might never have taken place, but that the artist would have liked to have taken place.
  • The artist created a character named Willia Marie Simone, a young black artist who moves to Paris. She takes her friend and three daughters to the Louvre museum and dances in front of three paintings by Leonardo da Vinci.
  • The story is spelled out in text written on the borders of the quilt.
  • This is the first of twelve quilts in a series.

• Context

  • Faith Ringgold is a New York-born, African-American artist.
  • The quilt has a narrative element.
  • Feminist and racial issues dominate her work.
  • Her works often reflect her struggle for success in an art world dominated by males working in the European tradition.

  

➼  Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People)

• Details

  • By Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith
  • 1992
  • oil and mixed-media on canvas
  • Found in Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk

• Form

  • This work is a combination of collage elements and abstract expressionist brushwork.
  • Newspaper clippings and images of conquest are placed over a large dominant canoe.
  • The red paint is symbolic of shedding of American Indian blood.

• Content

  • The array of objects sardonically represents Indian culture in the eyes of Europeans: sports teams, Indian-style knickknacks such as toy tomahawks, dolls, and arrows.
  • A large canoe floats over the scene.

• Context

  • Jaune Quick-to-See Smith is a member of the Salish and Kootenai American Indian tribes of the Flathead Nation.
  • The work was meant as the “Quincentenary Non-Celebration” of European occupation of North America (1492–1992).
  • American Indian social issues caused by European occupation are stressed: poverty, unemployment, disease, alcoholism.
  • Title Trade references events in American Indian history such as Manhattan being sold to the Dutch in 1626 for $24.
  • Even if this story is apocryphal, it does highlight a history of “trade” in which Indians have been taken advantage of.

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➼  Earth’s Creation

• Details

  • By Emily Kame Kngwarreye
  • 1994
  • synthetic polymer, paint on canvas
  • Private Collection

• Form

  • The artist employed the dump-dot technique, which involves pounding paint onto a canvas with a brush to create layers with a sense of color and movement; related to “dream time” painting in Australia.
  • This work is part of a larger suite of paintings.

• Content

  • The work references the color and lushness of the “green time” in Australia after it rains and the Outback flourishes.

• Context

  • Emily Kame Kngwarrere was an Australian aborigine artist.
  • The artist was largely self-taught and began her career doing ceremonial painting.
  • The artist was influenced by European abstraction of the mid-twentieth century.

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➼  Rebellious Silence

• Details

  • By Shirin Neshat
  • photo by Cynthia Preston
  • from the Women of Allah series
  • 1994
  • ink on photograph
  • Found in Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York

• Form and Content

  • The poem written on the face is in Farsi, the Persian language; the poem expresses piety.
  • The poem is by an Iranian woman who writes poetry on gender issues.
  • The gun divides the body into a darker and a lighter side.
  • The gun adds a note of ominous tension in the work.
  • The work expresses the artist’s duality as both Iranian and American.

• Materials: Black and white photograph.

• Context

  • Shirin Neshat is an Iranian-born artist, raised in the United States.
  • Chador: a type of outer garment, like a cloak, that allows only the face and hands of Iranian women to be seen.
  • The chador keeps women’s bodies from being seen as sexual objects.
  • Westerners could view the work as an expression of female oppression.
  • Iranians could view the work as an image of an obedient, right-minded woman who is ready to die defending her faith and customs.
  • The work contrasts with stereotypical Western depictions of exotic female nudes in opulent surroundings

  

➼  En la Barberia no se Llora (No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop)

• Details

  • By Pepón Osorio,
  • 1994
  • mixed media installation
  • Found at Collection of the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico

• Form and Content

  • This is a large installation recreating the center of Latino male culture: the barbershop.
  • The interior of a barbershop in which “no crying is allowed”—a masculine attribute.
  • Photos of Latino men on the walls.
  • Video screens on the headrests depict men playing, a baby being circumcised, and men crying.
  • Appropriately tacky and grimy setting.

• Context

  • Pepon Osario is a Puerto Rican–born artist living in New York (called a Nuyorican).
  • Kitsch items are used everywhere as symbols of consumer culture.
  • Originally a temporary work constructed in a neighborhood building, not in a museum.
  • This work challenges the viewer to question issues of identity, masculinity, culture, and attitudes.

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➼  Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000)

• Details

  • By Michel Tuffery
  • 1994
  • mixed media
  • Found in Museum of New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand

• Form

  • Life-size sculpture of a bull made from flattened cans of corned beef.
  • Two motorized bulls often engage in multimedia performance art called The Challenge.
  • There are small concealed wheels at the feet for ease of movement.

• Context

  • Michel Tuffery was born in New Zealand of Samoan, Cook Islands, and Tahitian descent.
  • The artist is interested in exploring aspects of his Polynesian heritage in a modern context.
  • Canned corned beef is a favorite food in Polynesia; exported from New Zealand.
  • Canned meat (pisupo, a Samoan language variant of “pea soup,” the first canned food in the Pacific) is given as a gift on special occasions in Polynesia.
  • However, canned meat has been a major contributor to Polynesian obesity.
  • The introduction of canned meat caused a fall in traditional cultural skills of fishing, cooking, and agriculture.
  • The artist introduces a tone of irony in that the cow is made of hundreds of opened cans of cow meat.
  • The theme of recycling is emphasized by the reuse of these cans.

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➼  Electronic Superhighway

• Details

  • By Nam June Paik
  • 1995
  • mixed-media installation (49-channel closed-circuit video installation, neon, steel, and electronic components)
  • Found in Smithsonian American Art Museum

• Form

  • Neon lighting outlines 50 states and the District of Columbia (Alaska and Hawaii are on the side walls).
  • Each state has a separate video feed; hundreds of television sets and 50 separate DVD players.
  • Themes associated with each state play on the state’s screen; for example, the musical Oklahoma! plays on the Oklahoma screen.
  • A camera is turned on the spectator and its TV feed appears on one of the monitors; it turns the spectator into a participant in the artwork.

• Context

  • Nam June Pail was a Korean-born artist who lived in New York City.
  • Paik was intrigued by maps and travel:
  • Neon outlines symbolize multicolored maps of each state.
  • Neon symbolizes motel and restaurant signs.
  • Fascination with the interstate highway system.
  • The constant blur of so many video clips at the same time can lead to “information overload.”
  • Paik is considered the father of video art.

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➼  The Crossing

• Details

  • By Bill Viola
  • 1996
  • video and sound installation

• Form and Content

  • Room dimensions: 16 × 27.5 × 57 feet.
  • Performer: Phil Esposito.
  • Photo: Kira Perov.
  • These video installations are total environments.
  • Two channels of color video project from opposite sides of large dark gallery onto two large, back-to-back screens suspended from the ceiling and secured on the floor.
  • Four channels of amplified stereo sound come from four speakers.
  • There are two freestanding video screens that show a double-sided projection.
  • Fire: flames consume the figure of a man, beginning at his feet.
  • A figure approaches from a long distance.
  • As he stops, a small flame appears at his feet and spreads rapidly to engulf him in a roaring fire.
  • When it subsides, the man is gone.
  • The figures walk in extremely slow motion.

• Context

  • Bill Viola is a Queens, New York–born artist.
  • The artist promotes video as an art form.
  • The work shows actions that repeat again and again.
  • The artist is interested in sense perceptions.
  • There is an implied cycle of purification and destruction.
  • Filmed at high speed, but sequences are played back at super slow motion.
  • Evokes Eastern and Western spiritual traditions: Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, Christian mysticism.
  • Requires the viewer to remain still and concentrate.

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➼  Pure Land

• Details

  • By Mariko Mori
  • 1998
  • color photograph on glass
  • Found in Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California

• Content

  • Mori herself appears as if in a vision in the guise of the Heian deity, Kichijōten.
  • Kichijōten is the essence of beauty and the harbinger of prosperity and happiness.
  • She holds a wish-granting jewel, a nyoi hōju, which has the power to deny evil and fulfill wishes.
  • The jewel symbolizes Buddha’s universal mind.
  • Animated figures of lighthearted aliens play musical instruments on clouds.
  • A lotus blossom floats on water and symbolizes purity and rebirth into paradise.
  • Set in a landscape evoking the Dead Sea, a place of extremely high salinity: salt seen as an agent of purification.

• Context

  • Mariko Mori is a Japanese artist.
  • Her work shows the merging of consumer entertainment fantasies with traditional Japanese imagery.
  • The artist uses a creative interpretation of traditional Japanese art forms.

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➼  Lying with the Wolf

• Details

  • By Kiki Smith
  • 2001
  • ink and pencil on paper
  • Centre Pompidou, Paris

• Form: This is a large, wrinkled drawing pinned to a wall; reminiscent of a tablecloth or a bedsheet.

• Context

  • Kiki Smith is an American artist who was born in Germany and lives in New York City.
  • A theme of Smith’s work is the human body; this is a nude female figure.
  • Female strength is emphasized in the woman lying down with the wild beast.
  • The wolf seems tamed by the woman’s embrace.
  • The wolf is traditionally seen as an evil or dangerous symbol, but not here.

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➼  Darkytown Rebellion

• Details

  • By Kara Walker
  • 2001
  • cut paper and ­projection on wall
  • Found in Collection Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg

• Technique

  • The artist draws images with a greasy white pencil or soft pastel crayon on large pieces of black paper and then cuts the paper with a knife.
  • Images are then adhered to a gallery wall with wax.
  • The artist uses traditional silhouette forms.
  • Overhead projectors throw colored light onto the walls, ceilings, and floor.
  • Cast shadows of the viewer’s body mingle with the black paper images.

• Context

  • Kara Walker is a California-born, New York–based, African-American artist.
  • The work explores themes of African-Americans in the antebellum South: a teenager holds a flag that resembles a colonial ship sail; one man has his leg cut off; a woman is caring for newborns.
  • The work explores how stereotypes and caricatures of African-Americans have been presented.
  • Inspired by an anonymous landscape called “Darkytown”; it was the artist’s invention to have the figures in rebellion.
  • This is not a recreation of an historical event, but a commentary on history as it has been presented in the past and the present.
  • The viewer interacts with the work, walking around it, engaging in elements of it; the viewer is part of the history of the piece.

  

➼  The Swing (after Fragonard)

• Details

  • By Yinka Shonibare
  • 2001
  • mixed-media installation
  • Found in Tate, London

• Interpretation

  • The artist was inspired by Fragonard’s The Swing
  • This work is a life-size headless mannequin.
  • The dress is made of Dutch wax fabric, sold in Africa: it references global trade and postcolonial life in Africa.
  • Flowering vines are cast to the floor.
  • A headless figure: guillotined by the French Revolution.

• Context

  • Yinka Shonibare was British born, but of Nigerian descent; he lives and works in London.
  • Two men in the Fragonard painting are not included; the audience takes the place of the men; erotic voyeurism.

  

➼  Old Man’s Cloth

• Details

  • By El Anatsui
  • 2003
  • aluminum and copper wire
  • Found in Harn Museum of Art, Gainsville, Florida

• Technique and Materials

  • One thousand drink tops are joined by wire to form a cloth-like hanging.
  • Bottle caps are from a distillery in Nigeria.
  • The artist uses power tools such as chain saws and welding torches.
  • The artist converts found materials into a new type of media that lies somewhere between painting and sculpture.
  • Recycling of found objects.

• Form

  • The work is not flat, but hung as cloth.
  • Curators are often left to hanging El Anatsui’s work to the best advantage; the work appears slightly different in each setting.

• Context

  • El Anatsui was born in Ghana; spent much of his career in Nigeria.
  • The artist produces colorful, textured wall hangings related to West African textiles.
  • The gold color reflects traditional cloth colors of Ghana and references royalty.
  • The gold also symbolizes Ashanti control over the gold trade in Africa.
  • El Anatsui combines aesthetic traditions of his home country of Ghana, his adapted country of Nigeria, and the global art movement of abstract art.

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➼  Stadia II

• Details

  • By Julie Mehretu
  • 2004
  • ink and acrylic on canvas
  • Found in Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

• Form

  • This work depicts a stylized rendering of stadium architecture.
  • The forms suggest the excitement, almost frenzy, of a competition held in a circular space surrounded by international images.
  • Dynamic competition is suggested in sweeping lines that create a vibrant pulse.
  • The work uses multilayered lines to create ­animation.
  • Sweeping lines create depth; the focus of attention is around a central core from which colors, icons, flags, and symbols resonate.

• Context

  • Julie Mehretu was born in Ethiopia; she lives and works in New York City.
  • She paints large-scale paintings.
  • Although the paintings are done with abstract elements, the titles allude to their meaning.
  • Flags can represent, in a positive or negative way, national pride, patriotism, or ­nationalism.

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➼  Preying Mantra

• Details

  • By Wangechi Mutu
  • 2006
  • mixed media on Mylar
  • Found in Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York

• Form and Content

  • Collaged female figure composed of human and animal parts, objects, and machine parts.
  • She reclines in a relaxed position.
  • A green snake interlocks with her fingers; bird feathers appear on the back of her head.
  • Her left earlobe has chicken feet, insect legs, and pinchers.
  • She has blotched skin.

• Context

  • Wangechi Mutu is a Kenya-born, New York–based artist.

  • Art related to Afro-Futurism.

  • Cyborg: a person whose function is aided by a mechanical device or whose powers are enhanced by computer implants.

  • The work is a commentary on the female persona in art history.

  • Ironic twist on the praying mantis:

  • Suggests religious rituals.

  • Mantis means “prophet” in Greek.

  • Insects use camouflage; this figure seems camouflaged.

  • Her seemingly contradictory roles seem to express “prey” and “preying” at the same time.

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➼  Shibboleth

• Details

  • By Doris Salcedo
  • 2007–2008
  • Installation
  • Found in Tate Modern, London

• Form

  • This is an installation that features a large crack that begins as a hairline and then widens to two feet in depth.
  • The floor of the museum was opened and a cast of Colombian rock faces was inserted.
  • The work stresses the interaction between sculpture and space.

• Context

  • Doris Salcedo is a Colombian sculptor.
  • Shibboleth: a word or custom that a person not familiar with a language may mispronounce; used to identify foreigners or people of another class.
  • A shibboleth is used to exclude people from joining a group.
  • Bible source: Judges 12:6: “They said, ‘All right, say Shibboleth.’ If he said, ‘Sibboleth,’ because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.”
  • The crack emphasizes the gap in relationships.
  • The work references racism and colonialism; keeping people away or separating them.
  • The installation is now sealed, but it exists as a scar; it commemorates the lives of the underclasses.

• Artist’s words:

  • “It represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred. It is the experience of a Third World person coming into the heart of Europe. For example, the space which illegal immigrants occupy is a negative space. And so this piece is a negative space.”

  

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➼  Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds)

• Details

  • By Ai Weiwei
  • 2010–201
  • sculpted and painted porcelain
  • Found in Tate Modern, London

• Form and Content

  • 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.
  • The individual seed is lost among a sea of seeds, representing the loss of individuality in the modern world.
  • Six hundred artisans worked for two years; each seed is handpainted.

• Context

  • Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist.
  • Sunflower seeds were eaten as a source of food during the famine era under Mao Tze-tung.
  • The work reflects the ideology of Chairman Mao: he was the sun; his followers were the seeds.
  • Originally a viewer could walk on the installation, but it raised harmful ceramic dust; viewing was then limited to the sidelines.

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