Exhaustive Study Guide: Contemporary Art (1980–Present)

Glossary of Contemporary Art Terms (1980–Present)

Action Painting: This refers to an abstract painting style in which the artist drips or splatters paint onto a surface, such as a canvas, to create the work.
Assemblage: A three-dimensional composition where a collection of objects is unified into a single sculptural work.
Earthwork: A large-scale outdoor artwork in which the earth itself is the primary medium.
Installation: An artwork created by the specific assembly and arrangement of objects in a particular location.
Kitsch: Art that is considered to be in pretentious bad taste.

Introduction to Contemporary Art

Modern art is characterized by its sensitivity to all contemporary issues, including environmental settings, world politics, technological advances, new techniques, and the internal dynamics of the art market.
Site-specific works are those created for a specific location. Examples include: * Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial * Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty * Doris Salcedo, Shibboleth * Note: Bill Viola's The Crossing is identified as NOT being site-specific in the provided material.

Landmark Architectural Works

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (Spain)

Architect: Frank Gehry.
Date: $1997$ C.E.
Materials: Titanium, glass, and limestone.
Purpose: Constructed to serve as a museum for modern and contemporary art.
Design: Features freeform, asymmetrical sculptural elements. The building is sheathed in shiny titanium tiles, which may have been inspired by fish and the local fishing/shipbuilding industries.
Context: Located in the old industrial heart of Bilbao along the Nervion River. It blends with and stands out from surrounding industrial buildings.
Style: Often called deconstructivist, which involves bending and twisting traditional styles to create a new aesthetic.

MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts (Rome, Italy)

Architect: Zaha Hadid.
Date: $2009$ C.E.
Materials: Glass, steel, and cement.
Style: Neo-futuristic, characterized by curving forms and elongated structures.
Structure: Composed of bending oblong tubes that overlap and intersect.
Inspiration: Hadid was inspired by flowing rivers and sought to integrate the museum into the city's urban fabric.

Major Installations and Environmental Art

The Gates (New York City)

Artists: Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
Project Lifespan: Concept developed in $1979$ ; produced in $2005$ .
Scale: The work involved $7,500$ constructed gates across $23$ miles of footpaths in Central Park. Each gate was $16$ feet tall with saffron-colored fabric hanging to $7$ feet above the ground.
Metaphor: The artists intended to create an aerial view of a "golden river" appearing and disappearing among trees. At ground level, the moving fabric evoked organic forms.
Logistics: This temporary installation was financed by the artists. They sold merchandise to fund it and intended for the saffron material to be recycled.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Washington, D.C.)

Artist: Maya Lin (designed while she was a student at Yale University).
Date: $1982$ .
Design: A V-shaped wall of highly reflective black granite sunk into the land. It contains the names of $57,661$ American soldiers who died in the conflict, listed in chronological order.
Experience: The viewer descends into a grave-like setting. The reflective surface allows viewers to see the names and their own reflections simultaneously, creating a spiritual journey reflecting on death while being cognizant of being alive.
Additions: Due to pressure from veterans who criticized the design, a traditional realistic sculpture and an American flag were added nearby but placed to the side of Lin's design.

Book from the Sky

Artist: Xu Bing.
Date: $1987$ to $1991$ .
Medium: Mixed-media installation with $100$ boxed sets of $4$ -volume woodblock printed books, scrolls hanging from the ceiling, and wall panels.
Content: The artist hand-carved wooden type to mimic traditional Chinese lettering, but the words are imaginary and make no sense in any language. It was meant to look legible but is actually illegible.
Context: Created after the Cultural Revolution in China. It addresses the loss of culture and meaning, immersing the viewer in a "sea" of imaginary words.

No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop

Artist: Pepon Osorio.
Date: $1994$ .
Concept: A mixed-media installation in a vacant store (originally in Hartford, Connecticut) recreating Osorio's memory of his first haircut at age $5$ . While a rite of passage for others, it was a scary scenario for him.
Themes: Explores Puerto Rican cultural norms, masculinity, and inner-city life. It featured images of Latino men crying and items associated with "male prowess."

Shibboleth

Artist: Doris Salcedo.
Date: $2007$ .
Work: A $548$ -foot-long crack (up to $1$ foot wide) in the floor of the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall.
Symbolism: The word "Shibboleth" refers to a custom used to differentiate in-groups from out-groups. The crack represents divisions in ethnicity, class, and culture. The crack was filled after the exhibit but remains visible.

Sunflower Seeds (Kui Hua Zi)

Artist: Ai Weiwei.
Date: $2010$ to $2011$ .
Scale: $100$ million realistic-looking porcelain sunflower seeds spread on the floor. Each seed was individually sculpted and hand-painted by craftsmen in Jingdezhen, China.
Meaning: References the artist's childhood during the era of Chairman Mao (who compared himself to the sun and followers to sunflowers). It also comments on modern Chinese culture and mass production.
Interaction: Originally, viewers could walk through them, but dust levels from foot traffic forced the museum to restrict viewing to the sides after $10$ days.

Painting and Multi-Media Works

Horn Players

Artist: Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Date: $1983$ C.E.
Format: Acrylic and oil paintstick on three canvas panels (triptych).
Subjects: Jazz musicians Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.
Style: Neo-Expressionism/Street Art. It rejects traditional European three-dimensional space in favor of a flat, expressionist style with geometric shapes and words.

Summer Trees

Artist: Song Su-nam.
Date: $1983$ .
Medium: Ink on paper.
Context: Song Su-nam led the Sumukhwa (oriental ink) movement in Korea to recover national identity. The work combines Post-Painterly Abstraction with traditional Chinese and Korean literati-style tonal variations.

Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People)

Artist: Jaune Quick-to-See Smith.
Date: $1992$ C.E.
Concept: A response to the $500$ th anniversary of Columbus's landing. It addresses the history of Native Americans being poorly compensated for land.
Composition: A large canvas covered with tribal newspaper articles and stereotypical advertisements, topped with an outline of a canoe. Above the painting, a string of inexpensive Native-themed toys and souvenirs represents "cheap goods" offered in exchange for the return of land.

Earth's Creation

Artist: Emily Kame Kngwarreye (Aboriginal Australian).
Date: $1994$ C.E.
Medium: Synthetic polymer paint on canvas.
Technique: Uses dotwork patterns derived from traditional Aboriginal "dreaming stories." Kngwarreye did not start painting until age $80$ . This work refers to the "green time" after the rainy season.

Stadia II

Artist: Julie Mehretu.
Date: $2004$ C.E.
Style: Large-scale paintings depicting the chaos of the modern world. Uses overlapping architectural plans, maps, and abstract shapes to create an illusion of depth and movement. The work references arenas where national identity and local power struggles merge.

Preying Mantra

Artist: Wangechi Mutu.
Date: $2006$ .
Medium: Mixed media on Mylar.
Themes: Reimagines the African female body to comment on colonization, sexism, and racism. The figure is a reclining nude on a blanket resembling Kuba cloth, holding a green snake (referencing Adam and Eve) and integrated into a tree (referencing global creation myths).

Photography, Video, and Identity

Untitled (#228) from History Portraits

Artist: Cindy Sherman.
Date: $1990$ C.E.
Technique: Self-portrait using theatrical makeup, props, and costumes to mimic oil paintings of Old Masters. This specific work portrays the biblical feminist hero Judith holding the head of Holofernes.

Dancing at the Louvre

Artist: Faith Ringgold.
Date: $1991$ .
Format: Acrylic on canvas with a tie-dyed pieced fabric border (story quilt).
Subject: A fictional African-American woman named Willia Marie Simone traveling Paris in the $1920$ s. The work combines European painting with African-American folk art/quilting traditions.

Rebellious Silence

Artist: Shirin Neshat.
Date: $1994$ C.E.
Format: Ink on photograph.
Subject: Part of a series on female warriors of the $1979$ Iranian Islamic Revolution. The self-portrait features Farsi poetry on her face and a rifle dividing it, challenging the submissive gaze of religious Muslim women.

Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S.

Artist: Nam June Paik.
Date: $1995$ .
Medium: $49$ -channel closed-circuit video installation with neon and steel.
Meaning: Paik coined the phrase "electronic superhighway." The neon outlines define states, while flashing screens mimic landscapes seen from a car window, contrasting physical road trips with emerging virtual internet travel.

The Crossing

Artist: Bill Viola.
Date: $1996$ .
Medium: Double-sided video projection on freestanding clear acrylic.
Visual: On one side, a man is engulfed in a deluge of water; on the other, the same man is engulfed in flames. It draws on universal truths of life and death found in Eastern and Western religions.

Pure Land

Artist: Mariko Mori.
Date: $1998$ .
Format: Color photograph on glass.
Style: Updates traditional Japanese Buddhist imagery with pop culture. Mori depicts herself as Kichijoten (goddess of happiness) floating over the Dead Sea. It incorporates elements of Manga, Anime, and the Buddhist concept of emptiness (sunyata).

Sculpture and Textiles

Androgyn III

Artist: Magdalena Abakanowicz.
Date: $1985$ C.E.
Materials: Burlap, resin, wood, nails, string.
Themes: Examines the individual versus society, inspired by 20th-century Polish history (Nazi occupation and Soviet domination). The hollow burlap forms represent existential spiritual and physical existence.

Pink Panther

Artist: Jeff Koons.
Date: $1988$ .
Material: Porcelain.
Series: Part of the "Banality" series. It features the cartoon character with a blonde woman (resembling Marilyn Monroe). The work is intentionally kitschy and gaudy, commenting on art as a commodity.

Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000)

Artist: Michel Tuffery.
Date: $1994$ .
Medium: Flattened corned-beef tins joined by rivets.
Content: "Pisupo" is the Samoan term for canned goods (derived from "pea soup"). It comments on how imported European goods displaced native foods in Pacific cultures, creating a state of dependence.

The Swing (After Fragonard)

Artist: Yinka Shonibare.
Date: $2001$ .
Medium: Mixed media installation.
Description: A headless mannequin dressed in African printed fabric, in a pose taken from Fragonard's Rococo painting. The Dutch/African hybrid fabric and the missing head symbolize the downfall of the aristocracy during the French Revolution.

Old Man's Cloth

Artist: El Anatsui.
Date: $2003$ .
Materials: Recycled beer can tops and aluminum/copper wire.
Meaning: Part of the "Gawu" (metal cloth) series. The use of liquor bottle tops refers to the history of the transatlantic slave trade and the "Gold Coast" (Ghana). The patterns mimic Ghanaian kente cloth.