Untitled Flashcard Set
1. The Gate
Artist: Lee Ufan
Date: 1995
Material: Steel and stone
Form: Large steel plate positioned with natural stones; simple, minimal composition.
Function: Contemporary artwork exploring the relationship between natural and industrial materials.
Content: Contrasts the manufactured steel with natural stone.
Context: Part of Lee Ufan's exploration of relationships between objects, space, and nature.
Key idea: Nature vs. industry; minimalism; space.
2. Horn Players
Artist: Jean-Michel Basquiat
Date: 1983
Material: Acrylic and oil stick on canvas
Form: Large colorful painting with expressive figures, words, symbols, and energetic marks.
Function: Expresses Basquiat's ideas about Black identity, music, race, and culture.
Content: References jazz musicians, especially Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.
Context: Created during the Neo-Expressionist movement; Basquiat drew heavily from African American culture and music.
Key idea: Jazz, Black identity, Neo-Expressionism.
3. Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Artist: Maya Lin
Date: 1982
Material: Black granite
Form: Long V-shaped wall that sinks into the ground; names of dead and missing U.S. service members are engraved on it.
Function: Memorializes Americans who died or remained missing in the Vietnam War.
Content: Thousands of names arranged chronologically.
Context: The minimalist design was controversial because it differed from traditional heroic war monuments.
Key idea: Memorial, names, reflection, loss.
4. Summer Trees
Artist: Song Su-Nam
Date: 1983
Material: Ink on paper
Form: Black-and-white landscape made with expressive brushstrokes.
Function: Creates a contemplative image of nature.
Content: Trees and landscape.
Context: Connected to the Korean tradition of literati painting and calligraphy.
Key idea: Nature, brushwork, Korean ink painting.
5. Androgyne 3
Artist: Magdalena Abakanowicz
Date: 1985
Material: Burlap and synthetic resin
Form: Large, rough, hollow human-like form.
Function: Explores human identity and the relationship between the individual and the group.
Content: An ambiguous human figure without clear gender.
Context: Abakanowicz's work often deals with individuality, crowds, and the human body.
Key idea: Androgyny, identity, human body.
6. A Book from the Sky
Artist: Xu Bing
Date: 1987–1991
Material: Printed books, scrolls, and panels
Form: Huge installation covered in invented Chinese-looking characters.
Function: Questions language, communication, literacy, and authority.
Content: Characters look real but have no meaning.
Context: Created in China during a period of major cultural and intellectual change.
Key idea: Language, invented writing, communication.
7. Pink Panther
Artist: Jeff Koons
Date: 1988
Material: Porcelain
Form: Glossy porcelain sculpture of Jayne Mansfield embracing the Pink Panther.
Function: Explores popular culture, celebrity, sexuality, and consumer culture.
Content: Celebrity imagery combined with a cartoon character.
Context: Part of Koons's celebration and questioning of popular culture and consumer goods.
Key idea: Pop culture, celebrity, consumerism.
8. Untitled #228, from the History Portraits series
Artist: Cindy Sherman
Date: 1990
Material: Color photograph
Form: Sherman photographs herself dressed as a historical/fictional character.
Function: Questions identity, gender roles, and representations of women.
Content: A staged portrait based on European art-history traditions.
Context: Sherman uses photography to challenge how women have traditionally been represented.
Key idea: Identity, gender, photography, appropriation.
9. Dancing at the Louvre, from The French Collection, Part I
Artist: Faith Ringgold
Date: 1991
Material: Acrylic on canvas with fabric border
Form: Story quilt showing children dancing in front of the Louvre.
Function: Combines storytelling, family history, and African American experiences.
Content: Ringgold's daughters appear in the scene while famous Western artworks are visible in the background.
Context: Challenges the traditional European-centered art canon by placing African American life inside the Louvre.
Key idea: Story quilt, African American identity, art history.
10. Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People)
Artist: Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
Date: 1992
Material: Mixed media
Form: Layered imagery, text, maps, and objects.
Function: Criticizes the treatment of Native Americans and the taking of Indigenous land.
Content: References trade, land, Native American identity, and U.S. history.
Context: Smith is a Native American artist who addresses colonialism and Indigenous rights.
Key idea: Colonialism, land, Native identity.
11. Earth’s Creation
Artist: Emily Kame Kngwarreye
Date: 1994
Material: Acrylic on canvas
Form: Large abstract painting filled with colorful dots, lines, and organic patterns.
Function: Represents Indigenous Australian connections to land and ancestral stories.
Content: Refers to the artist's homeland and Dreaming traditions.
Context: Kngwarreye was an Aboriginal Australian artist whose paintings connect to Anmatyerr culture.
Key idea: Aboriginal Australia, Dreaming, land.
12. Pisupo Lua Afe
Artist: Michael Tuffery
Date: 1994
Material: Tin cans and wire
Form: Large sculpture resembling a cow/bull made from corned-beef cans.
Function: Comments on Pacific Island culture, colonialism, globalization, and consumer goods.
Content: A cow made from discarded food containers.
Context: Tuffery is of Samoan, Cook Islands, and Māori descent. The title refers to corned beef.
Key idea: Globalization, Pacific identity, consumer culture. College Board has specifically used this work in AP exam material.
13. Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii
Artist: Nam June Paik
Date: 1995
Material: Video monitors, neon, steel, electronics
Form: Large map of the United States made from television screens and neon lights.
Function: Explores mass media, technology, communication, and American culture.
Content: Each state contains different video imagery.
Context: Created during the rise of electronic communication and television culture.
Key idea: Technology, media, globalization.
14. The Crossing
Artist: Bill Viola
Date: 1996
Material: Video installation
Form: Slow-motion video of a human figure experiencing water and fire.
Function: Explores transformation, life, death, and spirituality.
Content: A person is gradually consumed by water and fire.
Context: Viola often combines modern video technology with religious and spiritual traditions.
Key idea: Transformation, spirituality, water/fire.
15. Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Architect: Frank Gehry
Date: 1997
Material: Titanium, glass, limestone
Form: Curving, irregular building with large metallic surfaces.
Function: Houses modern and contemporary art.
Context: Built as part of the revitalization of Bilbao, Spain.
Key idea: Deconstructivism, titanium, urban renewal.
16. Pure Land
Artist: Mariko Mori
Date: 1995
Material: Lightbox photograph
Form: Digital photograph showing Mori as a futuristic figure in a colorful, otherworldly environment.
Function: Explores spirituality, technology, identity, and the future.
Content: Mori appears surrounded by futuristic imagery.
Context: Combines Japanese Buddhist ideas with contemporary technology and popular culture.
Key idea: Technology, spirituality, future.
17. Lying with the Wolf
Artist: Kiki Smith
Date: 2001
Material: Bronze
Form: Human figure lying beside a wolf.
Function: Explores relationships between humans, animals, nature, and identity.
Content: A nude human figure and wolf appear together.
Context: Smith frequently explores the human body, mortality, and connections with nature.
Key idea: Human/nature relationship, body, mortality.
18. Darkytown Rebellion
Artist: Kara Walker
Date: 2001
Material: Cut paper silhouettes with projection
Form: Black silhouettes showing figures involved in disturbing and violent scenes.
Function: Confronts racism, slavery, stereotypes, and American racial history.
Content: Scenes reference the history of slavery and racial violence.
Context: Walker uses the traditionally decorative silhouette technique to address America's racist past.
Key idea: Slavery, racism, silhouettes, stereotypes.
19. The Swing (after Fragonard)
Artist: Yinka Shonibare
Date: 2001
Material: Mannequin, Dutch wax-print fabric
Form: Headless figure recreating Fragonard's The Swing.
Function: Questions European art history, colonialism, race, and cultural identity.
Content: Recreates an eighteenth-century French painting using African-inspired fabric.
Context: Shonibare uses European artistic traditions and African/Dutch wax-print fabrics to question cultural identity and colonial history.
Key idea: Appropriation, colonialism, identity, Dutch wax fabric.
20. Old Man’s Cloth
Artist: El Anatsui
Date: 2003
Material: Aluminum bottle caps and copper wire
Form: Huge shimmering textile-like wall sculpture.
Function: Transforms discarded materials into a work connected to African history and textiles.
Content: Looks like a traditional African cloth.
Context: El Anatsui connects African artistic traditions with global consumer culture and colonial history.
Key idea: Recycled materials, textiles, Africa, globalization.
21. Stadia II
Artist: Wangechi Mutu
Date: 2004
Material: Mixed media collage
Form: Fragmented female figure combining human, animal, mechanical, and organic elements.
Function: Explores gender, race, identity, and cultural stereotypes.
Content: Hybrid female figure.
Context: Mutu combines African imagery with Western media and ideas about the female body.
Key idea: Collage, gender, race, hybrid body.
22. Preying Mantra
Artist: Wangechi Mutu
Date: 2004
Material: Mixed media
Form: Collaged hybrid female figure.
Function: Challenges stereotypes about African women and examines identity.
Content: Human, animal, and mechanical features are combined.
Context: Mutu uses imagery from African culture, Western media, science fiction, and popular culture.
Key idea: Hybrid, female identity, stereotypes.
23. Shibboleth
Artist: Doris Salcedo
Date: 2007
Material: Crack in the floor of the Tate Modern
Form: A long crack runs through the concrete floor of the museum.
Function: Represents exclusion, racism, immigration, and social divisions.
Content: The physical separation in the floor symbolizes divisions between people.
Context: Salcedo created it in response to European attitudes toward immigrants and marginalized people.
Key idea: Exclusion, immigration, racism, division.
24. MAXXI National Museum of XXI Arts
Architect: Zaha Hadid
Date: 2009–2010
Material: Concrete, glass, steel
Form: Curving galleries, flowing lines, intersecting paths, and open spaces.
Function: Museum for contemporary art and architecture.
Context: Located in Rome and designed to connect contemporary architecture with the city's historical architectural traditions.
Key idea: Deconstructivism, flowing space, contemporary Rome. College Board's scoring guidelines specifically discuss its flowing corridors, movable walls, and references to Rome's architectural history.
25. Kui Hua Zi
Artist: Ai Weiwei
Date: 2010–2011
Material: Hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds
Form: Millions of individually made porcelain sunflower seeds cover the floor.
Function: Examines individuality, mass production, Chinese history, and political power.
Content: Each seed looks similar but is individually handmade.
Context: References Mao Zedong's imagery and China's mass production and political history.
Key idea: Individual vs. mass, porcelain, China, Mao.