04/18 Contemporary Conversation with the Past

Context Review:

Pop-art

Ex Collaboration (Paramount) between Warhol and Basquiat. We see…

  • Building of symbols

    • Recognizable visual vocabulary from popular culture: ties the work to the contemporary moment

  • Exploring relationship of word and image:

    • Basquiat’s words and images seems to allude to a greater system, but really they’re enigmatic

—

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Untitled

Style: loose applications of color, “set symbol systems tease the viewer”

Context:

  • NY street art scene —> gallery focused

  • coming back to street art components

thinking about the symbol itself as a vehicle within the composition

Defacement

  • more narrative in content

  • symbols (medallion of police-officers uniform) for activism

using the space of art to make statements about injustice

Andy Warhol

Race Riot

  • trying to draw attention to inequality

  • images in repetition: this isn’t a singular case

  • colors tied to American flag

deeper contemplation

Contemporary (Past) Conversation

  • Expanding the bounds, reconsidering, contemplating, entering a dialogue, spring boarding off of

  • power of space, idea, materiality, composition

Context Review:

The Salon: juxtaposition between high art and other art. Breaking the barrier between these spaces was a big deal —> motion to rethink the spaces in which we view art

Marcel Broodthaers, Musee d’Art Moderne, Départements des Aigles, Section

  • what is the space of the Museum?

Hans Haacke, MoMA Poll

  • transformed this one part of the gallery—> transforming the way we engage with this space, a space for political contemplation

  • expands the bounds of the gallery space to larger issues within society

Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs

  • power of the idea ( ?: originality of the idea even if the output is somewhat similar)

  • encouraging us to think

Think about the idea, and physical manifestation of a work

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty

  • using organic materials : connection to landscape

  • site specificity: the materials of this particular landscape characterize the work

  • changing presence (based on shoreline)

Back to notion of artists distancing the presence of their hand from a work of art: the variations that happen to this work are completely out of his control. hightens dynamism

Faith Ringgold, Dancing at the Louvre

  • in a gallery of De Vinci’s paintings, dancing

  • arrival. a little bit of a statement about class.

  • also experimenting with materials: elevating art of quilting in this series

Felix Ganzalez-Torres, Untitled

  • abt 175 pounds of wrapped candy. the weight of his partner who died from aids.

  • you can take candy with you so that the pile will diminish like a body wasting away. But the pile is constantly replenished

  • Candy: tender relationship. also living artwork, space of gallery takes a role in the relationship.

Eleanor Antin, Carving: A Traditional Sculpture

  • commenting on notions of traditional sculpture

    • confronting ideal body

    • interjecting herself

  • A different mode of portraiture

  • Feminist art

Rejections of past approaches

Barbara Kruger, Your Body is a Battleground

  • Designed for protest: women’s march in 1999 Roe vs. Wade

  • straightforward, streamline messaging —> successful, visually interesting

  • Recycling and manipulating images : speaks on longstanding limitations of representation

Guerrilla Girls, Do Women have to be…

  • conversing with the past, turning to ideas of the past very critically

Cindy Sherman,

Untitled #224

  • idea of roleplaying. looking to the role of past greats as an inspiration —> contemplating their role in recreating these scenes

  • In this work looks to Caravaggio, Sick Bacchus: working carefully to emulate the characteristics

    • artificiality clearly visible. pointing to the idea of manufacturing of images overall

  • consistently uses herself as the main protagonist in vast majority of her works

    • also reconstructing herself in the guise of this figure

Untitled #228

springboard

  • humor, also questioning larger

Yasumasa Morimura

Mother (Judith II)

  • looking to Lucas Cranach, Judith with the Head of Holofernes

    and Arcimboldo, Vertumnus

reconstructed using the composition of Cranach, and artistic language of Arcimboldo: expanding on these conversations and expanding the bounds.

Portrait(Twins)

  • not copying, about conversation

Kerry James Marshall, Untitled

  • Black female painter at her easle

  • format of portrait of an artist speaks to longstanding tradition

    • celebration of Black female artist’s role

  • paint-by-numbers, but red color: exploring in her own mode

modern version of the artist for the modern day

Yinka Shonibare, The Swing (after Fragonard)

  • strong likeness, but she’s headless : commentary on status, a death to the aristocracy, to individuals like those on the swing

Kehinde Wiley, The Death of Hyacinth

  • figure(the every person, suited for a contemporary conversation ) ensconced in vibrant background: creates otherworldly space

  • playing on motifs of Jacques Louis David The Death of Socrates

Jeff Koons, Metallic Venus

  • Consider Rubens and Picasso

  • Renaissance a source of ongoing conversation and critique as time goes on