Online Study Guide

The Art World's Focus Shifts West :: Postwar Expressionism in Europe :: Modernist Formalism :: Alternatives to Modernist Formalism :: Art for the Public :: New Models for Architecture: Modernism to Postmodernism :: Postmodernism In Painting, Sculpture, And New Media :: Into The 21st Century

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ALTERNATIVES TO MODERNIST FORMALISM

Some artists felt that the abstraction and focus on formal issues that characterized much avant-garde modernist art had resulted in public alienation. They created instead a more communicative art with the intent of reaching a wider audience.

Diverse Sculptural Directions

Multiplicity of meaning:

Louise Nevelson's monochromatic Tropical Garden II is a rough geometric assemblage of found wooden objects and forms in which small sculptural compositions are enclosed in boxes of varied sizes that are joined together to form a wall.

34-17: LOUISE NEVELSON, Tropical Garden II, 1957-1959. Wood painted black, 5' 11 1/2" x 10' 11 3/4" x 1'. Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

Sensuous organic forms:

Louise Bourgeois's Cumul I is a collection of different-sized, roundheaded, abstract shapes arranged within the soft folds of a cloak dotted with holes.

34-18: LOUISE BOURGEOIS, Cumul I, 1969. Marble, 1' 10 3/8" x 4' 2" x 4'. Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Copyright © Louise Bourgeois/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

"Non-Art" art:

Eva Hesse's spare and simple Hang-Up uses nontraditional sculptural materials to create a disquieting and compelling sculpture that extends into the room.

34-19: EVA HESSE, Hang-Up, 1965-1966. Acrylic on cloth over wood and steel, 6' x 7' 6' 6". Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (gift of Arthur Keating and Mr. and Mrs. Edward Morris by exchange).

Performance Art

Performance Art used movements, gestures, and sounds of persons to communicate with the viewer. Generally, Performance Art survives only in documentary photographs taken at the time. It was informal and spontaneous in nature and employed the human body as its primary material.

A composer's influence:

John Cage composed music using methods such as chance to convey the unpredictable and multi-layered qualities of daily existence.

Happenings:

Allan Kaprow developed a type of largely participatory event known as a Happening that was performed according to plan but without rehearsal, audience or repetition. The Fluxus group explored the nontraditional and commonplace in performances that were more theatrical than Happenings. Many Fluxus performances followed a compositional "score" and focused on single actions that were usually executed on a stage but without costumes or added decor.

The theater of the single event:

To distinguish their performances from Happenings, the artists associated with Fluxus coined the term Events to describe their work. Events were not spontaneous; they followed a compositional "score."

34-20: GEORGE BRECHT, Event Scores.

Imparting life to materials:

Some artists produced works that involved both painting and performance. Gutai Bujitsu Kyokai (Concrete Art Association), a group of 18 Japanese artists I Osaka, expanded the action of painting in to the realm of performance.

34-21: KAZUO SHIRAGA, Making a Work with His Own Body, 1955. Mud.

Bodily relationships to meat:

Carolee Schneemann's self-described "kinetic theater" radically transformed the nature of performance by introducing a feminist dimension through the use of her often-nude body to challenge "the psychi territorial power lines by which women were admitted to the Art Stud Club."

34-22: CAROLEE SCHNEEMAN, Meat Joy, 1964. Photograph of performance at Judson Church, New York.

Performance as ritual:

Joseph Beuys created actions aimed at illuminating the condition of modern humanity. His How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare incorporates fat and felt to symbolize healing and regeneration.

34-23: JOSEPH BEUYS, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, 1965. Photograph of Performance art. Schmela Gallery, Düsseldorf.

Destruction as creation:

Jean Tinguely created the kinetic artwork Homage to New York, which was designed to "perform" and then destroy itself in a large courtyard area at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

34-24: JEAN TINGUELY, Homage to New York, 1960, just prior to its self-destruction in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Conceptual Art

Conceptual art asserted that the "artfulness" of art lay in the artist's idea, rather than in its final expression.

What Constitutes "Chairness"?:

Joseph Kosuth's One and Three Chairs consists of an actual chair flanked by a full-scale photograph of the chair and a photostat of a dictionary definition of the word chair.

34-25: JOSEPH KOSUTH, One and Three Chairs, 1965. Wooden folding chair, photographic copy of a chair, and photographic enlargement of a dictionary definition of a chair; chair, 2' 8 3/8" x 1' 2 7/8" x 1' 8 7/8"; photo panel, 3' x 2' 1/8"; text panel, 2' 2' 1/8". Museum of Modern Art, New York (Larry Aldrich Foundation Fund).

Words of neon:

Bruce Nauman's work of the 1960's intersected with that of the Conceptual artists, especially in terms of the philosophical exploration that was the foundation of much of his art.

34-26: BRUCE NAUMAN, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign), 1967. Neon with glass tubing suspension frame, 4' 11" x 4' 7" x 2". Private collection.