chapter study guide

The Later Twentieth Century: The Emergence of Postmodernism

WORLD WAR II AND ITS AFTERMATH

THE ART WORLD'S FOCUS SHIFTS WEST

POSTWAR EXPRESSIONISM IN EUROPE

MODERNIST FORMALISM

ALTERNATIVES TO MODERNIST FORMALISM

NEW MODELS FOR ARCHITECTURE: MODERNISM TO POSTMODERNISM

POSTMODERNISM IN PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND NEW MEDIA

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.

The Development of Pop Art

Pop artists embraced representation and produced an art grounded in consumer culture, the mass media, and popular culture. Employing familiar imagery of the contemporary urban environment, Pop artists made art more accessible and understandable to the public.

British Pop and the Independent Group: Richard Hamilton's small collage Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?, which contains references to the mass media, advertising, and popular culture, reflects the values of modern consumer culture through figures and objects cut from glossy magazines.

34-23 RICHARD HAMILTON, Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?, 1956. Collage, 101/4" x 93/4". Kunsthalle Tübingen, Germany.

American Pop Art and Consumer Culture

The Pop art movement that flourished in the United States through the 1960s drew its imagery from mass media, mass production, and advertising. Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg introduced elements from popular culture into their art.

Things That Are Seen but Not Looked At: In Flag, Jasper Johns selected a common object that he painted in encaustic.

34-24 JASPER JOHNS, Flag, 1954–1955. Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood, 3' 6 1/4" x 5' 1 15/8". Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York (gift of Philip Johnson). Copyright © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

Beverages of Bronze: In Painted Bronze, Jasper Johns reconstituted Ballantine Ale cans in bronze, thereby reconstituting what is customarily discarded and presenting it as something worthy of the attention.

34-25 JASPER JOHNS, Painted Bronze, 1960. Cast bronze, paint, approx. 51/2" high, 8" wide, 43/4" deep. Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne (Sammlung Ludwig). Copyright © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

"Combining" Painting and Sculpture
In his combine Canyon, Robert Rauschenberg attached a stuffed bald eagle and pieces of printed paper and photographs to the canvas. Below the eagle a pillow dangles from a string attached to a wood stick.

34-26 ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, Canyon, 1959. Oil, pencil, paper, fabric, metal, cardboard box, printed paper, printed reproductions, photograph, wood, paint tube, and mirror on canvas, with oil on bald eagle, string, and pillow, 6' 9 3/4" x 5' 10" x 2'. Sonnabend Collection. Copyright © Untitled Press, Inc./Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

A "Comic" Focus in Art: In Hopeless, Roy Lichtenstein excerpted an image from a comic book and reproduced it in monumental scale, retaining the comic strip's visual vocabulary and employing the printer's benday dot system to modulate colors.

34-27 ROY LICHTENSTEIN, Hopeless, 1963. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 3' 8" x 3' 8". Kunstmuseum, Offentliche Kunstsammlung Basel (permanent loan from the Ludwig Collection).

The Art of Commodities: For Green Coca-Cola Bottles, Andy Warhol selected an icon of mass-produced, consumer culture and used a visual vocabulary and a printing technique that reinforced the image's connections to consumer culture. The repetition of the image of the Coke bottle reflects the omnipresence and dominance of the product in American society.

34-28 ANDY WARHOL, Green Coca-Cola Bottles, 1962. Silk screen on canvas, 6' 11" x 4' 9". Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York (gift of the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art).

A Mythical Celebrity: In Marilyn Diptych, Warhol reproduced a publicity photograph of a Hollywood celebrity in a way that emphasizes the commodity status of the subject.

34-29 ANDY WARHOL, Marilyn Diptych, 1962. Oil, acrylic, and silk screen enamel on canvas. Tate Gallery, London.

Supersizing Sculpture: Claes Oldenburg made both plaster reliefs of food and clothing items and large-scale, stuffed sculptures of sewn vinyl or canvas that comment on American consumer culture. He also made huge outdoor sculptures of familiar, commonplace objects.

34-30 CLAES OLDENBURG, photo of one-person show at the Green Gallery, New York, 1962.

Superrealism

The Superrealists (or Photorealists) made images involving scrupulous photographic fidelity to optical fact.

Exploring "Photo-Vision": In her still-life painting Marilyn (Vanitas), Audrey Flack explored the nature of photography and the extent to which photography constructs an understanding of reality. Flack duplicates the smooth gradations of tone and color found in photographs with careful attention to detail. She also alludes to traditional vanitas paintings.

34-31 AUDREY FLACK, Marilyn (Vanitas), 1977. Oil over acrylic on canvas, 8' x 8'. University of Arizona Art Museum, Tucson.

Large-Scale Portraits: Chuck Close's large-scale Self-Portrait is based on a photograph.

34-32 CHUCK CLOSE, Self-Portrait, 1968. Acrylic on canvas, 9' x 7'. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

Casts of Stereotypical Americans: Duane Hanson's Supermarket Shopper is a life-size figurative sculpture made of polyester resin cast from a plaster mold made from a live model. The sculpture is painted and decorated with a wig, clothes, and other accessories.

34-33 DUANE HANSON, Supermarket Shopper, 1970. Polyester resin and fiberglass polychromed in oil, with clothing, steel cart, and groceries, life size. Nachfolgeinstitut, Neue Galerie, Sammlung Ludvig, Aachen, Germany.

Site-Specific Art and Environmental Art

Most Environmental art (also called Earth art or earthworks) is site specific and exists outdoors. Environmental artists used natural or organic materials, including the land itself, and used their art to call attention to the landscape.

The Enduring Power of Nature: Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty is a huge spiral of black basalt, limestone rocks, and earth that extends out into Great Salt Lake in Utah.

34-34 ROBERT SMITHSON, Spiral Jetty, Great Salt Lake, Utah, April 1970. Black rocks, salt crystal, earth, red water, and algae, 1,500' long, 15' wide. Art copyright © estate of Robert Smithson/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

Sculpture as Void: Michael Heizer's Double Negative consists of two massive cuts in the Mormon Mesa near Overton, Nevada. The cuts face each other across a deep indentation in the cliff-like ridge.

34-35 MICHAEL HEIZER, Double Negative, near Overton, Nevada, 1969–1970. 1,500' x 50' x 30'. Photo, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

The Art of Wrapping: For Surrounded Islands, created in Biscayne Bay in Miami, Florida, Christo and Jeanne-Claude surrounded 11 small, human-made islands in the bay with specially fabricated pink, polypropylene fabric. The piece survives only in photographs, films, and books documenting the project.

34-36 CHRISTO and @FM:JEANNE-CLAUDE, Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida, 1980–1983. Pink woven polypropylene fabric, 61/2 million sq. ft.

A Massive Wall of Steel: Richard Serra's site-specific sculpture Tilted Arc is an enormous 120-foot curved wall of Cor-Ten steel that bisected the large public plaza in front of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in lower Manhattan. The sculpture significantly altered the space and traffic flow across the square.

34-37 RICHARD SERRA, Tilted Arc, Federal Plaza, Foley Square, New York, New York, 1981, removed 1989. Cor-Ten steel, 120' long.