Chapter Twenty-TwoChapter Twenty-Two

The Contemporary ContourThe Contemporary ContourChapter Twenty-TwoChapter Twenty-Two

The Contemporary ContourThe Contemporary Contour

Culture and Values

Cunningham and Reich and Fichner-Rathus, 8th Ed.

1945 CE United States drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945

World War II ends in Europe and Japan in 1945United Nations General Assembly meets for first time in 1946

The transistor is invented in 1947Israel becomes an independent state in 1948

Mao Zedong becomes leader of Communist China in 19491950 CE

Korean War begins in 1950United States explodes first hydrogen bomb in 1952

Korean War ends with a truce in 1953School segregation is outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954

U.S. civil-rights movement begins in the SouthSputnik, the first artificial satellite, is launched by the Soviet Union in 1957

1960 CE East Germany erects the Berlin Wall in 1961

Soviet Union launches first human into space in 1961An American orbits the earth in space in 1962

A TV signal crosses the Atlantic via a satellite in 1962U.S. president John F. Kennedy is assassinated in 1963

United States builds up troops in Vietnam in 1964National Organization for Women is founded in 1966

Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy are assassinated in 1968A U.S. astronaut takes the first walk on the moon in 1969

1970 CE Supreme Court decision in Miller v. California effectively ends censorship in 1973United States withdraws from Vietnam in 1975Microsoft is established in 1975Apple Computer is established in 19761981 Space shuttle first fliesCommunist governments of Eastern Europe fall beginning in 1989

1990 CE East and West Germany reunite in 1990Soviet Union is dissolved in 1991Google is incorporated in 1998Terrorists attack World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001United States invades Afghanistan in 2001United States invades Iraq in 2003Facebook is launched in 2004United States withdraws from Iraq in 2011

Toward a Global CultureToward a Global CultureToward a Global CultureToward a Global Culture Artistic satire of modern warfare

Heller, Pynchon, Kubrick Global economy, New World Order

Economic, social inequities Search for individual, social meaning

Social, political oppression Artist as voice of protest, hope

ExistentialismExistentialismExistentialismExistentialism Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

Autonomous individual, self-examination Who am I? What am I doing here? Where

am I going? Sartre (1905-1980)

Implications of atheism Individual place, freedom, ethics

Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855)—Danish

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881)—Russian

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)—German

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936)—Spanish

Nicholas Berdyaev (1874–1948)—Russian

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926)—Czech/German

Martin Buber (1878–1965)—Austrian/Israeli

Jacques Maritain (1882–1973)—French

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969)—German

Franz Kafka (1883–1924)—Czech/German

José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955)—Spanish

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976)—German

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980)—French

Albert Camus (1913–1960)—French

ExistentialismExistentialismExistentialismExistentialism Thought + Action Multi-media expression Emphasis on anxiety, alienation Existentialist theater, fiction Beat poets as existentialists Camus’ absurdity of the world

Alberto Giacometti, Man Pointing, 1947. Bronze, 70 ½″ × 40 ¾″ × 16 ⅜″ (179 × 103.4 × 41.5cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York.

Postmodern 1960s+

A reaction to and continuation of modernism a Rejection of any rational order Abandons traditional literary forms, often

combining different genres & styles; an explosion of movements

Nihilism: no reason for values or morality, or rejection of values: believes in nothing, cynical, randomness of existence

Playfulness, parody, & irony

Women: Susan Glaspell, Charlotte Gilman Perkins African American:James Baldwin, Toni Cade

Bambara, James McPherson, Ralph Ellison Native American: Zitkala-Sa, Mourning Dove John Cheever, Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike Jewish American: Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Bernard

Malamud Metafiction: representations of fiction, storytelling, or

art in general. Magical Fiction—use of metaphysical devices: John

Barth, Donald Barthelme, and Robert Coover

Visual ArtsVisual Arts

Abstract ExpressionismAbstract ExpressionismVisual ArtsVisual Arts

Abstract ExpressionismAbstract Expressionism Devoid of recognizable content Subjective aesthetic experience

Line, color, shape New York School: The First Generation

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) Radical break from tradition “all over” composition

Action painting

Barnett Newman wrote:

"We felt the moral crisis of a world in shambles, a world destroyed by a great depression and a fierce World War, and it was impossible at that time to paint the kind of paintings that we were doing—flowers, reclining nudes, and people playing the cello."*

Adolph Gottlieb, writing with Rothko and Newman in 1943, explained, “We favor the simple expression of the complex thought.”**

Japanese Girl Hans Hofmann35½ x 43½"Casein and Oil on Plywood1935

Jackson Pollock (American, 1912–1956)

The She-Wolf1943

Oil, gouache, and plaster on canvas41 7/8 x 67" 

Arshile GorkyThe Leaf of the Artichoke Is an Owl

1944Oil on canvas

28 x 35 7/8" 

Clyfford Still (American, 1904–1980)

1944-N No. 21944

Oil on canvas8' 8 1/4" x 7' 3 1/4"

EcstasyHans Hofmann 60 x 68"Oil on Canvas1947University of California, Berkeley Art Museum

William Baziotes (American

1912–1963)Dwarf1947

Oil on canvas42 x 36 1/8"

Mark Rothko (American, born Russia (now Latvia). 1903–1970)

No. 1 (Untitled)1948

MediumOil on canvas

8' 10 3/8" x 9' 9 1/4"

Barnett Newman (American, 1905–1970)

Abraham1949

Oil on canvas6' 10 3/4" x 34 1/2" 

Willem de Kooning American, born the Netherlands.

1904–1997Painting

1948Enamel and oil on canvas

42 5/8 x 56 1/8"

Adolph Gottlieb (American, 1903–1974)Man Looking at Woman

1949Oil on canvas

42 x 54" (106.6 x 137.1 cm)

22.7 Mark Rothko, Magenta, Black, Green on Orange (No. 3/No. 13), 1949

22.4 Jackson Pollock, One, Number 31, 1950.

Pollock would say, “Any attempt on my part to say something about it … could only destroy it.”  

Mark Rothko, Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea, 1944, oil on canvas, 191.4 x 215.2 cm 

Franz Kline (American, 1910–1962)Chief1950

Oil on canvas58 3/8" x 6' 1 1/2" 

Barnett Newman (American, 1905–1970)Vir Heroicus Sublimis

1950-51Oil on canvas

7' 11 3/8" x 17' 9 1/4" (242.2 x 541.7 cm)

Willem de Kooning, Woman I, oil on canvas, 1950-52

Visual ArtsVisual Arts

Abstract ExpressionismAbstract ExpressionismVisual ArtsVisual Arts

Abstract ExpressionismAbstract Expressionism The New York School: The First

Generation Lee Krasner

Easter Lilies (1956) Willem de Kooning

Paintings of women Mark Rothco

Enormous canvases

22.5 Lee Krasner, Easter Liliesm 1956

Adolph Gottlieb Blast, I1957

Oil on canvas7' 6" x 45 1/8" 

Hans Hofmann (American, born

Germany. 1880–1966)Cathedral

1959Oil on canvas

6' 2" x 48" 

The Golden WallHans Hofmann 59½ x 71½"Oil on Canvas1961

The Art Institute of Chicago

Franz Kline (American, 1910–1962)Le Gros

1961Oil on canvas

41 3/8 x 52 5/8"

David Smith (American, 1906–1965)

Cubi X1963

Stainless steel10' 1 3/8" x 6' 6 3/4" x 24"

Robert Motherwell (American, 1915–1991)Elegy to the Spanish Republic, 108

1965-67Oil on canvas

6' 10" x 11' 6 1/4" 

Visual ArtsVisual ArtsVisual ArtsVisual Arts The New York School: The Second Generation

Joan Mitchell Most important woman to work in the gestural idiom of

abstract expressionism Helen Frankenthaler

Color-field painter Minimal Art

Ascetic use of line, color Frank Stella Donald Judd

22.8 Joan Mitchell, Untitled, 1957

22.9 Helen Frankenthaler, The Bay, 1963

22.10 Frank Stella, Mas o menos (More or Less), 1964

Visual ArtsVisual Arts Conceptual Art Joseph Kosuth

“What you see is what you see” Barbara Kruger

Prioritizes the idea of the work over the object

22.12 Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965

22.13 Barbara Kruger, Untitled (“Money makes money and a rich man’s jokes are always funny”) and Untitled (“You want it You need it You buy it You forget it”), 2010

Visual ArtsVisual Arts Site-Specific Art

Robert Smithson Land art—within natural surroundings

Maya Ying Lin The Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Christo and Jeanne-Claude Financed by the artists

22.14 Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970

22.15 Maya Ying Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1982

Visual Arts Pop Art

Universal images of popular culture Robert Rauschenberg

Combine paintings Jasper Johns Andy Warhol Claes Oldenburg

22.21 Jasper Johns, Three Flags, 1958.

22.22 Andy Warhol, Green Coca-Cola Bottles, 1962

Visual ArtsVisual ArtsVisual ArtsVisual Arts Superrealism

New to the eye but doing something very old

Audrey Flack Art, Identity, and Social Consciousness

Judy Chicago and Miriam Shapiro Cindy Sherman Guerrilla Girls

22.27 Guerrilla Girls, 1989

Visual Arts Art, Identity, and Social Consciousness

Robert Mapplethorpe Romare Bearden

Synthesis of cubism and abstract expressionism

African-American experience Faith Ringgold Anselm Kiefer Shirin Neshat

22.28 Robert Mapplethorpe, Ken Moody and Robert Sherman, 1984

22.30 Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach, 1988

22.32 Shirin Neshat, Allegiance with Wakefulness

1994

Contemporary SculptureContemporary Sculpture Continuity + Experimentation New materials, technical skills

David Smith (1906-1965) Alexander Calder (1898-1976)

Assemblage Disparate materialsOrganic wholes Nevelson, Antoni, Whiteread

22.33 David Smith, Cubi XIX, 1964

22.34 Alexander Calder, The Star, 1960.

22.35 Louise Nevelson, Royal Tide IV, 1960

ArchitectureArchitecture Louis Sullivan (1856-1924)

“Form follows function” Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959)

Function is accomplished through form Organic architecture Flow of space vs. obstruction of space Guggenheim Museum (1957-1959)

22.38 Frank Lloyd Wright, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1957-1959

ArchitectureArchitecture Counterpoint to nature

Le Corbusier New brutalism

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson

Seagram Building

22.39 Le Corbusier, Chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Haut, 1950-1954

22.40 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, Seagram Building, 1958

ArchitectureArchitectureArchitectureArchitecture Postmodernism

Classical motifs, Bauhaus severity Humana Building Georges Pompidou National Center for Arts

and Culture Deconstructivist Architecture

Frank Gehry Santiago Calatrava

22.42 Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, Georges Pompidou National Center for Arts and Culture, 1977

,

22.43 Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, 1997

22.45 Santiago Calatrava, World Trade Center Transportation Hub, scheduled to open in 2015

Visual Arts Video

Bill Viola Video and sound installation

Pipilotti Rist Video-performance artist

Matthew Barney CREMASTER series

Some Trends in Contemporary Some Trends in Contemporary LiteratureLiteratureSome Trends in Contemporary Some Trends in Contemporary LiteratureLiterature

Human search for meaning Samuel Beckett

Experiences of the war Elie Weisel

American Literature Literature of social, political protest

John Updike Edward Albee

Some Trends in Contemporary Some Trends in Contemporary LiteratureLiteratureSome Trends in Contemporary Some Trends in Contemporary LiteratureLiterature

African American Literature Maya Angelou

Feminist Perspectives Sylvia Plath Anne Sexton

MusicMusicMusicMusic Structuralism

Precise organization, control Devoid of subjective emotional expression Electronic music, synthesizers

Aleatoric Music, “sound events” John Cage (1912-1992)

MusicMusic

The New MinimalistsThe New MinimalistsMusicMusic

The New MinimalistsThe New Minimalists Reich’s The Desert Music (1983)

Repetitions of simple chords, rhythms State of heightened concentration

Philip Glass (b. 1937) Influenced by non-Western music Repeating modules Operas as “happenings”

MusicMusicTraditional Approaches to Modern MusicTraditional Approaches to Modern MusicMusicMusicTraditional Approaches to Modern MusicTraditional Approaches to Modern Music

Innovative approach to symphony Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

Political commentary, nature of death Traditional symphony orchestra

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) Violence of contemporary life Opera genre Inspired by earlier masterpieces

Modern Approaches to Traditional Music Genres

John Adams Nixon in China

Rock Opera Tommy Jesus Christ Superstar

Musicals Phantom of the Opera

Modern Approaches to Traditional Music Genres Musicals and Social Consciousness

South Pacific West Side Story Hair

Popular Music Rock and Roll Rock Music Hip-hop and Rap Pop music and the music video

Chapter Twenty-Two: Discussion QuestionsChapter Twenty-Two: Discussion Questions

With contemporary art in its various forms, to what extent is the media the message? What does the composition of the art itself contribute to the artist’s theme, message, or primary emotion? Explain, citing specific examples.

The evolution of Western artistic traditions reveals subtle changes in the ways in which the role of the artist is perceived. What is the role of the 21st century artists? How is this role different than/similar to artists from other historical epochs? Explain.

As an individual living in the 21st century, what artistic form, genre most appeals to you? Why? Do you prefer to view art as a reflection of your personal values (subjectively), or is your attraction to art one of an objective nature? Explain, citing specific examples when appropriate.