Europe and US, 1945-70

Europe and America 1945-70

Still from Mad Men opening credits, AMC television series

Europe and America 1945-60

People & Events: • Response to upheaval and

devastation of WW II • Rise of consumerism in 50s• Influence of European avant-

garde in exile in U.S.• New York & the “New York

School”• Clement Greenberg &

Greenbergian formalism

ALBERTO GIACOMETTI, Man Pointing, 1947. Fig. 15-2.

Themes: • Formal exploration

(“purity”)• Self-expression• Isolation and despair• The sublime• Consumer and popular

cultureForms:• Abstraction, realism,

found objects, new media

Europe and America 1945-60

Francis Bacon, Painting, 1946, fig.15-3

Painting and Sculpture, 1945 to 1960

JACKSON POLLOCK, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), 1950. Fig. 15-4.

Painting and Sculpture, 1945 to 1960• Abstract Expressionism,

gestural abstraction

• Rise of American modernist painting

• Act of creation most important

• All-over composition (no central focus)

• Greenbergian formalism?

• Jungian psychoanalysis? JACKSON POLLOCK, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender

Mist), 1950, oil, enamel, aluminum paint, fig. 15-4.

At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one Americanpainter after another as an arena in which to act—rather than as a space in which to reproduce, redesign, analyze or “express” an objectreal or imagined. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture butan event. -Harold Rosenberg, 1952

Painting and Sculpture, 1945 to 1960

WILLEM DE KOONING, Woman I, 1950–1952.

Fig. 15-5.

Painting and Sculpture, 1945 to 1960• Abstract Expressionism,

gestural abstraction • Expressive, energetic

application of paint • Retains figure• Inspired by Cubist formal

analysis• Critique of women in

advertisements• Act of painting (2 yrs to

complete painting, 200 attempts)

WILLEM DE KOONING, Woman I, 1950–1952. Fig. 15-5.

“Woman” II, III, & IV

“Venus” of Willendorf

Picasso’s Les Demoisellesd’Avignon, 1907 1950s Camel Cig. ad

Painting and Sculpture, 1945 to 1960

Robert Rauschenberg, Canyon, 1959, mixed media, fig. 15-15Rembrandt, Rape of Ganymede

1635, oil

Painting and Sculpture, 1945 to 1960

Robert Rauschenberg, Canyon, 1959, mixed media, fig. 15-15

• Proto-Pop• “Combine” (found object assemblage)• Includes stuffed bald eagle, pillow hanging from string, photo of young son• “Open and indeterminate” meaning• Resists over-manipulation of objects• Resembles Dada collage and anti-aesthetic (Duchamp)

Painting relates to both artand life. Neither can be made (I try to act in the gap betweenthe two). -Rauschenberg

Painting and Sculpture, 1960 to 1970

People & Events: • Youth culture rejects traditional values• Protest against war – pacifist movements in 1960s• Civil and women’s rights (African American, Gay & lesbian)• Assassinations of JFK (1963), MLK (1968)• Vietnam War (until 1975)

President Elect by James Rosenquist1960-61/1964, oil on masonite

General Nguyen Ngoc Loan Executing a Viet Cong Prisoner in Saigon by Eddie Adams, 1968, Associated Press

Painting and Sculpture, 1960 to 1970

Themes:• Formal exploration• Consumer and popular culture• Accessibility & inclusion• Objectivity (vs. subjectivity)

Forms:• Pop Art• Minimalism • Mass production (the serial image/object) • Found images/objects• Performance & body art

Louise Nevelson, Tropical GardenII, 1957-59, painted wood, fig.15-11

Painting and Sculpture, 1960 to 1970

ANDY WARHOL, Marilyn Diptych, 1962. Fig. 15-17.

Painting and Sculpture, 1960 to 1970• Pop Art • Established commercial

illustrator• Commentary on

celebrity (public persona)• Mass production (serial)• Combines printing

& painting• References film• Produces painting

at “factory”, breaks

rules of high art

ANDY WARHOL, Marilyn Diptych, 1962. Fig. 15-17.

Andy Warhol, Self-Portraitin Drag, 1981

Celebration or critique?

Painting and Sculpture, 1960 to 1970• Pop Art • Popular comic books,

romantic melodrama• Resulted out of a challenge

from his young son (“I bet you can’t paint as good as that”)

• Benday dots, look of comic book

• Slight alteration of image, retained most of original

• Blurs lines between high art medium and low-brow entertainment

• Plagiarism? ROY LICHTENSTEIN, Hopeless, 1963. Fig. 15-16.

Painting and Sculpture, 1960 to 1970

La Fillette, Robert Mapplethorpe, 1982

Louise Bourgeois, Cumul I, 1969, marbleFig. 15-12

• Like biomorphic surrealism• Body as landscape• Sexual suggestiveness (castration fantasies?)

Painting and Sculpture, 1960 to 1970

• Minimalism • Tangible qualities of the

object• Purity of form without

embellishment• Embraces qualities of the

materials• Removes deception &

illusion • Pure abstraction

(“objecthood”)DONALD JUDD, Untitled, 1969.

Fig. 15-10.

• Superrealism • Translation of photograph

to painting by grid• Systematic, objective

process• One of many portraits of

self and friends• All using standard size

(9’ x 7’)

Painting and Sculpture, 1960 to 1970

Chuck Close, Big Self-Portrait, 1967-68Acrylic, fig. 15-18

• Superrealism• Painted with an airbrush• Average Americans• “Emptiness and

loneliness” of

daily American life• Gritty realism

vs. idealism

Painting and Sculpture, 1960 to 1970

Duane Hanson, Supermarket Shopper, 1970Polyester resin and fiberglass, fig. 15-19

Contemporary Superrealism

Ron Mueck, A Girl (2006, 15’ long) and Spooning Couple (2005, 1/2 scale)