Movements in Twentieth-Century Art After World War II

Abstract Expressionism

(Action Painting and Color Field Painting)

Name: Term used as early as 1920s to describe Kandinsky's abstract paintings. Writer RobertCoates first uses the term for contemporary paintings in the March 30, 1946 issue of the NewYorker. Supportive critic Harold Rosenberg used the term "Action Painting," while another critic,Clement Greenberg, preferred "American-style Painting." Still, "Abstract Expressionism" was theterm used most frequently in the U.S.Who: Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Adolph Gottlieb, ArshileGorky, Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, Barnett Newman, and Clyfford Still.When: Mid-1940s through 1950s.Where: United States (New York City).What: Consciously American style of art that influenced similar European movements, such asTachisme. Abstract Expressionism can be broken into two large subdivisions: Action Painting,which came first, and Color Field Painting. Action Paintings generally have a more violent, frenziedappearance, while Color Field Paintings have a calmer, almost spiritual quality.Subject Matter: Abstract, with an emphasis on the artist expressing everything from personalfeelings to universal, spiritual concerns. With the Action Painters, the physical act of paintingbecomes, to a certain extent, the subject matter.Style: Not really a coherent style so much as an attitude against traditional styles (Realism),techniques, and "finished" works. The painters do share in common their reliance on psychic self-expression. Generally, "Action Painters" employed dripping, splatter, pouring, or other aggressivetechniques in an effort to be spontaneous and instinctive, while "Color Field Painters" preferred asaturated approach to paint application. Large canvases were normally used.Janson Example: POLLOCK, Autumn Rhythm: Number 30, 1950, 1950 (Action Painting) andROTHKO, White and Greens in Blue, 1957 (Color Field Painting).Kissick Example: POLLOCK, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), 1950 (Action Painting) andROTHKO, Untitled, 1960 (Color Field Painting).Influenced by: Van Gogh, Cubism (shallow space), Kandinsky, Dada, Surrealism (Miró andAutomatism), European artists fleeing Hitler-dominated Europe, and Native American sandpainting.Will influence: Tachisme, Art Brut, COBRA, Hard-Edge Painting, and Neo-Expressionism.

Op Art

Name: Short for "Optical Art." Other names: Retinal Art, and Perceptual Abstraction. Term coinedby sculptor George Rickey in 1964 during a conversation with two curators at the Museum ofModern Art in New York, where the defining Op show, "The Responsive Eye," was shown in 1965.Who: Josef Albers, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Bridget Riley, Lawrence Poons, and Victor Vasarely.When: Mid-1950s to early 1970s.

Where: Europe and the United States.What: Art devoted primarily to optical illusions. Op paintings often give the illusion of movement(vibration, pulsation) and/or depth.Subject Matter: Non-representational.Style: Rigid geometric precision; repetitive lines and shapes that may appear three dimensional; novisible brushstrokes; often vivid colors.Janson Example: ANUSZKIEWICZ, Entrance to Green, 1970.Influenced by: Bauhaus color theory; Mondrian; hard-edge abstraction (Ellsworth Kelly, FrankStella); and perceptual psychology.

Pop Art

Name: Short for "Popular Art." Term first appeared in the article "The Arts and the Mass Media,"by the British critic Lawrence Alloway, which was published in the Feb. 1958 issue of ArchitecturalDesign. Pop is more associated with the early 1960s, when Time, Life and Newsweek all ran coverstories on it.Who: Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhhol, Tom Wesselmann, James Rosenquist,Ed Ruscha, Wayne Thiebaud, Mel Ramos, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Indiana, Robert Arneson, JimDine, and David Hockney.When: Late 1950s through 1960s.Where: Began in Great Britain then quickly spread to the United States. Movement is mostassociated with American artists.What: Movement was both a reaction against Abstract Expressionism, which was seen as too elitistand non-objective, as well as a celebration of postwar consumer culture. Pop is playful and ironic,not spiritual or psychologicalSubject Matter: Popular culture: mass media, advertisements, comic strips, billboards, packaging,television and movie personalities, commonplace objects, etc.Style: Similar to the styles of mass media production: bright, lurid color that is sometimes offregister; sometimes the small Benday dots seen in newspaper print is copied; bold lines and shapes;immediately recognizable objects and people. Although Pop artists rejected AbstractExpressionism, their work is, nonetheless, stylistically flat.Janson Example: LICHTENSTEIN, Drowning Girl, 1963.Kissick Example: LICHTENSTEIN, Masterpiece, 1962.Influenced by: Marcel Duchamp, Dada, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg.Will influence: Post-modernist tendency toward appropriation.

Minimalism

Name: Term emerged from the writings of the critic Barbara Rose, who wrote an article entitled"ABC Art." Although that name did not catch on, her reference to art reduced to the "minimum"soon transformed into the common term "Minimalism" by the late 1960s.Who: Donald Judd, Ronald Bladen, Dan Flavin, Sol Lewitt, Robert Morris, Richard Serra, TonySmith, and Frank Stella.When: 1960s to mid-1970s.Where: Mostly the United States.What: Painting and sculpture reduced to essentials. An art that is neither expressive norillusionistic. First art movement of international significance pioneered exclusively by American-born artists. More frequently associated with sculpture rather than painting. Sculptures oftenreferred to as "Primary Structures" after an influential show at New York's Jewish Museum in 1966.Subject Matter: Representational imagery is eliminated; non-objective art; identical and

interchangeable units.Style: Geometric abstraction; grid designs; absence of a personalized "artist's touch."Janson and Kissick Example: JUDD, Untitled, 1989.Influenced by: Constructivism; post-war work of Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt and David Smith;and International Style architecture.Will influence: Earth art, Post-Minimalism, and post-modernism.

Conceptual Art

Name: Term "Conceptual art" came into wide use after the article "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art"by the Minimalist artist Sol Lewitt appeared in the summer 1967 issue of Artforum. "Idea art" is asynonym for Conceptual art.Who: Joseph Kosuth, John Baldessari, Mel Bochner, John Cage, Hans Haacke, and DennisOppenheim.When: Mid-1960s through 1970s.Where: International.What: In Conceptual art the idea, rather than the object, is most important. Conceptual artists werereacting against the commercialized art world of the 1960s, the formalism of post-war art(especially the impersonality of Minimalism), as well as the limitations of traditional art. What theviewer usually saw in the gallery was merely the document (drawing, photograph, writtenproposals, charts, maps, video, and even language itself.) of the artist's thinking process.Sometimes, not even a document was produced. The concept was the "material." Conceptualismwas sometimes used as an all- encompassing term to describe other non-traditional art movementsas well, such as Performance art and Earth art.Subject Matter: Because the art is conceptual, the subjects were extremely varied and esoteric.Style: No single style and, oftentimes, no art object with which to attach a style.Janson and Kissick Example: KOSUTH, One and Three Chairs, 1965.Influenced by: Dada, Duchamp's ready-mades, Jasper Johns' work, Earth art, and Minimalism.Will influence: Performance art.

Performance Art

Name: Name refers to a wide range of activities that are usually presented before a live audienceand therefore constitute a "performance" by the artist/artists.Who: Joseph Beuys, Allan Kaprow, Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, Chris Burden, Karen Finley,Gilbert and George, Tim Miller, and Carolee Schneemann.When: Late 1960s to the present.Where: International.What: Performance art can encompass such activities as music, dance, poetry, theater, and video.The term can also be applied to earlier "performance" activities such as Happenings, Body Art,Actions, etc., all of which involve some degree of performance. The movement came about in the1960s from a desire by artists to communicate more directly with their audiences than conventionalpainting or sculpture allowed. To a certain extent, the artists were reacting against the austerity ofMinimalism. Parody is often an element of Performance art.Subject Matter: Extremely varied, though at a base level, the artist's body is always used in someway.Style: Also extremely varied; the style constitutes various actions performed by the artist.Janson and Kissick Example: BEUYS, Coyote (I Like America and America Likes Me), 1974.Influenced by: Dada, Jackson Pollock's painting for a film camera in 1950, Yves Klein's "actions,"Conceptual art, Happenings, and Body Art

Photorealism

Name: Louis Meisel, a New York art dealer, is usually credited as originating the term "Photo-Realism." The style has also been referred to as Sharp-Focus Realism, Hyper-Realism, and Super-Realism.Who: Don Eddy, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, Chuck Close, and Janet Fish.When: Mid-1960s to mid-1970s.Where: Primarily the United States.What: A type of realist painting in which artist usually copies a photograph. Photorealists usuallypainted from slides projected onto a canvas. Sculptors at this time who worked in a very realisticmanner are referred to as Superrealists. They include such artists as John de Andrea and DuaneHanson, whose figures are made from human casts and, in the case of Hanson, include real clothesand other props.Subject Matter: The photograph itself, as opposed to nature, is the subject matter. Normal,everyday, banal subjects are common.Style: Everything is in sharp focus; sometimes there is a flattening of the space, as is common withphotographs. Photorealists are more concerned with the way a camera distorts a scene, as well asthe way a photograph can bring certain elements into sharp focus.Janson Example: ESTES, Food Shop, 1967.Influenced by: Pop Art.Will influence: Post-modernism.

Earth Art

Name: In 1969, Cornell University staged the "Earth Art" exhibition, which included artists who insome way manipulate the earth as part of their work. Also known as Environmental Art,Earthworks, and Land Art.Who: Robert Smithson, Christo (Christo Javacheff), Alice Aycock, Michael Heizer, Nancy Holt,Walter de Maria, Robert Morris, and Dennis Oppenheim.When: Mid-1960s through 1970s.Where: Mostly northern Europe and the U.S.What: Earth artists rejected the commercialization of art and supported the growing ecologicalmovement of the 1960s. Many of these artists approached the earth and its resources with a spiritualattitude. Instead of using the land as merely a site for art, proponents of Earth art molded the landitself into a work of art. Earth artists were not part of an organized movement; their goals andmethods were wide-ranging. Photographic documentation is often part of the earth artist's process,since many of the works are designed to last only a short time. Some of the projects are neverrealized due to their scale or cost, and therefore exist only on paper.Subject Matter: Anything to do with the earth and the life it supports.Style: Usually geometric or biomorphic shapes composed of natural materials within a naturalsetting.Janson Example: SMITHSON, Spiral Jetty, 1970.Influenced by: Minimalist sculpture, architecture, Conceptual Art, and prehistoric builders(Stonehenge).

Neo-Expressionism

Name: First use of term is unknown, but it was widely used by 1982 to describe new German andItalian art.Who: Francesco Clemente, Sandro Chia, Anselm Kiefer, Georg Baselitz, A. R. Penck, JörgImmendorff, Susan Rothenberg, Kay Walkingstick, Eric Fischl, Jean-Michel Basquiat, RobertLongo, Robert Morris, David Salle, and Julian Schnabel.When: Late 1970s to mid-1980s.Where: International.What: Neo-Expressionism includes a very broad range of artists with different concerns. Theloosely defined movement was a reaction against Conceptual art, rigidly abstract art, and the lack ofimagery from either natural or art historical sources.Subject Matter: Although the subject matter is very diverse, the human figure, and recognizableobjects, make a "come back" with the Neo-Expressionists. Works are sometimes allegorical andsymbolic.Style: Based on recognizable people and objects, yet these are filtered through the artists' personal,expressionistic vocabulary. Paint is often handled in a rough, gestural manner. Many of thepaintings are done on a large scale.Janson Example: ROTHENBERG, Mondrian, 1983-1984.Kissick Example: CHIA, Rabbit for Dinner, 1981.Influenced by: Art historical sources, figurative painting, German Expressionism, Post-Impressionism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and contemporary events.Will influence: Post-modernism.

Post-Modernism

Name: Term probably first appeared in print in Daniel Bell's End of Sociology in 1960. In the early1960s, the term was used mainly by literary critics. In the early 1970s, the term was applied toarchitecture. By the late 1970s, art critics were using the term regularly. Like the term "Post-Impressionism," "post-modernism" refers not to a single, specific style, but to a period; the periodafter "modernism."Who: Michael Graves, James Stirling, Nam June Paik, Ann Hamilton, Mark Tansey, BarbaraKruger, and Cindy Sherman.When: 1970s to today.Where: International.What: Post-modernism in art and architecture can refer to both a rejection of "modernism," as wellas art that came "after modernism." Several cultural factors have influenced this corresponding artshift from modernism to post-modernism. Perhaps the biggest factor is the advent of thetechnological age. Just as modern culture was influenced by the industrial age, so post-modernismhas had to deal with the electronic age. As a result of this electronic, or information, age, traditionalgeographic boundaries have been destroyed. Images of artworks are instantly accessible to aninternational audience. In the art world, artists and architects embrace a rich variety of images andsources while rejecting the pure, clean elements that represented the "end" of modern art:minimalism.Subject Matter: Whereas modernists promoted abstraction, post-modern painters advocated a returnto traditional subject matter such as landscape and history painting. Some post-modernists reject themodern notion that each art movement be completely original; this rejection takes the form ofborrowing (appropriation) from art or architectural history, or other sources, and combiningprevious images and styles in new juxtapositions. Often, post-modern subject matter in the visualarts is issue-oriented and activist. Toward this end, and because post-modernism has its roots inliterature, visual artists often incorporate text into their work.Style: Extremely varied and eclectic in both art and architecture, although post-modern visual artistsuse identifiable, representational images.Janson Example: KRUGER, You Are a Captive Audience, 1983.

Kissick Example: KRUGER, Untitled ("We Won't Play Nature to Your Culture"), 1984.Influenced by: Dada, Surrealism, Pop Art, Conceptual Art, and Neo-Expressionism.

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