Feminist Movement Lecture 10/29

"That's pretty good. For a girl."

 1) Essentials (Identity)
- The personal
- The body
- Sexuality (as defined by women)
- Vaginal icography
- Affirm female attributes

2) Material/techniques
- Unique to women

3) Activism
- Performance art
- Reveal stereotypes against women
- Sisterhood

4) Distinguishing Art
- Men vs. Women

1950 - Women admitted to Harvard
1960 - Birth Control Pills
1963 - Equal Pay Act
1966 - NOW (National Organization of Women) founded
1968 - Government prohibited from discriminating against women
1970 - Married Women's Property Act passed in New York City
1975 - Women admitted to military academies

Surrealism Lecture 10/22

Surrealism (followed as Dadaism died out)

Features:

• Less Political (?!)
• New Psychological Theories of Sigmund Freud
• 1899 “The Interpretation of Dreams”
• Access to the subconscious mind

Some early Surreal artists (started as a small group, just as Dadaism):

• Max Earnst
• Rene Magritte
• Salvadore Dali
• Giorgio De Chirico
• Man Ray
• Jean Arp

• Freud kicks off Surrealism with “Interpretation of Dreams”
• Idea that people have subconscious thoughts is novel at the time
• Attempt to access the subconscious mind at the core of Surrealism
• Many similarities with Dadaism
• Rene Magrette the "poster boy" of Surrealism
• Taking the expectations of reality and snapping them - shocking people out of everyday experience
• Rebelling against the sort of middle class that they were a part of
• Idea of person of a cog in a machine as the middle class of the time
• Industrial society was new at the time
• Cubism seen as a way to "junk it up" among surrealists
• Much of what is taken for granted today influenced by surrealism (such as cartoon physics)
• Articulation of fantasy long precedes Surrealism (Roman temples, etc.)
• Surrealism more about personal fantasy rather than shared mythology
• Avatar traced back to Max Earnst (?)

Dadaism Lecture 10/15

Dada

• Began in WWI
• Protest against war, society, old social order
• “Wanted to include arts into the fight for a new ethic”
• “Dadaists had a bad reputation” at the time
• Hugo Ball opened the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916, in Zurich, Switzerland
• Dada artists gathered there while waiting out the war
• Group moved to Berlin in 1919 after WWI
• 1924: Group in Paris interested in language as art.
• Paris Dada turns into surrealism
• Collages didn't really exist before Dada
• Assemblage formed shortly after collages
• Changing environment to art new at the time

Dada Contributions

• Appropriation
• Assemblage/Construction
• Conceptual Art
• Chance

Some Dada Artists

• Jean Arp
• Hugo Ball (Guy w/ Cubist costume)
• Kurt Schwitters
• Marcel Duchamp
• Robert Rauschenburg – collages

Pop Art

• Taking pop culture and turning it into art
• Elvis as art, etc

Conceptual Art

• Very basic art, meaning is more important than what is seen
• Zone of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility
• “This is not a pipe”

Repetition Assignment

 - Repetition -

1) Abstract Expressionism

Robert Motherwell

Robert Motherwell, Elegy To The Spanish Republic No. 110, 1971

a) Both the lines and the dots are involved in repetition.
b) This lies more toward monotony/harmony; the painting is structured and there's little chaos.
c) The repetition has the effect of drawing the eye left to right, down the middle of the pattern.

Robert Motherwell, At Five In The Afternoon, 1949

a) Again, dots and lines form the core of the repetition.
b) Also toward monotony/harmony, for the same reasons as above.
c) The repetition here has the eye move more right to left, due to the size of the two dots on the right side of the picture.

Philip Guston

Philip Guston, Untitled, 1978

a) The multitude of block shapes and the brick wall make up the repetition.
b) Closer to variety/chaos; while the bricks are orderly, the blocks are randomly placed.
c) The chaotic repetition of the blocks serves to draw the eye away from the more ordered repetition of the bricks.

Philip Guston, City, 1968

a) The lines representing windows make the majority of the repetition.
b) Closer to monotony/harmony; the buildings are orderly and there is no chaos.
c) The multitude of windows give off a feel that the buildings are extremely large, with a room behind each window.

2) Minimalism

Kenneth Noland

Kenneth Noland, Turnsole, 1961

a) The concentric circles form the repetition.

b) This is midway between harmony and chaos; while it is structured around a central dot, the colors and widths of the rings are different, along with the distance between each ring. 

c) The repetition serves to draw the eye closer in toward the center of the circle.

Robert Noland, And Again, 1964

a) The multicolored lines form the repetition.

b) This is more toward harmony, though the lines are different colors, they are uniform and stuck in a pattern.

c) The repetition of the colored lines serves to draw the eye downward in the direction of a perceived arrow.

Jo Baer

Jo Baer, Double Bar Diptych, 1968

a) The black bars form the repetition.

b) This is closer to harmony that chaos, the picture is structured around a set of two black bars, with no chaos.

c) Because the two halves of the picture are identical, the eye goes back and forth between the two halves.

Jo Baer, Grey Wraparound Triptych, 1970

a) Again, the bars form the repetition.

b) This is a bit closer to chaos than the previous picture, due to some slightly different colors used, but still heavily on the side of harmony.

c) The repetition on this work draws the eye to the edges of the canvas.

3) Post-Minimalism

Richard Tuttle

Richard Tuttle, Galisteo Paintings, 1993

a) The frames and canvas form the repetition.

b) This is a mix of harmony and chaos; the different colors and shapes in the paintings are offset by the structure of the whole.

c) The repetition serves to focus on the whole of the series rather than one painting in particular.

Richard Tuttle, Untitled (Poetry Project Print), 1991

a) The squares in the background form the repetition.

b) This is heavily chaotic; there are so many different colors and shapes that any order is overwhelmed.

c) The repetition of squares in combination with the multiple colors give the impression of a heavily chaotic background.

Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread, Embankment, 2005

a) The series of cubes form the repetition.

b) This is between harmony and chaos; while it is colored entirely white, the cubes have a haphazard feel to the way they are arranged.

c) The repetition of cubes give the entire work its shape.

Rachel Whiteread, Nameless Library, 2000

a) Repetition is formed through the multitude of concrete books that make up the exterior of the building.

b) This is farther toward harmony, the building is very orderly and structured, there is nothing out of place.

c) The repetition is so thorough, that at first glance the walls seem to be solid; yet upon further examination, individual books can be picked out.

Today (Within Last Ten Years)

Richard Long

Richard Long, The Well, 2003

a) The line pattern forms the repetition.

b) This is closer to chaos than harmony; it has a pattern but the entire work is messy.

c) The repetition draws the eye upward as the gap between broken lines grows smaller.

Richard Long, River Avon Mud Slow Spiral, 2005

a) The handprints form the repetition.

b) This is closer to harmony than chaos, the handprints are in an ordered pattern.

c) The repetition gives the feeling of a sort of sunburst emanating from the center of the spiral.

James Rosenquist

James Rosenquist, Warp, 2007

a) The multiple flowing lines form the repetition.

b) This is more chaos than harmony, there is little order in this picture.

c) The repeating white lines on blue give the feeling of flowing water.

James Rosenquist, The Stowaway Peers Out At The Speed Of Light, 2000

a) The multiple circles form the repetition.

b) This is chaos, the multiple colors and lack of structure keeps it away from harmony.

c) The repeating circles create a tunnel, and give an impression of speed.

Final Two Sentences

- This is the way the world ends.
- Not with a bang, but a whimper.

These two are actually lines from a poem ("The Hollow Men") by T.S. Eliot. I can't remember the first time I've heard them, but I've seen them pop up quite often. I've always liked the sound of them, so I decided to include them here.

Ten 5-7 Word Sentences

- When I was young, life was wonderful.
- Behold I have become Death.
- This is the way the World ends.
- Not with a bang, but a whimper.
- Round and round and round and round.
- Death is not a statistic.
- This is not a haiku.
- Everything written here is a lie.
- Walking with hands in pockets.
- We all live in a yellow submarine.


If someone else doesn't have that last sentence, I'll be surprised. Everyone likes the Beatles.





Everyone.