History of Modern Art

[cmalek20-blog]

Data.Tron by Ryoji Ikeda, Postmodern Art

“It is safest to grasp the concept of the postmodern as an attempt to think the present historically in an age that has forgotten how to think historically in the first place. In that case, it either ’expresses’ some deeper irrepressible historical impulse (in however distorted a fashion) or effectively ‘represses’ and diverts it, depending on the side of the ambiguity you happen to favor. Postmodernism, postmodern consciousness, may then amount to not much more than theorizing its own condition of possibility, which consist primarily in the sheer enumeration of changes and modifications.”

Data.Tron by Ryoji Ikeda can be classified as telematic art of the postmodern movement. This new aged idea of using modern technology to create collages as in the synthetic cubism movement gives each viewer a twenty first century aesthetic.

Works Cited

Jameson, Fredric, ed. Postmodernism, Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalisme. N.p.: Duke UP, 1991. Print.

[cmalek20-blog]

Lawrence Weiner, Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2005, Postmodernism Art

“It is safest to grasp the concept of the postmodern as an attempt to think the present historically in an age that has forgotten how to think historically in the first place. In that case, it either ’expresses’ some deeper irrepressible historical impulse (in however distorted a fashion) or effectively ‘represses’ and diverts it, depending on the side of the ambiguity you happen to favor. Postmodernism, postmodern consciousness, may then amount to not much more than theorizing its own condition of possibility, which consist primarily in the sheer enumeration of changes and modifications.”

Post Modern art can be taken as remixing the movements of Modernism. Weiner is expressing this concept in Bits & Pieces Put Together To Present A Semblance of A Whole. The title is basically another definition of Postmodernism expressed through art.

Works Cited

Jameson, Fredric, ed. Postmodernism, Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalisme. N.p.: Duke UP, 1991. Print.

[cmalek20-blog]

Salvador Dali, Portrait of Picasso, 1947, Surrealism , Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation, Figueras, Spain

“What will decide social destiny today is the organic creation of a cast composition of forces, disciplined, fanatical, capable of exercising, when the time comes, a pitiless authority. That this orientation is inseparable from the theory of proletarian internationalism is suggested by Peret’s observation that surrealism tends to infiltrate every country like the materialist dialectic contradiction in terms.”

In Dali's Portrait of Picasso, we immediately recognize the morphing techniques associated with the Surrealist movement. Although quite unnatural  Picasso has still managed to maintain an organ feel to the figure as if the figure is alive posing for him in this altered state.

Works Cited

Breton, Andre. What Is Surrealism Selected Writings. Ed. Franklin Rosemont. N.p.: Franklin Rosemont, 1978. Print.

[cmalek20-blog]

Salvador Dali's Bomb, Surrealist Art

“What will decide social destiny today is the organic creation of a cast composition of forces, disciplined, fanatical, capable of exercising, when the time comes, a pitiless authority. That this orientation is inseparable from the theory of proletarian internationalism is suggested by Peret’s observation that surrealism tends to infiltrate every country like the materialist dialectic contradiction in terms.”

  In Salvador Dali's Bomb, Surrealist Art, one may notice the mushroom cloud like hair growing from the hair of a synthetic head abstract mirroring the tree across the way. Obviously this is a supernatural or heightened world that directly relates to the surrealist movement. One questions, what may Dali be attempting to relay to the viewer with such a powerful and threatening message connoting bombs.

Works Cited

Breton, Andre. What Is Surrealism Selected Writings. Ed. Franklin Rosemont. N.p.: Franklin Rosemont, 1978. Print.

[cmalek20-blog]

Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde “Samurai, the Watcher (Koya no Yojinbo)” (1965), by Tiger Tateishi, Surrealist Art

“What will decide social destiny today is the organic creation of a cast composition of forces, disciplined, fanatical, capable of exercising, when the time comes, a pitiless authority. That this orientation is inseparable from the theory of proletarian internationalism is suggested by Peret’s observation that surrealism tends to infiltrate every country like the materialist dialectic contradiction in terms.”

In Tateishi's Samurai the Watcher, we recognize the cognitive dissonance of the surrealist movement through Japan. The seeming everlasting horizon along with the hyper clarity of the cliff edges give the viewer a dreamlike aesthetic.

Works Cited

Breton, Andre. What Is Surrealism Selected Writings. Ed. Franklin Rosemont. N.p.: Franklin Rosemont, 1978. Print.

[cmalek20-blog]

Laurie Anderson's Delusion, Conceptual Art

“Conceptual art has been a form of critical investigation into what drives the making, exhibiting, and selling of art. Many conceptual artists felt that the quantities that had distinguished modern art – originality, novelty, rarity – were precisely the qualities that fueled modern commerce.” (Mansfield)

                         Video

Lyrics from the song The Puppet Motel by Laurie Anderson, conceptual artist:

"I live on the highway Near the Puppet Motel I log in every day I know the neighborhood well. No about the residents Of the Puppet Motel They're more than a little spooky And most of them are mean. They're runnin' the numbers They're playin' cops and robbers Down in the dungeons Inside their machines. Cause they don't know What's really real now they're havin' fourth dimentional dreams Their minds are out on bail now And real is only what it seems. And all the puppets in this digital jail They're runnin' around in a frenzy In search of the Holy Grail. They're havin' virtual sex. They're eatin' virtual food. No wonder these puppets Are always in a lousy mood. So if you think we live in a modern world Where everything is clean and swell Take a walk on the B side of town Down by the Puppet Motel Take a whiff. Burning Plastic. I drink a cup of coffee I try to revive My mind's a blank I'm barely alive My nerves are shot I feel like hell Guess it's time to check in At the Puppet Motel. Boot up. Good afternoon. Pause . Oooo. I really llike the way you talk. Pardon me. Shut down."

  Works Cited

Arnosan, H. H., and Elizabeth C. Mansfield. History of Modern Art. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010. Print.

[cmalek20-blog]

Laurie Anderson's Delusion, Conceptual Art

  “Conceptual art has been a form of critical investigation into what drives the making, exhibiting, and selling of art. Many conceptual artists felt that the quantities that had distinguished modern art – originality, novelty, rarity – were precisely the qualities that fueled modern commerce.” (Mansfield)

  Laurie Anderson's Delusion portrays her conceptual ideas of death and deleria as seen in the video skit in the below link.

                                                  Video Clip

  Works Cited

Arnosan, H. H., and Elizabeth C. Mansfield. History of Modern Art. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010. Print.

[cmalek20-blog]

František Kupka, Katedrála (The Cathedral) 1912-1913, oil on canvas, 180 x 150 cm, Museum Kampa, Prague, Czech Republic, Orphism

Orphism is a movement influenced by Fauvism, however, an alteration of cubism. Orphism involves vast abstraction of bright and saturated colors, unlike cubism's monochromatic color pallet.

In František Kupka' work Katedrála (The Cathedral) of 1912-1913, we recognize this difference in color pallet initially by the use of saturated color values of red, blue, brown, and violet. The cubist features come about in the abstraction of the cathedral into an almost pixelated three dimensional point of view.

Works sited

Photo Source, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Franti%C5%A1ek_Kupka_-_Katedr%C3%A1la_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg>.

[cmalek20-blog]

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913, Bronze Sculpture , Futurism

Futurism began as a rebellion of young intellectuals against the cultural torpor into which Italy had sunk during the nineteenth century, when Renaissance and Neoclassical artistic values continued to dominate painting and sculpture... Much of the spirit of Futurism reflected the flamboyant personality of Marinetti himself; rooted in the anarchist and revolutionary fervor of the day, it attacked the ills of an aristocratic and bourgeois society and celebrated progress, energy, and change. (Mansfield, Pg 212)

As industrialisation swept across Italy new inventions such as cars and electricity came into futurists works. In Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, the figure is aerodynamically deformed by speed. Boccioni exaggerated the body''s dynamism so that it embodied the urge towards progress. The sculpture may reflect ideas of the mechanised body that appeared in Futurist writings. (Tate)

Works Cited

Arnason, H. H., and Elizabeth C. Mansfield. History of Modern Art. 6th ed. N.p.: Pearson, n.d. Print.

SmartHistory. KhanAcademy, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2013. < http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/boccioni-unique-forms-of-continuity-in-space-t01589>.

[cmalek20-blog]

Development of a Bottle in Space, 1912, Futurism, Silvered Bronze Sculpture

Futurism began as a rebellion of young intellectuals against the cultural torpor into which Italy had sunk during the nineteenth century, when Renaissance and Neoclassical artistic values continued to dominate painting and sculpture... Much of the spirit of Futurism reflected the flamboyant personality of Marinetti himself; rooted in the anarchist and revolutionary fervor of the day, it attacked the ills of an aristocratic and bourgeois society and celebrated progress, energy, and change. (Mansfield, Pg 212)

Sculpture provided the most graphic and explicit affirmation of positive and negative space. In Boccioni’s Development of a Bottle in Space (1912) the bottle spirals out of a pool of silvered bronze into space that itself coils into the solid form. In a manifesto Boccioni announced that Futurists will create masses “in such a way that the sculptural block itself will contain the architectural elements of the sculptural environment in which the object exists.” Space is no longer a setting for the subject but a constituent element of the work that the sculptor must model. (Kern)

Works Cited

Arnason, H. H., and Elizabeth C. Mansfield. History of Modern Art. 6th ed. N.p.: Pearson, n.d. Print.

Kern, Stephen. The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918: With a New Preface. Boston: Harvard UP, 2003. Print.

[cmalek20-blog]

Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, Dada, 1913

Dada is a post WWI movement of the 20th century and was inspired by a mixture of most the preceding movements prior. Dada did not have many strict boundaries, in which gave much room for experimentation.

"As a loosely-affiliated group of like-minded artists, they were particularly interested in using humor and antagonism to question the definition of a work of art. Re-defining art was prevalent in Duchamp's Readymades, such as hisBicycle Wheel, a sculpture made by conjoining a bicycle wheel and a stool, two utilitarian objects." (SmartHistory)

These two objects, in the name of Dada, were simply conjoined together at the amusement of Duchamp.

Works Cited

SmartHistory. KhanAcademy, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2013. < http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/surrealism-manray.html?searched=dada&highlight=ajaxSearch_highlight+ajaxSearch_highlight1>.

[cmalek20-blog]

Picasso, Still-Life with Chair Caning, 1912 (Musée Picasso)

Cubism can be described as an early 20th century art form that gives the viewer a multiple points of views in looking at a single work of art. The three dimensional qualities are primarily represented in paintings, collages, and sculptures during this early twentieth century time period.

For instance, "At first glance, Picasso's Still-Life with Chair Caning of 1912 might seem a mish-mash of forms instead of clear picture. But we can understand the image—and other like it—by breaking down Cubist pictorial language into parts.. almost at the edge of the upper-right of canvas (at two o’clock) there is the handle of a knife. Follow it to the left to find the blade. The knife cuts a piece of citrus fruit. You can make out the rind and the segments of the slice at the bottom right corner of the blade." (SmartHistory)

Works Cited

SmartHistory. KhanAcademy, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2013. <http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/cubism.html?searched=georges+braque&highlight=ajaxSearch_highlight+ajaxSearch_highlight1+ajaxSearch_highlight2>.

[cmalek20-blog]

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Street, Dresden, 1908. Oil on canvas

German expressionism is described as a work of art that creates an emotional connection between the viewer and the subject. This period occurring just before the brink of the first World War gives way for pieces such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Street, Dresden to come about.

Kirchner’s expressive style included large dynamic brushstrokes and an abstract color pallet for most of his German Expressionism pieces. “Kirchner looked to contemporary life, rejecting the artificial trappings of academic studios. In both Dresden and Berlin, where he moved in 1911, he recorded the streets and inhabitants of the city and the bohemian life of its nightclubs, cabarets, and circuses. Street, Dresden of 1908 is an assembly of curvilinear figures who undulate like wraiths, moving toward and away from the viewer without individual motive power, drifting in a world of dreams.” (Mansfield)

Works Cited

Arnosan, H. H., and Elizabeth C. Mansfield. History of Modern Art. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010. Print.

[cmalek20-blog]

Kees Van Dongen & Fauvism

                    Fauvism, originally acclaimed by Henri Matisse in the early years of the 1900s, gives viewers a semi-abstracted lens of perception in the sight of color.

“The Fauvism reclaimed Impressionism’s direct joyous embrace of nature and combined it with Post-Impressionism’s heightened color contrasts and emotional expressive depth… They emancipated color from its role of describing external reality and concentrated on the medium’s ability to communicate directly the artist’s experience of that reality by exploiting the pure chromatic intensity of paint.” (Mansfield)

In Kees Van Dongen’s oil on canvas Reclining Nude produced in 1925, we see the figure of Marcelle Rageout, the sister-in-law of the French film director Jean Cocteau, depicted lying upon a comforter. Fauvist features of color decisions in Dongen’s oil paint may be noted by the variety of whites in the background. This technique of skewing reality through color gives emphasis on our subject and creates contrast between the warmer colors of Rageout’s figure.

Works Cited

Arnosan, H. H., and Elizabeth C. Mansfield. History of Modern Art. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010. Print.

Blewet, Morwenna, et al. "Analysis and Treatment of a Painting by Kees Van Dongen: Ftir and Elisa as Complimentary Techniques in the Analysis of Art Materials." Ed. Manfred Schreiner. Morana-rtd. e-PRESERVATIONScience, May 2009. Web. 2 Apr. 2013. <http://www.morana-rtd.com/e-preservationscience/2009/Klausmeyer-02-07-2008.pdf>.