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Autumn Rhythm, Jackson Pollock 1950
- Too large to take in all at once, almost literally
- unfolds as you gaze across it
- Shows relinquishing of SOME control, in that gravity and
- physics takes power of where EXACTLY paint lands on canvas instead of brush
- Innovation of Abstract Expressionist, non-compositional;
- no moment in the canvas is more or less important than any other; “any-other-ness”
- It is COMPLETELY abstract, as in other are no figures
- buried beneath paint
- Autonomy of art- Canvas/art is outside social life,
- outside everyday life---autonomy can perhaps be achieved through
- anti-illusionism/opticality
-Mural sized (important quality for Pollock)
-all-over-ness, element of repetition as well
-non compositional
- -non hierarchical (all three of these mean no part of
- canvas is any more important than another)
- -paintbrush is divorced from canvas (brush does not
- touch canvas)
- -OPTICALITY- only eyes can traverse, not a space for our
- bodies, no clear content or subject matter, lines do not provide contour of
- anything
- -an anti-drawing, painting about painting (purely
- Greenberg)
-skene (?)
- -GOOD EXAMPLE OF MODERNIST AUTONOMY- paintings about
- painting, do not reference anything else, no real-world reference,
- -this withdrawal was important in the US for many
- reasons, one of them being the restrictive art forms being forced on artists in
- Europe during this time period
-
Free Wheeler, Cy Twombly 1955
- Canvas seems destroyed, defaced; Presents different
- relationship from Pollock (“I am here” becomes “I was here”). Seems graffitied
Abstract Expressionist
-
4'33", John Cage 1951
- Actual performance was the moments before music is
- usually played (walking to piano, putting up sheet music, pulling out bench)
- and sitting silently, hoping to hear the silence, which he realized does not
- exist. We hear ambient noises, but
- dismiss them so quickly that we do not remember them.
Was an idea emulated in other abstract expressionists pieces, including White Painting (3 Panels) by Rauschenberg
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White Painting (Three Panels), Robert Rauschenberg 1951
- Cage describes this as NOT an absence of art, or a
- negation. This is a presencing, the making visible
- of things now perceived that are normally dismissed. Rather than paintings being empty, they are filled with
- passing shadows, dust that collectss
-response to abstract expressionism
-formally have the same all-over-ness
- -during this time, there is a concerted effort from
- trained artists such as Rauschenberg, to de-skill themselves, to render
- the artists language as something that is not lofty or specialized, a
- democratization of the art-making practice perhaps
-What makes something art? Answer becomes the concept, not skill (BIG shift in art)
- -NOT empty, has shadows, dust, opened up work to its
- environment, to the effects of time
- -rejects modernism, dependant on its environment on the
- people who pass in front of it, “landing strip” for lights and shadows and all
- other ephemeral things
Post modern REJECTION of abstract expressionism
-
Factum I and II, Robert Rauschenberg 1957
- Worked on these simultanously, are never separated from each other (shared by MOCA
- and MOMA). One is NOT a copy of
- the other; are a critique of expressionist gesture; captures language of
- Rauschenberg, however does not attempt to capture spontaneous or unconscious
- nature as Pollock did. Betrays expressionist claims to authenticity and
- originality
- Flatbed picture plane- internal psychic shift; works of
- art are not oriented to us on the vertical, on the optical that de koonings and pollocks are, they are not
- oriented to our vision, but instead to our space of working; works like these
- do not mke sense to Greenbergian sense; Steinberg
- believed works like these let the world in again; canvas is not about the
- artists internal turmoil, nor this pure opticality- they are about YOUR lives, all these things ou would find on your
- own desk
- Art object ceases to
- make claims to transcendence, to revelation, instead is about the lives that
- you lead as the viewers, and is about the everyday world; remarkable shift that
- happens in 1950’s as response to abstract expressionism and paintings like “Autumn
- Rhythm” (REJECTION OF MODERNIST AUTONOMY)
-
Flag, Jasper Johns 1954-55
Encaustic, oil and collage on fabric mounted on plywood
mummifies gestures in surface
Ready-made design
Recalls all-overness of abstract expressionism
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Challenging Mud, Kazuo Shiraga 1955
Gutai (Gutai Group)= tangible, or concrete
- Interesting translation of certain qualities of abstract
- expressionism into completely different environment, can be construed as
- creative misreading; exact opposite of opticality (completely figurative, yet shows that clash of artist and art, that confrontation)
-
Bed, Rauschenberg 1955
Horizontality of bed relates to "making" as Renaissance verticality of painting related to "seeing", so says Steinberg
-
Drowning Girl, Roy Lichtenstein 1963
-made sketch, then project it onto the canvas
- -ben day dots stenciled
- on
- -very clear mix of the high and low (brow), and shades
- of grey with regards to authorship (we know the author of the original comic
- strip);
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Little Big Painting, Roy Lichtenstein 1965
Pop artists are also engaging in the __ of the absract expressionists
- -rendering calls up an abstract expressionist brush
- stroke, but involves skill (sketch, projection onto canvas)
- -suggests artist’s hand, attest to spontaneity, but are
- completely contrived (not painted with spontaneity at all)
- -still have reference to popular culture with Ben Day
- dots
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