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- Alfred Stieglitz, The Flatiron Building, photogravure, 1903
- tried to compose poetic images of romanticized urban scenes, mistry wintery atmosphere created by maniplating viewpoint, exposure, and negative and postive space, softens and romanticizes one of the earilest skyscapers and a symbol of the city's modernity, photogravuere is a process by which photography is made to act as a print to become more blurry to take on image as painting, tree mimicks the triangle lot the bulding in on, tree represents NY's modern structure, building abstracted out by the tree
- Stieglitz connects European and American modern art, formed over movement Photo-Secession to make photography into Fine Art through abstraction, owned and operated a gallery called 291 introduced European art and photography, acts as a middle man, embraces new abstract art, influential curator
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- Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, photograph by Alred Stieglitz. 1917
- common porcelain urinal that he purchased from a plumber turned on its side so that ir was no longer functional, signed it R. Mutt a play on the name of the urinal's manufactorer JL Mott Iron Works, one of the most controversial works of art of the modern age, Duchamp asks: what is the essence of a work of art? How much can be stripped away before the essence of art disappears?, Bathroom functions to humanity's most degarded functions and vulnerable states and it challenges every assumption made about the nature of art, readymade - transformed ordinary manufactored objects into art, submitted to indepdent exhibition that said it would show anyone's work Duchamp was on the hanging commitiee wanted to push the boundries it was rejected, humorous: fountain gives water and a urinal gets piss therefore this fountain gives piss, assisted readymade, orignal was destoryed Duchamp helped to destory it because art is an idea but when he gave up art for chess he still made replicas on the side
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- Marcel, Duchamp, LHOOQ, 1919
- returned to paris and challenged French art, he described it as "modefied readymade", Mona Lisa became famous after it was stolen for 2 years, bought a cheap postcard reproduction and drew on a mustache and bread, comments on the nature of fame and the degarded image of the Mona Lisa, turned a sacred cultural artifact into an object of crude ridicule, LHOOQ sounds like the phrase 'elle a chaud au cul' translated as 'she's hot for it'/'She has a nice ass' adds a crude sexual innuendo to the already cheapened image, challenges preconceived notions about morality or virtue being a basis for art and introduces disgust as a viable artistic subject, assisted readymade, brought down to base level, not artwork anymore but a commodity already debased
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- Meret Oppenheim, Object (Luncheon in Fur), Fur-covered cup, 1936
- juxtaposing several disparate ordinary objects in strange new contexts artist could create an uncanny surreality, one of the few women invited to join the surrealist movenment surrealist usually treated women as their muses or objects of study, fur of a chinese gazelle to resemble pubic hair,v viseral reaction of disgust, Oppenheim wanted to create discomfort, serving up feminine objects, object of gentility
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- Salvador Dali, The Birth of Liquid Desires. 1931-32
- large yellow biomorphic form (an organic shape remsembling a living organism), 'Cogigni to waste the total slate?', Dali claimed to have gotten ideas from his nightmares, defy rational interpretation although they trigger fear, anxitey, and even regression in our emphatic minds, paranoid theory methof painted like a paranoid person but controlled it, Dali in surrealist group but very different from them, super precious and detailed, oil on panel for illumosity, finds psyhic energy from writer William Tell-father asks soon to place apple on head so he can shoot it the apple is replaced by french bread, androgonous figure, decomposing flower figure portrait of Gala, thought cloud considered memory as a house put information inside, not nonsense has meaning
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- Piet Mondrian, Composition with Yellow, Red and Blue, oil/canvas. 1927
- considered with De Stijl's higher, rational, and universal beauty and Schoenmaeker's new idea about Theosophy: an inner visual construction of nature consisted of a balance between opposing forces, Modrain eliminated everything sensual or subjective from his paintings and only used horizontal and veritical lines and primary colors, opposing lines and color balance a harmony of opposites he called dyanamic equilibrium, carefully plotted an arrangment of colors, shapes, and visual weights grouped asymmetrically around the edges of a canvas with the center acting as a blank white fulcrum, thought all you need to be a successful painter is primary colors, b/w, and a grid leads to endless compositions/infinite possibilites, asymmertically balanced, called Neoplasticism plastic = form - new formalism, Hegelian dialectic between form and color: dyanamic equilibrium, studio background in art but arrives at abstraction later, porprostion war between white and colors
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- Araon Douglas, Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery Through Reconstruction, oil/canvas, 1934
- developed a college silhouette style influenced by African art, painted for the Harlem branch of the NY Public Library, R: Slaves celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, circles of light emite from the Proclamation, C: figure in orator pose gestures dramatically to US captial to call for excercise the right to vote, L: Union soliders leave south after Reconstruction while KKK ride in to remind the viewers that the fight for civil rights has only just been joined, vibrant but melodramatic palette, radiating circles, part of a 4 part mural, narrative of unfolding time, realtionship to cotton changes, bring social awarness of abstraction as a way to critique and move through history, abstraction gendered and raced
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- Gropius, Shop Block, Bauhaus, Germany, 1925-26
- arch should emerge organically, believed he could revive the spirt of collaboration of the medieval bulding guilds (Bauhutten) that had erected Germany's cathedrals, manifesto declared that the ulimate goal of all artistic activity is the building, reinforced concreate, steel, and glass materials, balanced asymmetry intended to convey the dynamism of modern life, art and design school, really incorporated form follows function, defacto style for studios, lighting whole wall is windows, responses to the needs of the intended funcion such as the dorms are designed differently than that studios, no intended decorations, temporary/moveable walls, industrial concept: cheap materials, easiliy to assemble, and can be mass produced, WWII got in the way of potenial and teachers were jewish, no gender lines male/female slightly equal, building out concept theory to practice start with asethic/plationic forms, circular system not linear thus going deeper
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- Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine, France. 1929-30
- stripped down to severaly geometric style reaction to natural organic lines of Art Nousveau, private home, icon of International style (volume rather than mass, regularity rather than symmetry as the cheif means of ordering design, arbitrary applied decoration), reflects purist ideas in its rectinliner design and lack of ornamentation, domino construction (concrete reinforced with steel bars), raising house above ground on pilotis (free standing posts) using flat roofs as terraces, using moveable parition walls slotted between supports on the interior and curtain walls (non loadbearing exterior walls) to allow greater design flexibility and ribbon windows (windows that run the length of the wall), described as 'a machine for living in'
- reflects his ideals for urban planning and arch, very formal angular, shows his five points of new arch: 1 no ground floor (pilotis or piers 2 flat roof with garden terrace 3 open floor plan 4 free compostition of exterior walls 5 horizontal windows, modern arch = glass panels, wanted to be seen as historic villa building
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- Frank Lloyd Wright, Robie House, Chicago, 1906-1909
- in Prairie Style, designed around a centeral chimeny, has a low flat overhangings roof with open porches windows are arranged in low bands around the house many are stained glass, horizontal emphasis on exterior and interior, main living level is one long space dividing the living and dining room by a free standing chimney, no dividing walls, influenced by Japanese arch, built-in closests and bookcases, hides heating and light fixtures when possible, designed and arranged furniture, chairs are machine-cut in mordern geometric patterns, tried to create a more natural sensibility, organic design, very radical ideas made him famous fast, residential space meant to conform to the landscape around it to work with the materials in surrounding environment, horizontal, pushed boundries of design/support, arch design rooms leading into each other, not airy, ceiling human scaled, geometric abstraction in windows, not engineered well designed asethically thus houses in disarry, organism for living
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- Emily Carr, Big Raven
- On a trip to Alaska wanted to document the "real art treasures of a passing race" of the poles of the Northwest Coast Natives, within Group of Seven Carr developed a dramatic and powerful sculptural style of dark, brooding energy, based on watercolor study form 1912, shows an abondoned village in the Queen Charlotte Islands, carved raven on a pole the surving member of a pait that orginally marked a morturary house, described as old and rotting but painted as strong and majestic, symbol of enduring spiritual power and national pride
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- Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas
- admixture of autobiography and traditional mexican folk painting, double image of the artist that expresses an identity split between European and Mexican heritages, Mexican Frida holds a small sculpture of an ancient god while the European Frida hold forceps: a blood vessel connects the god to the forceps through the hearts of the two Fridas, alludes to her constant pain from broken pelvis and Aztec custom of human sacrifice by heart removal, issues of mixed heritages in Mexico, sexuality, and gender idenity within the context of Kahlo's life
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- Gerrit Rietveld, Schroder House
- dynamic equilbrim, international style, radical asymmetrical exterior, composed of interlocking gray and white planes of varying sizes, combined with horizontal and vertical accents in primary colors and black, interior - the red-blue chair same scheme, sliding paritions allow modifications in the spaces, patron wanted a home that suggested an elegant austerity with basic necessities sleekly intergrated into a balanced and restrained whole
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- James Van Der See, Couple Wearing Raccoon Coats with a Cadillac, Gelatin-Silver Print, 1932
- carefully crafted portraits of the Harlem upper middle classes, reveals the glamour of Harlem, then the center of African American cultural life,
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- Dorothea Lange, Migrant Woman, Nipomo California
- taken in part of the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration during the Depression, Florence Thompson a 32 year-old mother with 7 children representing the poverty suffered by migrant workers in Cali, taken very close up so that the viewer sympathizes with the mother's worn experssion and reslove, Lange left out the make shift tent in the background and her teenaged daughter, wanted to evoke purity and moral worth of her subject
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- Alexander Calder, Lobster Trap and Fish Tail
- made biomorphic forms move, engineer not part of the Surrealism movement but was admired by Surrealists, explored negative space, removed sculpture from pedestal and hung from the ceiling, moved by air currents makes movements seem random, mobiles - metal sculptures attached to wire arms and hung from the ceiling, delicately balanced flat biomorpgic forms and wire, title helps rationilize piece
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