Transcript Smith - CSUS

The “end” of Modernism marked by the fall of
Europe and the rise of the United States
Abstract Expressionism
The New York School
Between the modern and the postmodern
Paris World Fair 1937
(left) German Pavilion by Albert Speer with Comrades, by Joseph Thorak
(right) USSR Pavilion, Vera Mukhina, The Worker and The Collective Farm Woman,
welded sheets of stainless steel. Notice gigantic scale, signaling the insignificance of the
individual relative to the state.
Picasso, Guernica, 1937, Paris Worlds Fair, Spanish Pavilion
ANXIOUS VISIONS for anxious times – Spanish Civil War and impending World War
Salvador Dali, Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonitions of Civil War, 1936, oil
on canvas, 39 x 39” (Spanish Civil War), Surrealism
Hitler and Goebbels visit the Degenerate Art Exhibition, Munich, 1937
(insert below) German Expressionist, “degenerate” artist, Max Beckmann at MoMA NYC
in 1947 with 1933 painting, Departure
(left) Nazi 1937 music poster for degenerate art
exhibition. Jazz was despised as Jewish (Star of
David) and Black.
(right) Degenerate art show installation – “Dada”
with confiscated works by modern masters, Kurt
Schwitters and Paul Klee artworks visible
National Socialist (Nazi) Realism
Arno Breker, (left) Comradeship, 1940; (right) The Party, 1938
German Fuhrer Adolph Hitler (Austrian-German,1889-1945)
Photograph sent to Eva Braun after occupation of Paris,1940
The Fall of Paris marks “the end” of Modernism
1940 - Occupation of Paris signifies the “end” of Modernism “
Hundreds of refugee European artists, scholars, and scientists came to the
United States. Surrealism is the last European art movement. World center
of art shifts from Paris to New York City.
Photo of émigré artists for
1942 exhibition, “Artists in
Exile” at the Pierre Matisse
gallery, New York
Nazi (Axis) Blitzkrieg of London, beginning in 1941, inaugurating the ceaseless bombing
of civilian populations throughout the war by both sides
Soviet (Allied) bombing of Berlin, August 11, 1941
Dresden, September 1945
after fire bombings by British &
American air forces – 30,000 deaths
The atrocities of the Holocaust threw Western humanist culture, with its
premise that man is essentially good and perfectable, into crisis. Auschwitz,
near Warsaw Poland, largest of the Nazi concentration camps, was liberated
by Soviet troops in January, 1945
Famous assertion by postmodern theorist Theodor Adorno that "writing
poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric"
"Selection" on the unloading ramp at
Birkenau, May/June 1944. To be sent to
the right meant assignment to a work
detail; to the left, the gas chambers.
(left) Francis Bacon (British), panel from Three Studies for a Crucifixion, 1947
(right) Alberto Giacometti (Swiss), Pointing Man, 1947
Europe after the War: Existentialist Expressionism
Neo Rauch, Das Neue (The New), 2003
"We came from the people, we remain part of the people, and see ourselves as
the executor of the people's will.“ (left) Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister for
People's Enlightenment and Propaganda: 1938 Nazi propaganda rally in Graz.
(right) Hans Haacke, And You Were Victorious After All, Graz, Germany,
1988, a reconstruction of 1938 Nazi propaganda, a public art work attacked
and destroyed.
American hydrogen bombing of
Hiroshima, Japan, August 6, 1945
The total estimated human loss of life caused
by World War II was roughly 72 million people.
The civilian toll was around 47 million. The
Allies lost about 61 million people, and the
Axis lost 11 million.
Aftermath of Hiroshima bomb – estimated 170,000 deaths
Post-colonialism
is one of the most important
historical contexts for global culture
Decolonization of Europe’s world
empires occurred after World War II.
The Algerian War of Independence from
France (1954 -1962), one of many such
anti-colonial wars for national identity.
De-colonization characterized the postmodern period.
Bomb blast, Algiers, 1957
Poster for film about the Algerian
War of Independence from France.
World map in 1980: The Cold War (1947-1991)
Berlin Wall, August 13, 1961, the German Democratic Republlic (Communist East
Germany) began under the leadership of Erich Honecker to block off East Berlin and the
GDR from West Berlin by means of barbed wire and antitank obstacles. Construction
crews replaced the provisional barriers by a solid wall.
Syllabus quiz – 5 minutes
Please put everything away except a sheet of paper and pens. Write
your name, Art 112 or 212, and the date on top.
• Question: Explain in as much detail as
you can the requirements and policies
described under “participation” on the
course syllabus, including the percentage
of the grade.
American Abstract Expressionism:
Two modes: gestural abstraction (Action Painting)
and chromatic abstraction (also called “Sublime” or
“Color Field” painting)
“The Irascibles” (Abstract Expressionists), Life Magazine cover story, 1951
Theodoros Stamos, Jimmy Ernst,
Barnett Newman, James Brooks,
Mark Rothko, Richard PousetteDart, William Baziotes, Jackson
Pollock, Clyfford Still, Robert
Motherwell, Bradley Walker
Tomlin, Willem de Kooning,
Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt,
Hedda Sterne
Post WW II: New York becomes the capital of the art world
(left) Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) painting, 1950
(right) Willem de Kooning (1904–97) painting Woman I, 1951
“Action Painting”
Willem de Kooning, Orestes, 1947
compare (right) Arshile Gorky, biomorphic surrealist cubism, 1936-7
Willem de Kooning making an early study for Woman I, c.1950-1951
(right) Woman I, 1950-2
Willem de Kooning (American, born The Netherlands, 1904–1997)
(left) Woman, 1944, oil and charcoal on canvas, 46 x 32 in.
(right) De Kooning, The Painter, 1940
(left) Willem de Kooning, Pink Angels, c. 1945, oil and charcoal on canvas
(right) Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus, 1618
Willem de Kooning, Woman I, 1950-2
Venus of Willendorf, limestone, painted with ochre, 4 3/4 inches, ca. 25,000 years old
De Kooning, Gotham News, 1955
“Action Painting” – Abstract Expressionism
De Kooning, Gotham News, 1955, with detail of upper right
Action Painting
De Kooning in studio, Springs, NY, 1960s
Jackson Pollock (American, 1912-1956) painting in Springs NY studio, 1950
Action Painting – American Abstract Expressionism
“I believe the easel picture to be a dying form.” (Guggenheim Application, 1947)
James Dean in
Rebel Without a
Cause
8 August 1949 issue of Life magazine:
first artist to become a media celebrity
Lee Krasner (American, 1908 -1984) in New York studio, mid-1930s
Blue Painting, 1946, oil on canvas, 28 x 36” Met Pollock in 1942; married him in 1945.
Pollock, Going West, 1934-35 ; compare: Thomas Hart Benton, The Ballad of the
Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley, 1934, Oil/tempera/canvas
(left) Pollock, Flame, 1934, and (below left) Naked Man with a Knife, 1938, o/c, 50 x 36”
Compare (right) David Alfaro Siqueiros (Mexican, 1896–1975), Collective Suicide,
1935, enamel on wood with applied sections, 49" x 6‘ (“Il Duco”)
Pollock, Pasiphae, 1943; compare André Masson, Pasiphae, 1943
Surrealism (subjective mythos and automatism)
and Jungian psychoanalysis: the collective unconscious
Pollock, Guardians of the Secret, 1943, SFMoMA
Pollock, Mural, 19'10" x 8‘1“, 1943, for Peggy Guggenheim
Jackson Pollock, Full Fathom Five, 1947, oil on canvas with nails, tacks, buttons, key,
coins, cigarettes, matches, etc., 50 7/8 x 30 1/8,“ MoMA. Partly poured and partly
conventionally-painted abstraction.
Hans Namuth, photographs and film stills of Pollock Painting, 1951
Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist),1950, oil, enamel, and aluminum on
canvas, 7 ft 3 in x 9 ft 10 in, National Gallery of Art
Navajo sand painting, a spiritual / healing practice; compare to “Action Painting”: the
automatist, performance methods of Jackson Pollock
“I feel nearer, more part of the painting. . . . This is akin to the method of Indian sand
painters of the West"
- Pollock
Pollock created "drip" paintings for only a few years 1947-51
American Abstract Expressionist
Chromatic Expressionism
Painters of the Sublime
Barnett Newman & Mark Rothko
Caspar David Friedrich (German, 1774 -1840), Monk by the Seashore, 1809-10,
German Romantic Sublime
Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1930, o/c, 20 x 20”
Neo-Plasticism – dynamic equilibrium (without symetry) of opposites symbolizes
reconciliation of universal dualities (e.g: male><female, good><evil, nature><culture)
Dialectics: rational resolution of opposites: thesis><anti-thesis: dynamic synthesis
Kasimir Malevich, 0.10: The Last Futurist Exhibition, in 1915, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Barnett Newman (1905-1970), Pagan Void, 1946, oil on canvas, 33 x 38”
At this point the artist destroys all previous works. “The Ideographic Picture”
Barnett Newman, Genesis -- The Break, 1946, oil on canvas, 24 x 27” (c.61
x 69 cm), Dia Center for the Arts
Barnett Newman, Onement I (1948), 27 1/4 inches by 16 1/4 inches, oil on canvas and
oil on masking tape on canvas; (right) Kasimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition:
White on White, 1918, oil on canvas, 79,5 x 79,5 cm.
Barnett Newman Vir Heroicus Sublimis (Man, Heroic, Sublime) 1950-51, o/c, 8 x 18 ft
“We are freeing ourselves of the impediments of memory, association, nostalgia, legend,
myth, or what have you, that have been the devices of Western European painting.”
Barnett Newman and an unidentified viewer with Cathedra in Newman's studio, 1958.
Newman, Broken Obelisk, 1971, Rothko Chapel, Houston; designed by Philip Johnson
Mark Rothko (American b. Marcus Rothkowitz, Lithuania 1903 -1970)
(left) Self-Portrait, o/c, 32/25”, 1936;
(right) Entrance to Subway [Subway Scene], o/c, 1938
"Art Must be Tragic and Timeless"
Surrealism and myth
Rothko, Omen of the Eagle, 1942
In a 1943 letter to the New York
Times co-written with Barnett
Newman, Rothko wrote:
“It is a widely accepted notion
among painters that it does not
matter what one paints, as long
as it is well painted. This is the
essence of academicism. There
is no such thing as a good
painting about nothing. We
assert that the subject is crucial
and only that subject matter is
valid which is tragic and
timeless. That is why we
profess a spiritual kinship with
primitive and archaic art."
Biomorphic Surrealism and automatism
"It was with the utmost reluctance that I found the figure could not serve my
purposes....But a time came when none of us could use the figure without mutilating it.“
Rothko, (left) Sea Fantasy, 1946; (right) Untitled, 1944/1945
Rothko, (left) Number 7, 1947-48; (right) No. 17/No. 15 [Multiform],1949
Rothko, Untitled,1949, National Gallery of Art
Rothko, Untitled [Blue, Green, and Brown],1952; Rothko in West 53rd Street Studio 1952
"The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious
experience I had when I painted them."
Mark Rothko, No. 14, 1960, o/c, 9.48 x 9.70 ft, SFMoMA
Rothko Chapel suite of paintings, 1965-66, De Menil Collection, Houston, Texas, 1970
“I wanted to paint both the finite and the infinite….
I was always looking for something more.”
- Mark Rothko
Robert Motherwell (American, 1915-1991), Elegy to the Spanish Republic #34,
1953-54, oil on canvas, 80 x 100"
Motherwell painted over 150 works in the Elegy series between 1948-1991 inspired
by the defeat of the Spanish Republic in the civil war of 1936-1939, which left fascist
dictator Francisco Franco in power. The artist was 21 years old in 1936.
Robert Motherwell, Elegy to the Spanish Republic #70, 1961, oil on canvas,
69 x 114 in. (175.3 x 289.6 cm)
"a funeral song for something one cared about"
David Smith (American, 1906 -1965)
Smith at “Terminal Iron Works, Boiler-Tube Makers and Ship-Deck.” (Brooklyn NYC),
iron-welding workshop used as Smith’s studio between 1933-1940
David Smith, series of 15 bronze medals inspired by Nazi war medals he had seen in
Europe. (top left) Untitled Study, 1939, pencil on paper, 11 in.
(top center) Medal for Dishonor: Private Law and Order Leagues, 1939
(right below) Bombing Civilians, 1939, cast bronze, 10 3/4 in. S
Exhibition Catalogue: "Medals for Dishonor by David Smith"
Willard Gallery, New York, November 1940. cover and page, text and design
by Smith
Smith, (left) Jurassic Bird, painted steel, 1945
(right top) Specter of Profit, 1946 steel and stainless steel
with (right below) Smith’s notebook sketches from the Museum of Natural History
Smith, Australia, 1951, painted steel, 6' 7 x 8'12" x 16"
(on cinder block base) “Drawing in space”
(right) Julio Gonzalez (Spanish, 1876-1942), Woman Combing Her Hair, 1932; (below
center) Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973), Head of a Woman, 1933
David Smith, "drawing in space“ welding, construction, assemblage process
Surrealist & Action Painting automatism, spontaneity
(right) Compare Picasso studio, 1912 with constructed guitar (first constructed sculpture)
Compare David Smith with RUSSIAN CONSTRUCTIVIST sculptors
(left) Third Obmokhu (student) exhibition, Moscow, 1920
Vladimir Tatlin, Monument to the Third International, model completed in 1920
Smith, Voltri XVII, 1962
95 in. H
Smith, Hudson River Landscape, detail and two views, 1951
“Drawing in Space” (2-D perception?)
Smith, Tanktotems, 1951-2; (center top) Picasso, Bull’s Head, 1943; (center below)
photo of tank tops c.1951) – anthropomorphism, found materials assemblage welding
Smith, Zig IV, painted steel, 1963
Voltri series, 1962, 27 welded sculptures in 30 days
David Smith, (left) Cubi XXVII, 1965, 111” H; (center) Cubi XVII, 1963, stainless steel
Detail showing polished
surface “gesture”
David Smith, Cubi sculpture at NYC Guggenheim, 2006 exhibition
Smith surveying his “personages” at Bolton landing, 1963
Smith died 2 years later in a pickup truck crash.
The “Tragic Generation”