POST MODERN ART Continued

March 26, 2008

The fifth session of the course took us from the 1950's to the present. We looked first at the work of Richard Serra- his large, weighty pieces that tended to dwarf viewers and make them feel vulnerable to the repression and restrictions of the government. His work, and that of other conceptual artists, were gathered in the Dia Beacon Museum in Beacon, N.Y., the creation of Michael Govan, who is now the director of the L.A. County Museum.

We next looked at the Feminist Movement's second wave that focused on social rights denied women, and their lack of representation in museums and galleries. Judy Chicago was especially influential, launching a Feminist Art Program and creating, with Nancy Spero, "The Dinner Party" ,between 1973 and 1979. This controversial piece consisted of 39 table settings with symbols of mythologically or historically famous women, and plates that had vaginal imagery. Other women artists, such as Eleanor Antin, Hannah

Wilkes and Carolee Schneeman performed and videotaped their erotic performances

that were meant to convey political and social messages about power and its source.

Louise Bourgeois, another feminist artist said that her art expresses her challenge to find a means of getting along with other people, which was the central problem of her life.

Her most famous works are her spider sculptures, some of which were named,"Maman".

At the same time message art about nature was gaining in popularity. This art, like Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty" was based on "real time" and required the viewer to be there and walk around it. Called Earth Art, it made the landscape the very substance of the art. Some of these process artists placed their work inside a museum, rather than in the natural environment and often used materials that changed their form. Earth Art continued into the 21st. Century with Christo and Jean Claude wrapping the Kunstalle in Bern, Switzerland, wrapping the cliff lined shore in Australia, constructing the running fence in Sonoma and Marin counties and erecting the Gates in Central Park, N.Y. They claimed their art had no messge and never obscured nature, it only enhanced nature's beauty. Another Earth Artist is Robert Irwin who created works with light and space in the Museum of Modern Art in N.Y., the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Dia Beacon, the garden for the new Getty Museum in L.A., and most recently for the new BCAM addition to LACMA in L.A. Also well known to us are Andy Goldsworthy and James Turrell who both have installations in the deYoung Museum in San Francisco and work with nature and light, and the changing environment.

We then looked at artists who were called the New Imagists, who returned painting to the canvas and painted recognizable images, albeit in a less polished style. They were criticized as crude and primitive and reactionary. Philip Guston, Susan Rothenberg, and Jonathan Borofsky were typical of this style. Another group was called Neo Expressionists and that included the Amerians Julian Schnabel, David Salle and Eric Fischl, and the Europeans Francesco Clemente, Sigmar Plke, Gerhart Richter, Georg Baselitz, and Anselm Kiefer. These painters were more daring than the earlier Expressionists and focused not only on the expression of feelings but also on the social and cultural pressures in their countries, conveying social and political messages along with their own feelings. They also experimented with a wide range of materials that hadn't been used on canvases before. Kiefer and Baselitz painted more expressive pictures than did Richter and Polke ,but all broke into new territories for art: Schnabel put broken pottery on his canvases, Polke used chemicals, and even rat poison, some of which made his canvases change over time. Richter simulated photography and used, primarily, greys and whites for a deliberately neutral effect. Kiefer used mud and junk and metal on his canvases and exaggerated depth perception. He portrayed the older culture and the myths of German history in an attempt to revitalize German Idealism. Baselitz's portraits of peasants, herdsmen and hunters were presented upside down as a metaphor for a topsy-turvy world.

The 1980's and 90's were eras in which minority groups were given more recognition in our society. The Feminist movement shifted their focus from the innate feminine nature to the language in our culture that promotes male domination. Gay and Lesbian artists were given museum exhibits and Latin American artists produced street murals to voice their messages. In the late 70's and up until 1988, Jean Michel Basquiat, in an effort to bring art back to the people, revived a sort of primitivism and promoted graffiti art. His art became as popular as that of Clemente and Schnabel, until his death from an overdose of heroin. No style of art is predominant today. The category loosely labeled "Art" is almost Amoeba-like; it can be stretched in many directions, allowing for all varieties of expression.

Next week we'll look some of the current art being shown in museums and galleries. And those students who wish to, will share their own art work with the class.